Good day, @track-volunteers! Our first meet was such fun so let’s do it again. First, a heads-up that I think this meet will be at Lansing, but I still haven’t gotten the final approval. If we get to Friday without it, I guess I’ll have to move back to Ithaca, where we do have approval (but only for July). Sigh…
If you can help out at this meet, just reply here, and let me know if you’d like a specific job. You can see what they are and who’s already signed up in our Volunteer Sheet , which also lists arrival times between 4:30 and 5:30 PM. (Feel free to add yourself there too, but I may juggle people around a little to match specific skills or provide training.)
Some specific notes/requests from our most experienced folks:
Tom Rishel has already said that he can be our starter again.
Tonya Engst has agreed to hand out bibs and be a general race admin.
Bob Talda or Josh Brockner, can you be head timer, run the Time Machine, and manage thumbs?
Dave Kania, are you up for running Meet Manager?
Bill Watson will be serving as head clerk for the last time.
Adam Pacheck, are you game for recording finishers?
Jesse Koenecke, Laurel Gilmer, Carl Franck, Katie Gannon—if you can make it, your timing/wrangling experience and ability to back up many of the above jobs is always welcome!
One final thing—we’re planning to get subs at Shortstop Deli for volunteers to share after the meet again. Last time we got a seitan sub for vegans and an egg salad sub for those who just don’t eat meat, plus a turkey sub and a pastrami sub. If you have any suggested modifications to that so you’d be happier, let me know.
Thanks as always Adam and Tonya, I signed up as runner wrangler, but am delighted to help any way I can as long as I can run the slow heat 1600 (I have yet to master the time machine, so another go at that training would be great if time permits). I really appreciate the sub supper. Last month’s choices were great. Sincerely, Carl
Uncertain at this point - I’m hosting a vendor visit that day, and have not learned whether they are leaving at the end of business day or not. Will update you as soon as know
Thanks, Heather! @track-volunteers, we could use another couple of people for timing lane races like the 100m and 400m, plus we’ll be losing Bill Watson after this meet, so I’m going to be looking for a new head clerk to arrange heats, and Adam Pacheck will likely be leaving after this meet or the next, so we’ll need a new bib recorder for longer races. In other words, this meet will be a good training opportunity.
Let me know, particularly if you’d be interested in learning the head clerk or bib recorder jobs. None of it is hard—just a question of if you like wrangling runners before or after races.
For those @track-volunteers who were able to help at Tuesday’s meet, thanks so much! It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and next month, I’m hoping it will work out for us to all get ice cream (on FLRC!) at Scoops afterward (the main question is if their hours will remain late enough in August).
I was remiss after the last meet in asking for feedback, but please, let me know how things went and if there were any ways that we could change things to do better next time. From my perspective:
The external power station kept the MacBook Pro running, which was a big win over last month. We’ll have that from now on as a backup for all battery-powered devices.
A second tent (thanks to Dave Kania!) coupled with an extra back wall from our collection offered some additional shade for runners, and helped us keep them back from Lane 1. We should remember that for future hot days.
I need to move the timing tent back from the track a bit more next time so the big clock can be more carefully placed. We got it in position and then had to stake it down for the wind, so it was too hard to move once I realized it was closer than ideal.
The new Start and Finish flags are great, but I need to get a big wooden mallet to hammer in their stakes. It’s kinda loud to have metal on metal, and my little hammer didn’t work as well as something larger would.
It was a big win to be able to drive around the track to the start/finish line. Becca says that’s only safe when it’s really dry, but it was, and our Subaru Outback enjoyed getting her paws in some grass.
Anything else anyone noticed that we could do to improve?
