Discussion:

I do pretty much all event registration online, with no option to mail in a form. I've been doing Barebones like that for several years now, and even small local events.

I find the saving in volunteer time is tremendous. I highly recommend going this route.

The few objections we've had (if I remember correctly) all have to do with participants not wanting to divulge credit card information over the web. Because of this we often provide an option to mail-in a cheque, but we seem to get this objection less and less.

For those in Canada, for online registration we have begun to use www.zone4.ca this season. We used to use SPORG but that company has been acquired by another that has dropped that product.

pretty much all the bigger events in the UK are online entry only now.

smaller events are still a 'turn up on the day' set up

Another consideration: Land owners may be more willing to grant the use of an area if no obvious commercial activity is taking place.

Here in Cook Co. Illinois, the forest preserve district has forbidden any ticket sales or other commercial activity after some kind of rock/rap show resulted in riots. At one of our meets they backed up this new ruling with 6 police cars and a threat to toss our meet director in jail.

Since they own the land under 75% of our maps, we were forced to develop on-line registration, which we now do with Google Checkout for very reasonable rates.

As the registrar for a number of large and small events each year, I have been a major proponent of online-only event registration and annual membership purchase because it frees up volunteer time to do other tasks - often more interesting and O skill-related. I would be unwilling to act as registrar for an event that had a mix of online and mail-in registrations.

At some local events, we offer the option of race day registration for a higher fee (e.g. $20 vs. $15 online), but we warn people that there will only be a few extra maps printed, so that option is only for people who don't know until the last minute.

Like AZ, we have been working with www.zone4.ca for several events this year. It's a company operated by Dan Roycroft, a member of Canada's 2006 Olympic cross-country ski team. It was originally designed to handle the needs of ski clubs and meets, and I like the fact that the system evolved from a volunteer-oriented environment. In recent years, other sports have started using Zone4 as well.

In virtually every other sport I do - running, biking, etc. - there is only online payment available. More and more people are buying plane and theatre tickets, shopping or making charitable donations online. It's becoming the norm, and I've found very few people unwilling to use their credit cards online anymore - and the number of people complaining about the $2 transaction fees is thankfully decreasing as well. (If they don't follow up their complaint with an offer of their own volunteer time to assist with registration, I'm unsympathetic! :-) )

100% agree with Bash! I've been registrar for many events, and on-line registration and payment makes for far less work, and much lower chance of error. Unfortunately, any event we've done always has an option for mail-in registration as well. If 80% register on-line and 20% register by mail, the amount of registrar work is roughly double (maybe more) for the 20% mailed-in than for the 80% on-line. I would certainly welcome a requirement for on-line registration.

I'm not sure I understand the point of the "mixed" type of registration that I've seen for a number of meets -- register on-line, but then print out and mail in the registration information with a payment? I can just imagine an on-line business operating like that, and how long they'd be in business.

Do folks have a system for participants reviewing their registration data onsite, making sure it is accurate, and making any updates to emergency info, initialing, and signing the waiver right there? Sometimes they decide at the last minute who they are riding with, which might change the car license plate information.

With the Zone4.ca system I'm using now, all participants can see selected (by me) information online, and that wouldn't include personal information like their address. If they want to change something, they e-mail me, and I can change it easily. Even in events with several hundred people, this tends to be a manageable task.

I have seen online registration systems where participants need to create an account with login ID and password before registering, and then they are able to change at least some of their own information online - although rarely are they able to change information related to a specific event entry, e.g. race category. I dislike being forced to create an account in order to spend money online, but it's necessary to add that layer of security if people are going to have the ability to change their own info. For now, I'm steering clear of those systems for orienteering registration.

As djrawman points out, there may be last-minute changes to car licence or emergency information, so I still prefer to get participants to fill out waivers on race day, including any significant emergency-related info - even though they may have given some of it to us before. On the registration form itself, we sometimes say "I understand that I will be asked to sign a waiver at the event", and sometimes we even put the text on the form. (Probably need to get more consistent on that!)

In the states, Active.com seems to be the site of choice. The bulk of the non-O events I attend require registration through this site. The practice I don't understand at all is allowing you to mail in the entry to avoid the online fee. Yes, I am enough of a free-market believer that I will choose the cheaper option even though I know it's more work for the organizer. I figure it's thier job to properly incent me to use the online registration. The $5 premium that Bash suggests would certainly accomplish that.

It's a good question, and my impression is that online payment has only affected attendance in a good way. Before we required online registration, we had a small but significant percentage of no-shows at local events when there was bad weather or the alarm went off late, etc. We imagined that when we went to online payment, these same people would stay home because they'd only paid $15. But at our first online-payment-only event, we had zero no-shows! I think perhaps that the requirement to pay up front makes people think a little harder about signing up. We don't get people signing up "just in case they decide to come", and thus we don't waste money printing maps or buying extra food for them.

There have been a couple of people who have complained about the online transaction fees, which mostly go to the credit card company, but are more visible than the hidden costs in most of our day-to-day credit card purchases. My experience is that these people send in their complaints, but they eventually register anyway. And if they don't, I think they end up losing more personally than what our club loses by them staying home.

One area where online payment has meant a big increase in income is membership purchases. It is so easy to send an e-mail that says "Training event tonight is for members only - click here to become a club member". We had a big jump in membership numbers at both my clubs the first year we moved to online payment.

I was a registrar for a 300-person 2007 A-event in NY and, while using online registration, specifically did not enable online payment. This was done because people paying online would most likely not mail in their waivers, thus waiting to hand them in at check-in, and slowing that process significantly. I hate long lines at check-in, and don't want to expose my fellow orienteers to that inconvenience.

While somewhat more work, I am completely opposed to not allowing any kind of mail-in registration for events. There are many who do not have easy web access, and I do not believe they should be shut out of our sport. IMO, the only way to grow is to keep the focus on our customers -- who are also our friends and fellow organizers.

In keeping with the last comment, I also oppose nickel and diming people with transaction fees. If an event has a transaction fee for online payment and online payment is optional, I will not pay online. If online payment is that much more convenient for organizers, then let them absorb the transaction fees -- even if it actually is bundled in with entry fees.

We've never used mail-in waivers, and the other sports events I do don't use them either. Waivers handed in on race day have the most up-to-date information, which is what our insurance company wants. Some sports use online waivers, although I think the nature of orienteering makes a race day waiver more sensible.

Transaction fees are charged every time you pay by credit card, whether online or in a store. Often with online event registration, organizers consciously choose to keep the transaction fee and taxes separate so people can see the breakdown of what they are paying. But that's optional - it is possible to hide the transaction fee in an all-inclusive price. However, this is mostly a psychological ploy to appease people who dislike seeing fees more than they like knowing where their money is going. It almost always means increasing the event price to what the total would have been anyway, since few clubs have the resources to "absorb" costs but instead need to pass them on to the participants.

Where it is necessary to choose between respecting the time of volunteers vs. that of "potential customers", I have a strong bias toward the volunteers. (And I don't believe there are many orienteers who have no way of visiting an Internet cafe or asking a friend for some computer time or who don't know anyone with a credit card they could pay back. Yes, any of these approaches will take up some of their time. Oh well.)

The thing is, orienteering clubs *aren't* businesses, and we aren't staff. We could all be doing other things with our lives, and it is a huge favour when we take on a big task for our club. Registrar for two clubs is only one of my many orienteering volunteer tasks, and orienteering is only one of my many volunteer activities, and volunteering isn't all I do with my life - and I spend lots of time exchanging e-mails at 1 a.m. with other volunteers whose lives are just as busy or busier. I'm fortunate to belong to clubs that respect volunteer time so much.

I am envious of any club that has so much volunteer capacity that they have no fear of additional administrative burden leading to burnout or loss of interest. In my experience, there is rarely a shortage of people who want to set and vet courses, but it's hard to find people willing to give up their time in the woods to muddle through spreadsheets. In the events I organize, it's a priority to make those jobs easier and get everyone outdoors where they belong as soon as possible.

(And I don't believe there are many orienteers who have no way of visiting an Internet cafe

Or their local library. I'm sure there are a few libraries in the US without public internet access, but they've got to be on the verge of extinction.

I don't buy the "no access to internet" argument these days, and I agree with Bash - a little extra work by a few of the participants is far outweighed by savings in volunteer time.

Realistically, those who don't have internet access are not going to go to an internet cafe or library to register for a local O meet. C'mon. I could be wrong, of course; does anyone know anyone who goes to internet cafes to register for sporting events?

I am aware of of one person who stopped going to O meets because the club stopped mailing printed schedules and the individual had no internet access. They did not go to internet cafes to get the schedule. They did not buy a computer. They seemed put off, but that's life, I suppose.

My objection to online-only registration would come from the opposite angle, due to my background in IT/network security. I won't register online if I don't trust the registration chain, or feel the information requested is unnecessary to run thru the woods. Like the antecdote above, it is likely those who think about it the way I do are an extreme minority that can be discarded.

I also am less likely to register online if there is a fee to do so. In nominal terms the fees are trivial; in percentage terms they are outragious, and sometimes it is the principle of it all. I personally don't buy the "volunteer" argument; given (from previous threads) the cash balances of these "non-profit" clubs, who used to provide registration servies for free (and I've personally reciprocated by being a volunteer A meet registrar), the least they could do is cover these fees or roll them into the budget for the psychological value.

Of course. as Eric suggests, perhaps it comes down to the free market (which events of the past 2 years have demonstrated the dysfuntionality of, but that is a different kettle of fish for another time), and if I don't like the fees or the security profile of the registration system, my loss I suppose. When push has come to shove in the past, I have both overcome my objections to go to a meet I just had to go to, and have blown off other meets due to the above reasons in favor of some other hobbies. As I am just one small number in some spreadsheet somewhere, my attendence or absense hasn't really meant anything, so I have no idea whatsoever why I replied in this thread at all.

Summary: It seems likely you will lose a handful of people due to an online-only requirement. I imagine it will be less than 5%, tho this is a WAG. I personally don't see why these people can't be handled out of band. I don't believe the volunteer cost to handle these people is (or should be) proportional to the total registration. I do agree that it is ridiculous to have a non-online component to an online registraton process. That is, IMHO, the more interesting problem to address, and the one for which more bang for the volunteer buck will be achieved.

Seems to me that if it's more convenient to the meet crew when people register online, then it would be a simple matter to add a surcharge for mail-in registration. Perhaps one that's exactly equal to the fee that the online service charges.

I am aware of of one person who stopped going to O meets because the club stopped mailing printed schedules and the individual had no internet access.

On the flip side, I have skipped events and memberships which did not have an online option. By going totally online or totally paper, I think you lose a few. I don't really have a problem with having a mail-in option, but I think it needs a lot more of the disincentive surcharge that J-J suggests.

I personally don't buy the "volunteer" argument; given (from previous threads) the cash balances of these "non-profit" clubs, who used to provide registration services for free (and I've personally reciprocated by being a volunteer A meet registrar)

It seems curious to talk about "clubs providing registration services for free". The fact is, *people* provide services for free. How would it help volunteers if offline registrants sent an extra $5 to the club? I love my clubs as much as the next person, but a small fee deposited in their bank account doesn't compensate me for staying up until 2 a.m. to handle the extra work of a less efficient process. (As RLShadow pointed out above, the work involved in offline registrations is disproportionate to the work involved in online ones.) And no, volunteers don't want the $5. What they want is for the job to be as quick and painless as possible, because almost everyone would rather be setting courses or playing with OCAD or training in the woods.

At the start of the year, our Membership Coordinator announced that his role was pretty much done for 2009 now that we've moved to 100% online membership purchase, so now he has more time available to help in the woods. That's what we're aiming for.

As an aside, I've never received a piece of orienteering-related mail, so I'm not sure how people without Internet access find out about events. I'm guessing that they have their connections (pun intended).

On a different topic... As someone who has worked for years in IT including security/privacy, I'm sympathetic to Randy's valid concerns about these issues. It's important to choose a reputable company to manage transactions and accept online payments - and even then, things can happen (but credit card companies will usually cover any losses). I've had some bad experiences with Paypal, so I would be unwilling to work with them in a volunteer capacity. But I know a lot of people do - and they'll probably be OK.

In Canada, our information collection is governed by privacy legislation, and amongst other things, we can only collect personal information that we need for our stated purposes. It's surprising how much information is needed in order to demonstrate due diligence to our insurance company. We're still working to improve our systems, and we've talked with police about what information we should be ready to give them in the event of a search. Participant address and phone # are two of the things they would ask for, since lost people may return home without realizing that they've triggered a search. We also need an e-mail ID to contact participants. Other than race choices, categories and SI numbers, that's usually all the info we need to collect online, and none of it is superfluous. But this is something to be cautious about, and there are other steps that need to be taken to safeguard that information.

Nothing personal, but it sounds to me like some contributors to this thread might not have the best attitude to be a registrar.

Ever deal with a salesperson or similar who seems to think that they are doing the customer a favor by doing business with them? Not a very positive experience.

When I was an A-event registrar in Spring 2007, I pretty much did it by myself -- despite having a regular job as well as an ailing mother. Would I have preferred that more of the mail-ins had been done online? Yes, because I had to manually enter their data (and I am a s-l-o-w typist). However, I would rather they participate in our event than not. I also gave refunds to anybody who cancelled other than outright no-shows. Why? Because being customer-unfriendly just creates ill-will. Might some take advantage? Probably, but I was not about to let a few bad apples spoil things for everybody else.

Until the actual event, the registrar is usually the only contact participants have with event workers. Therefore, it is up to us to make that contact as positive as possible. IMO, most participants realize that we are volunteers and will keep requests reasonable.

GuyO, I guess things are really different where you live. Around here, 99% of our participants are pleased when someone figures out a way to offload burden from volunteers. Do I have a lousy attitude because I've decided that the other 1% will be inconvenienced, but not prevented from participating? Well, in the business world where I come from, where customer service is a key driver, I'd be doing the right thing by using my available time to provide higher quality service to that 99%.

When the registrar's administrative duties are reduced, it enables him/her to spend more personalized time trying to find racers a carpool, childcare or a compatible teammate, or answering a long list of questions to prepare people who are new to the sport. To me, this is the important, rewarding part of the registrar job. Keeping registration and payment records can be done easily by a computer, but only a knowledgeable, empathetic human can engage in personal communications with participants - and sometimes there are hundreds of them.

It sounds like there must be many more volunteers where you live, which would give you a different perspective. For example, I was recently registrar, course designer, flag hanger (with help), venue renter/meal organizer, score-O control card results calculator and prize ceremony emcee for a marathon-length orienteering event with 40 teams, 90 minutes away. That was for one of two orienteering clubs that I volunteer for, plus I'm the Secretary of the very busy Orienteering Ontario. Am I hogging too much work for myself, preventing long line-ups of willing volunteers from taking my place? Yeah, that would be nice. And from reading AP, I'd guess there must be a hundred other volunteers in North American orienteering who are as busy or busier than I am, including several members of my own clubs. And like you, this is just a small part of all our lives.

So if you perceive attempts to be efficient as being equivalent to having a bad attitude, then it sounds like you belong to a club with more volunteers than needed to handle the tasks available. That's great. Count your lucky stars. But please cut other volunteers some slack.

I loved the idea of full online registration until we got hit with credit card theft. I cringe at the thought of having to enter my credit card info (along with name, address, phone number, etc.) for every event I want to attend. I will gladly pay a small surcharge to mail in my check!

Having worked for a major credit card processor, I can certainly affirm that if you're going to ask for a birthdate (as many races do) an address (as nearly all races do) and a credit card number, you had better make sure that 1) you've got some damn good encryption going on, 2) that the first two pieces will NEVER EVER be combined with the third in any non-secure data store, and 3) that you properly destroy or securely archive all three components SEPARATELY. Anything less is a serious violation of trust.

I'm far from an expert in credit card security, but I've dealt with Active.com as both a registrar (setting up an on-line registration system), and as an entrant. (I don't have any involvement with Active other than the above, so I'm not advocating for them in any way, just reflecting my experience. I know there are other companies that provide similar services, and I haven't done any comparisons.) With registration being done via Active, the sponsoring club never sees the credit card information, so is not directly involved with the security of it. (And thus doesn't have anything to do with keeping the credit card information separate from the address or birthdate, which the club generally does receive, as part of the registration process.)

This may be an "ignorance is bliss" situation, but I know that Active is used for the registration of many events far larger than any US orienteering event is likely to ever have. If there had ever been a credit card security breach, I suspect that (a) the information would be widely publicized; and (b) Active would essentially be out of business.

Somewhat off topic, it seems like people should be at least as concerned about credit card security when, for example, you pay for a meal in a restaurant by giving the wait person your credit card, and he or she disappears for a while with it.

Our clubs no longer collect birthdate because it is not required for our sport, which is based on birth year here. It's a fundamental privacy principle to collect only the personal information that you require. As ebuckley points out, the full birthdate is powerful information that we'd rather not have in our possession.

Good point, Bash. Our club should do the same, for future events.

Bash, I've got to say that you sound like one excellent volunteer, and your two clubs are lucky to have you. It also sounds like you do manage keep the human side of the work in focus.

We are not blessed with an abundance of volunteers in HVO. As a result, we only put on A-events when we actually have comittments from people to fill key positions, and, thus, do not put on A-events with frequency.

As for those 99%s, I took a look back and determined that a little under 10% of the 2007 A-event entries were by mail. Since all entries required some mail handling (checks and waivers), the extra work for the pure mail-ins was not overly disproportionate. Only when online registration with online payment AND e-signed waivers becomes available will registration paper handling be significantly reduced.

"Only when online registration with online payment AND e-signed waivers becomes available will registration paper handling be significantly reduced."

I agree with the first part of that sentence, but not with the second. Having online registration with on-line payment, and with people showing up at the meet with waiver in hand, WILL significantly reduce the amount of paper handling. (Just ask, not only the registrar (as well as the entrants), but our club treasurer, which is more work for her: Dealing with 300 checks from people, vs getting a check in the mail every two weeks during the registration period from the registration service for entry fees.)

It's true tha an additional benefit would be with electronic waivers, but whether those are "legit" or not still seems to have some question around it. I wouldn't throw out the other benefits out waiting for a universal agreement as to the acceptability of electronically signing the waiver.

Re: waivers, is it too much of a hassle to have people sign their waiver when they pick up their bib/packet? Just have it stapled together, they sign, volunteer who handed them packet rips it off, and off they go. Seems pretty easy.

Sadly, an e-waiver isn't an option for us because we do several large team events each year (up to 100 teams). People love to arrive with substitute teammates on the morning of the race (sigh)!

The 1% was an overestimate of the people who *refuse* to sign up online (it's actually been a couple of years since anyone has contacted us to say this, and I did let them mail in), whereas it sounds like the 10% are the people who mail in their entry when given the choice. If you're asking everyone to mail cheques even if they register online, you're right that the work wouldn't be disporportionate. Online payment is a big part of the advantage.

When we have accepted mail-in entries in the past, it hasn't been as simple as just typing in a few fields, which indeed would be no big deal. Here's why it takes time:

- Unlike online systems, paper forms can be illegible and/or missing important pieces of data, since we can't enforce that fields be entered. We get hit with this especially hard on our team events, but even individuals can miss fields. I spend a surprising amount of time e-mailing back and forth to get all the data clarified. Interesting fact: It's surprising how many people only answer the first or last question in an e-mail containing multiple questions!

- Mail-in entries require an additional tracking system and associated communications, e.g.: who has entered but not paid, whose cheque bounced and needs to be contacted, who needs to pay on race day because they didn't pay in advance, etc. (Another bonus: Online-only meets don't need a cash box, and registration volunteers don't have to confirm whether someone has paid at the time he/she checks in.)

- As RLShadow points out, it is great for the treasurer to get cheques every two weeks that will never bounce. And I don't need to mail the cheques periodically to the treasurer, who lives two hours away.

- Registration information is always available with up-to-date online reporting for the several people in the club who need the info. No need for me to keep updating a spreadsheet and mailing it around.

Those are the things that make the effort disproportionate, not the typing. As you can probably tell by now, I'm not averse to typing! ;-))

Bash wrote: "Interesting fact: It's surprising how many people only answer the first or last question in an e-mail containing multiple questions!"

Wow, you're the only other person who seems to have noticed this very annoying habit! I wonder if it is more common among people replying via mobile devices.

At this point, I no longer consider this discussion to be a debate about which registration system works better, but more of a comparison of "notes" between registrars...

- I have not dealt much with team registration, except peripherally when I advised the 2008 NW Forest Frenzy registrar (a junior). That event included a "Street Scramble", which had team categories, but it was more of an overlay.

- My way of dealing with mail-in entries was to use a special page in the online system to enter their data. That kept everything in the same database.

- Our treasurer had me collect the checks in groups of 14 and enter their info in a spreadsheet separate from the online registration system; I gave them to her when I saw her at local events. This helped keep her workload down (she was also the event director).

- The online registration data we used could also be accesed by anyone who was given a username/password.

BTW, the online system to which I refer is that developed by Kent Shaw. It has been / is being used for several US A-events in 2009 already, including those by QOC, CSU, BAOC BFLO, as well as the PNWOF (CTOC, EWOC, COC). It is also the system that RLShadow has used for ROC A-events.

"BTW, the online system to which I refer is that developed by Kent Shaw. It has been / is being used for several US A-events in 2009 already, including those by QOC, CSU, BAOC BFLO, as well as the PNWOF (CTOC, EWOC, COC). It is also the system that RLShadow has used for ROC A-events."

Ummm ... no I haven't used that system. I've done registration for A meets, rogaines, and our club's annual trail run, and the only on-line system that I've used is Active.com. We also offer an option for people to join our club or renew their membership using Active.com.

Again, I'm not pushing Active.com over any other system -- it's just the only one I have experience with, and it (in my opinion) has worked well for us.

This info is only useful to Canadians... I've previously used OnlineRegistrations.ca (until they suddenly went out of business overnight - then returned later under new management) and EventsOnline.ca (until they started charging extra fees because our events are so small and unusual by their standards). These two companies are mostly aimed at larger events like marathons and 10K runs, and the experience and fees they offer are similar.

This year we switched to Zone4.ca, and I am much, much happier with the control that it gives me over our registrations. It was designed for nordic ski clubs, so volunteer organizations were kept in mind from the start. Transaction fees are similar, since that is primarily dictated by credit card companies.

I used to have to e-mail the registration company back and forth to get the registration form designed, but now I design and update it myself using easy online tools. The registration form isn't super-pretty, but it does the job. I can also do things like move back the earlybird registration date with a few clicks, and I have access to all kinds of reports. It is set up to handle mail-in entries as well, for people who want that. There is good reporting on the mail-ins, e.g. who has paid/not paid, similar to what GuyO talks about. It of course doesn't handle the communication/headaches needed to deal with what you learn from those reports or to track down missing data fields, but it's a help if you want to accept mail-ins.

Yes, there is a secure registration database with the online registration company, and that's how the online confirmation list gets updated immediately. The registrar can login to see it, make updates and (if we wish) download data to Excel or other formats. There is no access to the credit card info, which is processed by a separate, secure electronic payment company (whose business is nothing but secure electronic payment). This separation of registration vs. payment companies has been the case for all 3 companies I've used.

RLShadow wrote: "Ummm ... no I haven't used that system. I've done registration for A meets, rogaines, and our club's annual trail run, and the only on-line system that I've used is Active.com."

I stand corrected. I thought the Shaw system might have been used for the Middle/Relays last year.

I believe it was, but that was the first major meet in a long time that I wasn't registrar for!