Tuesday, January 1, 2013

So here's an idea ...

It's often the case that race organizers drop the ball on communication once a race is over, leaving remote fans wondering what's going on, and occasionally frustrated.  A lot of us were looking forward to hearing from the TOTW why Mikhail Telpin had incurred what appeared to be a three-hour penalty, and why it disappeared when it did.  Someone in Tok posted a brief reference to adjusted times, but they weren't reflected on the race stats page nor was more information posted to the Facebook page.  We never learned who won which awards at the banquet, nor did we learn who won the raffle drawings.

Keeping the communication flowing during a distance race is a 24-hour job, and it's exhausting and frustrating.  By the time the last musher has come in, the volunteers are fried.  So here's a suggestion:  Why not designate one volunteer as the person to handle post-race communication?  Don't ask them to do much, if anything, during the race, but once the last musher is in it becomes their responsibility to handle social media, and possibly website updates.  It would be excellent to find a way to keep communication open without abusing volunteers' good will, and this seems like it could be a reasonable option.

1 comment:

  1. For some races, there is also a need for a social media volunteer to answer rules and equipment questions and explain the limitations of Spot Trackers. This volunteer could be remote to the race site. Expertise/tools needed: copy of the race rules, basic knowledge of the race route and checkpoints, and endless patience to repeat information that is available elsewhere (or has scrolled off the Facebook page)

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