Discussion: Finding a registrar for an A-meet

So - I'm looking for some language that talks about what a registrar does so that I can convince a potential volunteer that this is the right job for them;-) (And she'll probably read this - so hi !-)

Our club has descriptions for all of our local meet volunteers from Meet Director through Course Setter to Greeter - but not the specifics of "Registrar".

I understand it to be handling reservations (automated for online submission of course), making sure forms and payment get submitted and match the registration, and pulling data out for the running of the event - but have never done the job myself, so I know that I don't really know;-)

A quick google search doesn't show me much, but I'm hoping that's based on my flawed search, and that there might be a description of this function out there somewhere...

Any leads or advice appreciated.

The person handling advance registrations, and the person sitting at the check-in desk on meet day often are two different people. The jobs are very different too.

@ccsteve: are you the meet director?

I suggest you contact Bash (here on AP). She does an excellent job volunteering with registration for two clubs (GHO and CN) as well as for the largest adventure running and orienteering races in Ontario. However, perhaps wait a week or so because we are 10 days away from our Raid the Hammer race with 300+ participants.

Steve, I'll see if I can write something up about what I did for the US Classic Champs and send it to you. It may confuse issues that I am/was also the web page updater and the club treasurer. Convince your volunteer that just doing registration will be over in a few months.

Choose someone who's detail-oriented, but easy-going enough to deal with last-minute changes and smile at packet-pickup. :-)

I doubt that there are any written instructions because each club handles things differently, and technology has changed in the past 5-10 years!

Check with RLShadow, he's done it quite often.

The person handling advance registrations, and the person sitting at the check-in desk on meet day often are two different people. The jobs are very different too.

In my two stints as A-event Registrar, I have always been at the check-in table -- with helpers.

In my first Registrar stint (HVO's Surebridge Challenge, April 2007) I was responsible for assigning start times. That was so much fun, that, in my second stint (OCIN's Flying Pig XIV and US Interscholastic Championships, April 2010), not assigning start times was a condition for taking the job. :-)

Choose someone who's detail-oriented, but easy-going enough to deal with last-minute changes and smile at packet-pickup. :-)

Indeed!

...and the Registrar doesn't necessarily have to be a long-time club member. This is a great opportunity for a tech-head newbie who has just showed up for a couple local meets, attracted by the technical side of orienteering.

As Registrar, he'll have an opportunity to display his computer skills, get to know a lot of orienteers, and enjoy feeling like an important member of the club in a hurry.

@Una - I'm looking at logistics issues for the entire 2011 Canal Cities Orienteering Festival, but am not specifically a meet director;-) CNYO, BFLO, and ROC are partnering to run 9 days of orienteering with two full A meets on the weekends (including Classic Championships) and a full week of orienteering activities in between: Adult and Junior skills camp, mapping and coaching training, the O-USA convention, and daily field exercises & competitions (including an A-Sprint).

We start in the Syracuse area, follow along the canal to Rochester, and end up in Buffalo. (which would be the best city to fly out of, or return to Canada from)

We'll have one single online registration system with an uber-registrar, but ROC and CNYO each need to designated someone.

I'll look for your note Janet, that might be just the thing.

@ccsteve: Got it. So the staff at check-in will be working from a registration list or lists, collecting payments and handing out packets. That work could be assigned to volunteers from a retiree service group (RSVP, Kiwanis, etc.). But ... who gives entrants the safety briefing? Who answers their questions about meet policy and logistics? Who spots trouble, such as adults registered for advanced courses but with small children in tow and no registration for babysitting?

My experience handling registration on site and in advance is that registration has a lot in common with managing guests at a wedding.

In advance there will be endless questions about where to stay, how to get there, how long it takes to get there, when to get there. How to get across the US/Canada border, best places and time of day to cross. There will be gripes.

At check-in there will be more of this and some new issues. There will be mix-ups and misunderstandings and errors and omissions and last minute special arrangements. Many will expect to be greeted by name and some will be miffed if not greeted. Plan to have check-in manned by a lot of volunteers who can remain calm and pleasant under pressure, leaving the orienteering club registrars free to welcome people and handle problems. At a well-staffed meet the meet director has "nothing to do". At this festival, I think the registrars should have "nothing to do" either. I would also have a greeter hanging around between the parking area and check-in to direct people to the check-in.

But ... who gives entrants the safety briefing?

After having been an entrant in 1100+ meets, I'm having trouble remembering a case when I've been given a safety briefing.

There was a safety briefing at the 2008 US Rogaine Championships - among other things, we were told to be sure to stay on the paths around the base camp so that we wouldn't trip on the uneven ground.

(Yes, the person doing the briefing realized the humor in telling this to a bunch of people who were about to spend 24 hours out in the woods - it was one of those "have to do it even though it really doesn't apply" things.)

Who spots trouble, such as adults registered for advanced courses but with small children in tow and no registration for babysitting?

Someone with too much time on their hands?

Seriously, providing child minding, and accommodating requests for split start times (as well as start time flexibility in the event that the first starter runs late) is the most that should be expected from event organizers. The responsibility to utilize such provisions lies entirely with the parents.

...but I like ccsteve's idea of having a Walmart-style Greeter at each meet. Perhaps he/she could ensure newbies are directed toward nothing more challenging than the White course.

who gives entrants the safety briefing?

it was one of those "have to do it even though it really doesn't apply" things.

This gnarly sport is my primary relief from the suffering crush from policies & rules (waivermania, privacy excesses, non-privacy excesses, visitor IDs, traffic cameras, etc.) IMO, society is well on its way to completely domesticating itself.

I've been a registrar and run clubs of various sorts. I deal with this where necessary but don't like that it's become "have to do it."

I said that?-) Oh - I did way up top - but it isn't my idea. ROC has a set of standard volunteer positions for our local meets, check out http://roc.us.orienteering.org/volonteers.shtml

[Ok, just noticed the typo in that and have asked for a correction on the web site... funny what you don't see normally - the page title is correct;-]

Each task is as small as possible to make for easy volunteering and an understanding of what it is if you have not yet done that job. Meet Director and Course Setter (which also happens to include flag placer) are the two largest positions.

We can put a new member at most any other volunteer position.

For walkups in particular, everyone is guiding them to White / Yellow for an introduction though some head out on more advanced courses (with varying degrees of success) even after our suggestions.

An A-meet is different - nobody "wanders" into an A-meet. Our recreational meets at an A event include a separate registration area. (And one of my first encounters with Orienteering was at such an event - I had tried out a couple courses with my sons one weekend as a scout activity and returned a few weeks later for another rec event. There were tents, and vendors and people with odd looking clothing and a whole lot of excitement - "oh, those are the competitors in the national A meet"...)

A bogus safety briefing is a waste of time, if not worse. Two items are always relevant, though: safety bearing and the finish deadline.

In New Mexico, depending on the season, the map, and the courses set that day, we mention rattlesnakes, bears, standing dead trees, flash floods, high altitude, hot weather hydration, or hypothermia. Likelihood of encounter, how to avoid, and what to do if. For novice orienteers who seem interested, usually anxious parents and youth group leaders, I will ntion how we would go about searching and rescuing, and how they can help by staying put ("Hug a Tree"), especially staying put at a control. Orienteers from outside New Mexico often ask about ticks, biting flies, mosquitoes, and poison ivy. All are rare here. If the weather is iffy, and courses are very long, mention the forecast.

Some people are so into the sport that they ignore the deadline even if you point t out.

A-meets have meet notes that cover most of the topics you mentioned. I agree that at local events, meet notes or some other method of relaying safety info is recommended. I still think competitors should be prepared for the weather themselves. It seems to me the leaders of the kids at GNC 2002 could have done a better job. I'm sure they learned a lot from the experience.

I notice Hannah Burgess has not opined on this thread, possibly because she is hoping to escape serving as the USMA A-Meet registrar and continue course setting instead...but if you ask, she can probably share a pretty decent duty description and standard operating procedure. USMAOC is unusual in its high rate of tunrover from year to year, so they keep pretty decent records of "how to" and "lessons learned."

I'll post a note in her log to read this thread.

Typically speaking I don't post on attackpoint threads because I fear accidentally spawning another 400 posts arguing about the semantics of my 2 sentences. :P But since I've been called out now...

I'll put something some stuff up here (based on how we do it in USMAOC) when I'm a bit more rational - so probably tomorrow.

I've been registrar for several dozen events over the past 5 years, including a number of events with 100-400 participants.

One of the reasons I took on this role is that I live 100 km from my primary club's home base and it is something that I can do mainly online. I won't handle events that accept offline payments - and since no one else wants to do it either, both of my clubs have moved fully online.

Although basic IT skills and a detail-oriented nature are important, Registrar is *not* a job for pure tech-heads. (Sure, I may be a geek but I'm not a tech-head!) By far, the largest amount of time in the job is spent communicating with participants and potential participants. There are questions, gripes, special requests, newbie explanations (even for A events), category changes, teammate updates, concerns about children, data checks/corrections, etc. During the pre-race period, I am the main person representing our club to the outside world and that's a time-consuming, important responsibility. When assigning a registrar, you don't want someone who is overly shy, rarely checks his/her e-mail or has no patience.

Our SI person takes the registration database and uses it to populate his files, generate start times, etc.

The event director would do any course notes or pre-race briefing.

As someone pointed out above, the registrar doesn't have to be the person at the check-in table at the event, and I try really hard not to be that person except at A events, where participants are most demanding. I prefer to work hard behind the scenes so that I can come to an orienteering event with the plan of focusing on orienteering. With online registration, the check-in table is a fairly straightforward task anyway.

Abolish check-in. Just have a help desk for those that need it.

We need check-in for a few reasons:

1) Sign waiver. (Electronic waiver is not legally valid if an adult registers another adult for the event, as spouses or friends often do.)

2) Be sure who started the event in case they don't come back. (In an A event, we have a start crew to record this but at most events, we do not.)

3) Issue rental SI cards to those who paid for them online, which in many cases involves a brief lesson.

Other than that, it's mostly help desk stuff, e.g. "where is the start?", "are there washrooms?", "will you be bringing jackets back?" (Doesn't matter if this information is all provided somewhere else - some people still prefer to ask a live person.)

I understand that the legal environment differs from country to country. I sympathise with those who have to get signatures. In my jurisdiction legal opinion is that a waiver does nothing, organisers have a duty of care which cannot be contracted away.

Duty of care is of course important, but if people were to engage brain before acting, that would save a lot of hassle.

I'm told that waivers carry more weight in Canada than in the U.S. I don't know about other countries. Organizers still have a duty of care that cannot be contracted away. If we are negligent, the waiver will not save us. The purpose of the waiver (from the legal perspective) is to demonstrate that participants have been made aware of the risks of the activity. This transfers more of the responsibility to the participants than if the waiver didn't exist.

Volunteer search and rescue does not use waivers, and the risks there are higher.

For participants to be made aware of the risks, you need something more or other than a waiver: you need a safety briefing. Be it ever so short and sweet, it should still occur. No nonsense. Safety bearing, weather forecast, any areas marked out of bounds for safety reasons, and what will happen if you miss the finish deadline. On one of our club maps we have two areas marked out of bounds for safety: a former missile range and an active gun club.

Agree with that.

I can just imagine the scene at a North American check-in. Where do I sign? OK, done. Engagement of brain: nil. But how do you do a briefing for an interval start event?

I'm concerned about safety for events both big and small, but this is a different topic from registration for pre-entry events.

This became part of the registration discussion because of the need (in some countries) for a check-in table where pre-registered, pre-paid participants sign a waiver at the event. In countries where waivers carry no legal weight, this step can be skipped.

To clarify, you two are talking about ways to *actually* make participants aware of risks, which is not the same as being able to demonstrate to a court that participants were made aware of risks, although there can be some overlap. An oral safety briefing is probably the most effective method for mass start races but it is difficult to prove exactly what the race director said, whether the particular participant was present or in the washroom, whether he or she could hear what was being said on a breezy day, etc., etc. A signed waiver may be a formality but in the jurisdictions where such documents have legal meaning, it is an important one.

One pet peeve: If the land owner or manager of your area requires a park-specific or event-specific waiver, please post it online well in advance of the event instead of surprising arriving orienteers at the registration table. As a coach, when I show up with a carload of other-people's-kids, I'd much rather have a stack of pre-printed waivers signed by the parents themselves, instead of having to sign them myself in loco parentis. Even for individual participants, time can be saved by having a pre-signed paper ready to hand to the registrar instead of holding up the line while printing name, dating, and signing.

The text of most waivers in the USA comes from Orienteering USA. Is this text suggested, or required as a condition of the insurance provided to USA member clubs?

In the USA, one alternative model to consider is the forms used by health care providers to inform patients of their privacy rights under HIPAA. Some forms state these rights on the form and the patient is required to sign below the statement that they have read the statement. In other cases, the privacy rights statement is a separate paper, and the patient signs that they have read the statement. Where a waiver is used, wouldn't it be sensible for the waiver to refer to a safety message for the event? And wouldn't it be sensible to write one for
each event, or at least for each map area?

I have begun writing a safety messages for each of our maps. An example is here.

We generally give the safety message at check-in. That is when we get questions about stuff not mentioned, and we can reassure competitors that biting flies, mosquitoes, and poison ivy/oak are of no concern... I suppose if there is advance registration online, then the person registering should have to check a box to get past a safety message page. This would not catch people who are registered by other people. In that case, the safety message could be given at the start.

I find it much easier to be sure the safety message is heard, when people do not start all at once.

Well, I decided to check out this job of advance registrar for myself, by serving as one for a training meet. Man what a huge amount of work. Most of it is responding to questions and reassuring parents and youth group leaders that they can take the plunge and it will be okay. I promise we will not abandon their kids in the woods. Then, there is dealing with people who are multitasking or distracted, and need prompting to give the basic information we ask for, such as how many people in their party and what courses they want to do. I suspect not many first timers would make it through an online registration form.

Your advance registrar needs to be right by the phone and computer much of the time, highly organized, able to type at a reasonable rate, knowledgeable about orienteering and plans for the meet in question, patient, and confident enough to ask direct questions ("what is your name, please?") and to help beginners make appropriate choices ("Like Yogi Berra might have said, it works best to begin at the beginning, so let's put you down for a White course just for starters.").

Okay I am back from the meet. I handled the check-in desk. Before the meet I handled courtesy registrations for over 100 people, fortunately dealing with only 20 contacts. Of the 20, 6 were first timers. They had a lot of questions and that took a lot of time. Of the 20, only 1 canceled and only 1 failed to show up. One left because something did not happen according to schedule; other competitors said the group that left might have been scheduled for another event the same day, and was trying to do both. As I expected, all of the regulars who showed up simply showed up, confident that we would have enough pre-printed maps for them too. A whole bunch of first timers also just showed up, as did a few out of state orienteers on vacation. That is really fun! Range of ability among the first-timers was huge. Huge as in there was an order of magnitude difference in pace between the fastest and slowest finishers. I think the fastest orienteers of the day were a team of young scouts and a parent, who did a Yellow course first then ran hard around a White course, achieving a pace of under 9 minutes per kilometer.

Courtesy advance registrations made this meet. Any more people than this and we are going to have to assign start times in advance, to help distribute the influx.

Una, thanks for the perspective - always interesting to see.

That suggests at least a slight differentiation - managing an A meet vs managing a local event.

ROC is looking at ways to streamline local meets, but in general, it is a "show up and compete" sort of event for new comers and regulars alike. Yes, there's the rush of people at the beginning of a regular event day, and a rush of people just before the start of a mass-start event day;-)

An A meet is different in that almost all of the registration is ahead of time and the event deals with changes and such. Recreational starts at the A meet are handled at a table in a "walk up" fashion just a short ways away.

And of course quantities of participants differ by location - I expect the clubs closer to very large metro areas can pull in more people and have slightly different local meet needs. (Though for a community of its size, I think ROC does a great job)

Our meets are not sanctioned but some could have been A meets, if we had simply started planning for them early enough. Our courses at some meets are very high quality, as in the vetters and competitors find no problems and competitors say wow that was great. We need to build a deeper base of meet staff who are prepared to cope with an A meet, though, before we can handle the numbers of competitors that a well planned and marketed A meet could draw.

I was amazed by how many of the "just show up and orienteer" folks, both first time orienteers and established orienteers alike, arrived at my check in table with waivers and even membership forms in hand. I put links to those forms onto the event page only the night before! So, every one of these pre-printed forms was downloaded from our website within 18 hours of the event. Now I see the forms themselves can play a role in our marketing.