Volunteer notes from FLRC's March 12th track meet

Track Volunteers
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Thanks to all the @track-volunteers who made the March track meet a success! It was our smoothest meet of the year, and it was great having the IHS runners helping out again. Here are my notes on the meet, and please contribute anything else you noticed or think we could do better.

  • Helper Helper worked well once again, and I’m becoming increasingly comfortable using it.

  • Getting the big clock (actually our older one) a new battery resolved all the issues we had with communication with the Time Machine in the last two meets. The clock did seem to shut off on its own once before we started the meet, but I don’t know why. Its power switch seems a little funky—perhaps that was it. It was fine during the meet.

  • Tonya’s work on adding to the signage also seemed to help cut down on runner confusion, which is always a good thing.

  • Jesse and Laurel set new speed records for getting results out of Meet Manager, and we even figured out how get the relay times and jump results in. That made my life quite a bit easier after the meet in producing results, and I know runners appreciated being able to see their times before leaving.

  • Getting Meet Manager to sort the results recording pages for the jumps was a big win, and that made life easier for both Brett and Steve and us in entering results.

  • The Time Machine cheat sheet I built worked well for Carl and Josh (who took over for Carl for the last two events—thanks!) but is missing one instruction on how to increment the event number. I’ll add that soon.

  • We switched from the electronic starting pistol to the real one for the 200m starts because Lane 1 can be quite a distance from the gun, and the electronic pistol just isn’t that loud. I think that was the right decision, though we have to be careful because it’s basically impossible to get .22 blanks right now, and we have a limited supply. I have some on backorder but with no indication of when they might arrive.

  • The numbered cones seem to be helping with getting little kids to line up for the 200m in Lane 1 even though it has a big 3 on it. :slight_smile:

  • The bananas, apples, and fig bars went over pretty well, and putting them out in a bowl helped get them eaten. Any food requests for future meets?

Thanks again, and I look forward to working with many of you at the June and July track meets, if not before!

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From my point of view it was an ideal meet. So smooth, everyone cooperating, great communication, no holdups from timing. Also, the runners almost all knew what they were doing, super-smooth work at the starting line even for the littlest kids. Credit goes to parents and coaches. And nothing like a real starting gun to get the athlete’s adrenaline working!

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