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RE: Ft Myers Observations - and some Ideas

To: Paula Whitney <pwhitney@heartlandfund.com>
Subject: RE: Ft Myers Observations - and some Ideas
From: dg50@daimlerchrysler.com
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 13:32:44 -0500

>>That means, incidently, that something has to be done to
>>speed up registration....

> When you came through at Ft Myers you had a question
> and were still out of the truck in under two
> minutes.  How fast should we go?

Paula, I certainly didn't mean to imply that you or anybody else working in
Registration weren't working fast enough or hard enough - far from it! You and
yours work harder than anybody I know. I apologize if I came off the wrong way.

However, taken as a whole, that long line of lost souls out front of the truck
didn't move very quickly. Even at 1 min per person, if you were person #40 in
line, that was a 40 min wait, and that line was longer than 40 people for a long
time.

Perhaps I've mis-stated the problem. It's not that "registration is too slow"
but that "the line is too long for too long" - especially when the course was
closed for walking during practice starts, and sunset comes so soon in March.

Possible solutions:

1) Start registration earlier. If registration were open from (say) 15:00 to
21:00, then you've got more time to process people, the line is shorter at any
given time - and you can spend more time with people if you so choose or if they
require it.

2) More registration workers. Make registration be a worker assignment like any
other, and get more people in there helping you, so that (say) 5 people can be
processed at a time, instead of singly. However, I wonder if this would scale
well, as there is a strong possibility that people will have odd little problems
(like I did) that will require Staff attention rather than a rubber stamp - so
maybe this isn't really a solution.

>> Run the NationalSeries classes in their entirity on
>> Saturday, and run the Pro series heats on Sunday morning,
>> with the Challenges in the afternoon as always.

> But lets take your idea, ok you run Pro, now you don't
> have to be at the event until Sunday and the National
> folks can leave on Saturday if they don't qualify for the
> challenge.  Until we get to the point where we hire
> workers we need warm bodies to run this event, if the
> National entrants go home on Saturday, who will work
> the Pro and if the Pros don't come until Sunday (or even later on
> Saturday) who will mentor and help work the NationalSeries?

Well, you've got 32 NationalSeries Challenge people to work the Pro heats (is
that enough? I'm not being sarcastic here, I really want to know - is that
enough?) and you've got the Pros who don't make the Pro Challenge to work the
Challenges (how's THAT for motivation to qualify for the Pro Challenge? :)

As for Saturday and Pro attendance, the true professionals will be there Friday
to walk the course, and on Saturday to watch the lines people take, and so on.
It doesn't make sense from a competitiveness perspective to arrive late
Saturday, and miss out on all the course walking and line observation.

Besides, you make the rules. If you require the Pros to work Saturday, then we
gotta work Saturday, or we don't get to play. :)

DG






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