Discussion: Start lists posted

We did our best to accommodate the numerous start requests; hopefully we've hit a happy medium, especially with parents trying to shadow younger runners.

Take a minute to go over your information and check your start times. You can find start times at www.o-reg.com. If any of your information is incorrect or missing, please inform me sooner rather than later!

Changes to the start list are possible to some degree, but at a week out from the meet, I would recommend sending bribes along with the request (coffee, chocolate, and good beer tend to be winners for this registrar).

Can you provide a link to the start times? I couldn't find them.

They appear in the registration lists. e.g
http://www.o-reg.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/OA.woa/wa/...

Yes, you have to click on the registration list, where you can see all the registered competitors, in order to see the start times. Sorry that wasn't more clear!

too late for changes? our family is spread out over 3 hours on saturday.

Joe, let me know who else is in your family - I tried to get families starting close to each other, but I have to assign each class one thing at a time, and obviously families don't all run on the same class, so I clearly missed some. I can try and lump you a little better; send me an email. Thanks!

the three people named Brautigam, maybe...?

(oh, wait, I now see that it's not obvious from the post above who "Joe" is...)

let's see, there is me, pavlina and Evalin. I am guessing the F-21 is starting late due to the WC so Pavlina's time can't change, but if you can group us closer to her time then we could all travel together.

I feel for you Joe. Even though I requested that the 4 of us be grouped together. We are spread out over almost 2 hours on Satudray. Same with sunday.
Three of us will be done with the course, ready to drive home and Aleck will not have even started his course. Forget cookies, I will pay cold cash (or beer) to fix this! How much???

It looks like there is only one of your family each day that is an outlier. Email Alex to see what she can do.

To address the issue in general though, there was no explicit requirement to design the start list around family groupings, unless it had been requested for a good reason beforehand. Ideally the start list should be random, and the more requests and conditions that are placed on where people can start, the less fair it can become.

That said, we do recognize that a balance needs to be achieved between the perfect random start list and reality of people waiting around for hours, or having to catch planes.

If you think changes are needed, Alex has been accommodating so far to most requests, but please ask nicely, and understand that the first priority is the fairness of the meet, then people with hard deadlines (like flights), then requests based on comfort of everyone.

Sounds like I will owe you a cold six pack!!! Thanks I will follow-up

Being a registrar is one of the least attractive functions in orienteering I'd think.

Having been registrar along with Gail for O-Fest 93 with about 1000 people, perhaps this is as good a place as any to ask something I've been meaning to ask for some time -- is it OK to throw away the waiver forms? They take up 4 thick three-ring binders in our basement.

Or should we hang on to them a little longer just to be safe? It's only been 18 years....

Or should we be offering them on EBay?

It's not bad if you outsource start time assignments. :-D

@Bernard: Some start time spread on Saturday might facilitate helping at the junior food concession.

Waivers should be kept on file for seven years.

Is that "seven years" thing based on some actual legal principle, or just urban myth? The number comes up a lot, like I've heard that you should keep income tax records for seven years, or when was a kid, I was told that if you swallow chewing gum, it will remain in your stomach for seven years (clearly not true). Is there a seven-year statute of limitations on liability due to negligence or something? Would this vary with jurisdiction?

I am surprised by the people complaining so much about start times. This is a national championship, The fact that start time requests are even being considered should be viewed as a service, not as an obligation.

I agree with Boris. I feel like start times should be fully randomized* for national championships, no requests allowed other than members of the organizing club starting outside the normal start window.

* subject to rules on seeding likely winners (eg red start group) based on rankings.

Is there a seven-year statute of limitations on liability due to negligence or something? Would this vary with jurisdiction?

I was wrong, it is more like 20 years, so PG is not out in the clear yet. (Scroll down)

Registrar fixed my problem. Very accommodating and helpful.

Fixed my problem too. Boris and will have a few kids, age 15 years and then comment.

Yeah Boris, when you are you guys going to start having kids?

Oh man, I'm fascinated by thinking how a child composed of equal parts Boris and Will would look/act.

More importantly, would s/he hate summer and stupid people? Or would the combination produce someone who loved everything and everyone?

Doh! Had to read twice to figure out why Rosstopher was asking about Boris and Will having kids.

+1 on registrar fixing my problem - In my case it was not a convenience thing but a preventive measure - 2 siblings starting way too close together for comfort on the same sprint course (white/yellow combined). Separating them a bit more just prevents any potential ugliness. Those with kids will certainly understand. :-)

Agreed, Alex was quick to change our starts, too (though we still have only an hour between our starts on Sunday ... Anyone want to hang out w/ Max for a while? ;-).
Boris and feet have a good point *for the elite* classes' starts. But if we even want to pretend we're a family friendly sport that wants to grow and increase our numbers of younger orienteers, AND we're not going to require any childcare at events, then we must be flexible with start times. We skipped West Point from the year Max came home until this year because of childcare issues. It's not easy to arrange for private childcare, on top of travel logistics, working, training, and other life necessities. Making It hard for parents to attend meets is not good for the sport.

Congrats to the Organisers for accommodating start time requests!! Boris and feet have the wrong interpretation of the Rules (mind you I'm only going on IOF / Australia / Ireland). The purpose of an allocated start time is to ensure that
"In individual interval start races the competitors navigate and run through the terrain
independently".
Nowhere in the rules does it state that unfairness is introduced by changing things around after a random start draw is made. In fact it prescribes that the Adviser should do exactly that in several cases (e.g. club/country members starting one after the other, seeding, heat strength). Orienteering already has too many rules to start intoducing ones that are not there to begin with. (waiver - if USOF does have this rule then I'm just glad I don't orienteer there)

Well said Peggy. Orienteering with a family presents logistical issues that single orienteers have not had to consider. Everything from fees for multiple people, travel cost, childcare (thank the maker I'm past that!!) and start times.
I wish clubs would make even more efforts to attract families.
For example, fees alone are daunting. Junior discounts + IOF are nice but I've payed close to $200 in entry fees for our family to attend some A-meets. Talk about a turn off that our single, elite orienteering friends have yet to encounter.
Needless to say we never buy the meet tee-shirts any more :-P

Registration link = DNS error :(

I agree that concern for families is important, but in the UK it's actually impossible for the organisers to offer organised childcare. To do this there are certain legal requirements you need to fulfil, such as running water within your "facility" and a special toilet only used by kids - generally impossible at a normal meet site. So childcare is done on a guerilla basis among groups of friends, rather than by the organisers. It's a real shame, as the O-ringen etc shows what great stuff you can do at meets with kids when the organisers put something on. Are there silly federal/state hoops to jump through here too?

Yes, and it's usually called babysitting if offered at all. Sometimes Girl Scouts are available to earn a bit of cash and get experience, but mainly it's just ad hoc.

Split starts for parents are a godsend, but often only if the meet logistics are favorable (I.e. parking near starts...)

Bernie, A-meet participation costs is something our club could subsidise. But we would then need the club to start raising more money at local meets...

And before you start doing the whole single vs family thing, remember that parents often have real jobs. Single, elite orienteering students are often devoting their entire disposable 'income' on travel to orienteering events (and yeah, entries are often negligible in comparison to travel/accomm costs). As a PhD student in France, I was earning ~12,000 euros a year and spending 3,000+ on orienteering. Families had it easy.

In the member-club operational model, fees are such that they are closely tied to the costs of putting on an event, and usually just barely cover them. More people, more costs—it's as simple as that. Entities that put on events could subsidize a group of attendees at the expense of increasing costs to others, but this kind of pricing marketing is not a part of the current operational model. Heck, marketing isn't part of the model at all. The idea that you should invest money and labor in a long-term program with an eye of how well things are going to run in 15 years, instead of focusing on short-term member satisfactoin, well, there isn't that kind of foresight (more of that on the national level, but still woefully short).

There are barely year-old events out there that jack the price up to $68 for a 5k and then sell 3000 entries on Groupon at $29, and everyone goes home happy. My local friendly trail-running company doesn't do that, but their yield management sophistication rivals that of United and Delta. Here we just recently advanced to three price levels and the opening of registration more than a few weeks in advance (and I'm guilty, too)...

DNS issue seems to be resolved.

Groupon for A-meets. I am so in!!!

Not so fast. Step 1: Multiply price by 2. Step 2: Discount by 50% via Groupon. Step 3: Profits!

Without Step 1, negative revenue will choke O clubs—who all operate very close to margin—to death, sadly.

It would be very interesting to see how many A-meets really operate close to margin as apposed to using them as a way to stuff their coffer.

GAOC lost $300 on their last A-Meet. And about 50 cents per start at local meets in 2010-2011.

No, it is not sustainable.

Bernie, there isn't a whole lot of difference. Our fees at TT were reasonably typical, we didn't allocate much money towards mapping costs/royalties and net income (to the team) was about 2k. Add $3 per person per race and we could have doubled that. A lot of it will depend on accounting and how you allocate map costs.

In any case, money made is generally reinvested in orienteering. I don't think many clubs are paying their directors large sums of money. So if a club is trying to stuff its coffers, it probably is looking to grow which is a good thing.

I don't know of any fat coffers out there. BAOC operates strictly on margin, with the only people being paid being the mappers. I assume most other large clubs are like that, too. The nominal "profit" of an A meet is money that has already been paid to the mapper (for some clubs, out of someone's pocket, then reimbursed, in some cases years later; for other clubs, out of the Orienteering USA map loan fund).

Fancy pricing schemes are all the rage, but I do not expect that they would impact sales in this particular market except at the margin. Of the squares of the marketing matrix, pricing is the last thing I would get worked up about.

I would enjoy hearing from some of the larger clubs what their profit margin is. Some parameters that affect profit would be: cost of new vs existing map, park fees, special transportation, specialized rental gear (e.g. party tent), clowns handing out balloons, ...

I plan on posting some analysis of our budget for this meet. Depending on how you account for mapping costs makes a huge difference in if we show a profit, or a loss.

I knew I forgot something! I'll go book the clowns now. I'm imagining a troop of clowns at the finish line trowing cups of water on people as they finish.

I should just mention publicly that CSU has been very responsive in adjusting start times for those of us who need it (and, we no longer have just an hour between our starts on Sunday :-); my comments were more general.

And, clowns will certainly make me run faster.
Does anyone like clowns?

Clowns?

Are people making fun of my RMOC O-suit again?

For Barebones this year we made a whopping $2 (approx) per participant. For a while the budget had us losing $1 or so - I found that a bit hard to swallow so just upped the price $3/person (which, over three races didn't amount to much).

But really, the massive factor at the end of the day is how many participants we manage to attract - as the fixed costs per person start diminishing quite nicely.

Regarding start time flexibility for parents and families I noticed a great solution - at O-Ringen I think. The simply have "free start time" categories. These don't have championship status, but it wasn't just families using them. I was amazed how many people preferred the "free start" (that is "free" as in 'start when you like', not as in 'no charge')

I'd propose rather than focusing on the poor start-draw volunteer as the solution, how about offering some "free start time" categories & courses. Register for them and start when you want. We've started to experiment a bit with this and find it eliminates so many hassles. It works thanks to electronic timing with a punching start.

@CHARLIE-B: Your last A-meet was atypical to say the least. This makes me wonder how much of that $300 loss could be attributed to the cancellation and recscheduling. Hope y'all make up for it with the SML/TT.

As for local event losses, sounds like your entrry fees are $1 too low.

AZ - Not happy about your suggestion that people with kids (child minders - split start requests) should be non-competitive or unofficial. As above, there is nothing unfair about starting at a different time than drawn in a random draw and there is nothing in any rule book I've seen that says it is.
A better suggestion would be that anyone requesting a split start or child minding start should be allocated either a "Before" or an "After" "free time". So a child minder could start at any time using a start punch, in their allocated "free time" block. Before and After of course refer to the main start draw for that course at the event, which might be say from 8:30am to 10am and from 11:45am to 12:30pm just to give an example.

what do parents that race in triathlons or road races do on race day where requesting split start times is impossible with mass start races?

relatives and friends usually step in. I once volunteered to dog sit for a couple. hammer, what was your solution to the parent/child start situation?

Joe, I have to admit I am split (no pun intended) on this because in some races it is impossible to arrange split times when the start draw is shorter than the time that some people take to complete their course and also I tend to agree with borisgr and feet that this request shouldn't be allowed in Championship races. It would be easy to make it the responsibility of the participant to find their own childcare but perhaps we should learn from what other, larger sports do - hence the question in my post. ie., is there a "kids zone" at the events?

When you think about it, the US system works ok:
- You request start times according to your needs
- You see what the registrar ends up giving you
- It if doesn't work for you, you contact them and work out an adjustment

This has worked for me the vast majority of the time. I have run across the occasional fascist registrar who enjoys controlling and humiliating participants more than helping. Also you sometimes get the registrar who is in over their head. The request for change causes a fuse to blow.

Future registrars should study CSU's handling of change requests as a way to do it correctly.

I should say that I wasn't claiming that start time changes should not be allowed. I merely wanted to make a reminder that this is a service that the registrar is doing, and that these requests should be made with courtesy, not snide remarks and sarcasm. I think the tone of the thread has improved greatly, though, and I appreciate that, as, I am sure, does the registrar.

I guess I need to apologize, because the only comment above that I thought was at all sarcastic came from me (and I wasn't a person requesting a start time change).

no Boris, you said people should stop complaining. nobody was complaining. the registrar said changes could be made and we requested them (was I sarcastic?). I thank them for doing this. I agree with you re: the random starts though, but as others have mentioned that should apply to the elites more than us old folks. Packs seldom form in my age group.

Fine with me if the only classes allowed no start time requests are M/F21.

So far, the only change to MF21 class has been to move Will Hawkins to an earlier start time in the sprint. =)

No JJ, I was sarcastic. Punish me instead.

@acjospe: since that's because I'm volunteering and can't do so without an earlier start time, then happy to withdraw from sprint if you refund entry fee.

feet, take it easy.

Post needed emoticon; it was not intended seriously.

feet don't like sprinting anyway.

@Guy-O: You are right and right again. And people already complain that $6 is too much for a local meet. It was tough to get it raised to $7 for next year. My point, though, is that nobody is running A-meets - or local meets for that matter - to make great wads of money - except maybe for West Point which is a special case and about whom I have only good things to say.

As a registrar, I am more than happy to accommodate family, or even carpool, requests. However, I'm not a mindreader and since some families want to run at the same times and others at split times, you really do need to tell me what you want on your registration form. This is especially true in the era of online registrations as they do not arrive neatly assembled in the same envelope and are likely to be interspersed with the registrations of others.

If everything does not turn out exactly as you want, it may well be due to an oversight which can be corrected easily, especially if addressed as soon as it is discovered. It might help to remember that registrars are people who have volunteered to do a difficult and often thankless job and they will generally respond best to calm, polite, personable and private communications. And if the oversight is on your part, I would agree with acjospe that coffee, chocolate and good beer are appreciated, but not necessarily in that order.

I like CHARLIE-B pointing out "private" communication with the registrar re any needed changes (the earlier the better). More effective and direct than doing so on an open forum.

AZ - Not happy about your suggestion that people with kids (child minders - split start requests) should be non-competitive or unofficial

I guess I didn't make myself very clear. I was in no way suggesting people with kids should be non-competitive or unofficial. All I was suggesting is that it might be a good idea to have "free start" categories. These are not unofficial, nor are they non-competitive. And they certainly wouldn't be mandatory. Nor would they be for people with kids.

What I've seen with "free start" categories is that they provide tremendous flexibility, they are surprisingly popular, and they are competitive, and wonderfully simple to organize. For example, they were offered at the WOC public races a couple of years ago (can't recall exactly which WOC) - and I remember the great envy those of us with assigned start times had for the national team athletes who took part in those races (on their off days, of course). The ability to start when you want was so good - and the racing was insanely competitive.

We just ran Barebones for two years now with "Free Start" categories (all our Open categories were free start). These were popular for many different types of people, including those with kids who appreciated the flexibility. And in many cases it turned out that one parent was challenging for medals (so took a Championship category) and the other really didn't care, and so was happy to have complete flexibility with their own start time. These were also popular with "venerable" competitors who wanted to "go long" but didn't want to risk having a late assigned start time since they would be under time pressure (they didn't want to be the last one's back, with piles of volunteers waiting for them before control pickup).

So my point is simply that adding "free start" categories adds a load of flexibility and convenience for a wide variety of people and removes a lot of demands and stress on the start-draw volunteer (not all of them, but a lot)

Both Katta and I routinely run in the "free start" categories (called Direkt) in O-Ringen. Frequently you also get top international runners in those categories as well (I was beaten by Simone Niggli a few years back in one of those races). The key is to actually offer a proper spread of courses, from very easy to very difficult. You could have an open Blue/Red course, for example, using much or all of an existing course. Having an open start time (typically with SI) is awesome for those of us with kids. In fact, I'd have been happy to run the Blue course this weekend in an open category. Consider me not eligible for awards or ranking, but let me run the race. I'd still enjoy it lots. And FYI we typically happily pay $30-40 at O-Ringen for a Direkt start...

And people already complain that $6 is too much for a local meet.

And these events pack crowds of hundreds or thousands of people in the ATL metro area, and either use maps or running through terrain: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and charge $40–$80 per person for early registration. If you cater to the least-able-to-afford it crowd, well, who you end up with as members tends to be somewhat related to the concern.

I hear you loud and clear T/D. Couldn't agree more. Although it is endemic to orienteering. From what I'm hearing, for each Junior that joins OUSA, OUSA loses money if they don't run in at least two A-Meet races!

@CHARLIE-B: When you said you lost $0.50 per start at GAOC lccal events, I thought you might have a really low fee of, say $3-4 -- but it's $6 (I presume that is for adult club members).

$1 of that goes to OUSA, so where did the remaining $5.50 go? Expensive printing, cheap/free extra maps for groups, exorbitant permit fees, requirements to pay for park staff overtime,...?

See?

:)

See what? You're charging the same local event adult member and non-member fees as QOC. If it's not sustainable for you, there must be something different in your cost structure and it would be interesting to know what that might be.

My first guess would actually be on the revenue side though - I think you might have a lot more JROTC participation so you aren't collecting adult fees from a lot of your attendees. Our turnout from JROTC groups and FUMA is climbing, I think, but I don't think we're at the level of the swath of states from Georgia to Texas yet.

Does QOC enjoy free mapper labor?

$6 for all club members.

Many of our maps - including most of our A-Meet quality maps - cost $3 each from a third party mapper. Some of our own maps have been amortized, but those are mostly aging and on the smaller side. Printing the latter, $0.65.

$1 to OUSA.

Depending on the map and turnout, $1-3 for facilities. This includes basic rental of $122 per meet for half of our maps, plus $90 per toilet rental. Shelter rentals mostly $100. Sometimes we get 40 runners, sometimes we get 150.

GA DNR takes 10% ($0.60 for members, $1.00 for non-members) for maps that are in state parks and where our $3 map fee regularly applies.

Up to $100 for MD expense reimbursement. MDs and their families have the $6 fee waived for a whole year. We offer free entries to all on NOD which cost $1,084 this year. Registration forms $0.27, map bags $0.16.

By the way, none of this includes amortizing some of the recent and expensive maps. The map we did for the convention way back when has worked out at $4 per start over its lifetime, and our access is tenuous at best.

And none of this includes buying and maintaining equipment.

Our epunch equipment is bought and maintained in a separate cost center and is paid for by stick sales and rentals.

And a movie ticket around here costs $11.

Admittedly, yes, or nearly so. We have a surprising number of active and tolerably competent mappers in the club. On the assumption that the initial A meet usually just about covers the cost of getting a map made professionally, I'm not sure how much difference that should make to what is sustainable in terms of local meet fees. Of course, we've been told above that GAOC didn't make a profit on their last A meet. It's hard to precisely assess the implications of that without knowing how much of the cost of mapping they considered A meet expenses vs general club mapping expenses to be amortized over time. Nevertheless, good point. If GAOC is relying mostly or entirely on paid mappers for all their new mapping and map updates, that would certainly make a big difference to the bottom line.

Addendum: seeing Charlie's latest, I must say it hadn't even occurred to me that GAOC might not own all of the maps they use. The levy from some parks is less surprising but also something QOC doesn't have to deal with in any park we use that comes to mind at the moment. It would also be very surprising for a QOC event to have attendance anywhere nearly as low as 40.

I'm going to go spend a while feeling very fortunate in the circumstances of the club I happen to find myself in charge of.

@jtorranc: please do!

"On the assumption that the initial A meet usually just about covers the cost of getting a map made professionally"

Whaaaaaat? Surely a decent area costs a good $20k+, no? Although QOC-land may be less detailed(?).

From an email earlier this year (map royalty costs were not settled at the time, I think they ended up in the $1-2 range):
"
> Subject: Re: Team Trial Expenses - Fee Calculations
>
> Ok, so for Purchase, we have...
> Campus use: $3 pp
> Map royalty $3 pp
> Printing: $0.65 pp
> Map bag $0.20 pp ?
> OUSA dues: $1 pp?
>
> And we charged what, $6 for WYOBrGB? And for adults? Oh wait, that was
> adults. $3 for juniors.
>
> Even excluding the overhead cost of campus use, each junior that
> turned up meant less money for the team.
>
> For BMtn, printing costs were closer to $2/person/day, add in bag and
> map royalty, again juniors turning up = bad for team."

We do have less than hyper-detailed terrain - basically contours, trails, manmade stuff, vegetation and rootstocks for lack of other point features - but that probably was unrealistic despite that. I expect even with our historic penchant for hosting championships in preference to plain old A meets, we don't completely pay for making new A meet quality maps in one fell swoop.

The new Lynn Woods map we are using was ~$12,000. We do not plan on paying for that map with just this meet, and that is only one of three maps we are using. All three maps have been made in the last few years, with LW and Franklin Park new for this meet.

Get Lost!!'s latest State Park permit was $1850. We're bracing for the bill for the Sprint tournament but it's the same order of magnitude. The reality is that State and local governments are broke and are not willing to subsidize recreation for the relatively small precentage of citizens who choose to engage in such to the extent that they have been. Things sure look different near Washington, DC.

It's a factor in GA as well. The state parks are switching to user fees, big time, and cutting back on service. e.g. some shelters are switching to no reservations and first come first served. Hard to plan anything on those terms.

I suppose there's a chance that state and local taxes are generally lower in GA than around DC.