Mission Viejo had very good facilities, great weather, superb organization, and the best hosts. Overall a great meet.
However, as commented in another thread, there were lots of no shows. In four of five events I had an empty lane next to me. This is not the best racing environment, and it makes the meet last longer than necessary. I am not critical of the people that did not show up -- I was one of them on Thursday, as an emergency at work made me arrive a day late.
On deck seeding would be a simple and easy solution.
Evidently some people like to know a day or days in advance who will swim in their heat. However, the way it worked for me, I found out as I walked up to the block who would *not* be swimming. *That's* lots of opportunity to get psyched! (not)
I don't think the way this meet was seeded (check in for distance events, advanced seeding for the other events) was a very good compromise. This was my first non-deck seeded masters meet, and I did not enjoy that aspect of it.
Dorothy,
Yes, I do recall those 45 minutes being stressful for the person at your job, and I do remember standing at the door and keeping people away.
I also know that your position requires a very professional and trained and experienced person.
Karen's comment about being as inclusive as possible is really important. In reality, this is only an issue to about 1/3 of the total of USMS's membership. Only once have I ever come across any problem.
I do agree that it is nice to know your heat and lane even days before your race, but I will continue to contend that checking in the day of the meet, having a program with all of the entered times, and then posting the heat sheets at the pool before the event is efficient.
While it may be comforting to have it on your doorstep when you wake up, it shouldn't matter what heat and lane you're in. Hopefully, you've prepped your race well ahead of time...
Math question: Connie you said that even if it took a 1/4 of a second to look at 500 names that it would be over 2 hours? My math puts that at around 3 minutes. But then again, I teach English!
I've done this check-in procedure at our meets and it isn't difficult at all. We actually have two people doing it at the same time, one following the other to check for boo-boos. Haven't messed up yet :)
Karen same procedure, one looks over the others shoulder, and we check off as we scratch. Then we hand it to a third who goes through and makes sure that everyone is checked as they should.
Most I have in one event is about 100 per. The hard part about age group is how kids sign in, sometimes it is a mystery what their intentions are!
The amount of scratches is what would really slow it down. On meets when the scratch rate is very low, positive check in is a breeze, but on meets where there is a snow storm, and lots of people don't show, it takes much longer. So in this case, it sounds like the scratch rate was fairly high, which would mean a lot of time.
Heat sheets are very important at the age group meets, parents always want them, because they cannot be on deck with the coaches and kids. Plus it is one source of revenue for our team!
Originally posted by Karen Duggan
Math question: Connie you said that even if it took a 1/4 of a second to look at 500 names that it would be over 2 hours? My math puts that at around 3 minutes. But then again, I teach English!
Ooops, I was thinking one thing and writing something else.
Half a day later, I forget what I was getting at.
Ever play smoosh, or something like that when you run words in together. :rolleyes:
Originally posted by dorothyrde
Phil, I am that person you hand those check in sheets to that magically give you the printed heat sheet! It is a highly stressful 45 minutes, and takes all of my concentration to make sure I do it correctly(while 10 people are trying to ask me questions, I actually post people around me to field them so I can get it done!).
Boy, ain't that the truth!!!
For a meet as large as this, it would definately take longer than 45, but if you could also have a pre-positive check in for people who know say the week before, that cuts down on the time also. This last summer meet, I let coaches know we would be preseeding the 400 Im on Friday night and if they knew of swimmers that would not be there, let me know by 9pm Thursday. They were very co-operative, and not only let me know those scratches, but others as well, which made each day a little easier.
I think that age group is easier because there is a central person(the coach), per team as a contact. Masters would be harder because it is more each to his/her own.
That is very true, almost all of them handle check in's on their own, and even when a coach checks them in, often they come and ask questions to double check.
The day for the checkin of the 1500 we decided to make thje laptop available at the checkin so everyone is checked in online. Having a mix of paper checkins and online checkins added an extra step of merging the databases, which wasn't as smooth as it is supposed to be (by the book)
Originally posted by Phil Arcuni
A person removes the names not checked and prints the sheets -- voila! finished before the event and no late nights. Perhaps they used a different system at MV.
We used the same system.
Ithink what you're overlooking is the time factor to look through some 500 names. Even if it takes you 1/4 of a second to scan through each, it adds up to 2 hours of what you're claiming is a voila! Implying that it happens at the push of a button.
AND there's no room for error here, you can't accidentally remove someone's name, so you can't really take shortcuts or rush through things.
Also, in age group meets you don't get 500 kids swimming one event.
As far as the heat sheets being available ahead of time, in our case in the meet program, I was getting very positive feedback about that choice. Lot of smiles at the mention of heat-sheets in the program.
And I was the one handing out the program and explaining registation and checkin procedures to people.
Most people were really happy that once they went through the registration all they had to do is look up their heat and lane and show up at the block. No additional pressure of checking in for the events, except for distance.
Your point of view that you don't care a whole lot about having the heats sheets seems to be in a minority.
As a matter of fact our meet administrators, after seeding the 1500 have gone through the trouble of distributing the heat sheets that evening to the hotels where we knew swimmers were staying. Large number of those gave us a feedback about how comforting it was to wake up in the morning and find the heat sheets on your doorstep.
Sitting in the administration areas, one of the most frequently asked question is WHEN the heat sheets will be available, and where they are.
Not so much at the kids meets, since the coaches tend to get the feedback from the admin, and take care of their swimmers being in line.
In masters it's different, most swimmers are there fending for themselves, without the coach, and not always familiar with the rules and minutia of meet administration, not to the extent most coaches know the process.
