What grade of planner/organiser are you?

[alanbrett]

I set up a simple online feedback system for SEOA events a few years back which did provide useful information.
http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/Neil_Crickmore/feedback2.html
The bigger problem was disseminating the results - both good and less good practice. Controllers got it but getting it to future event officials was more problematic - in many cases the information trail ended with the club secretary or regional representative.

This is something similar to what CHIG have been putting online after events since Nov 2009, but for competitors to provide feedback.

http://chig.org.uk/2010/11/%E2%80%98michael-brandon%E2%80%99-mitre-2010-leave-feedback/

It has certainly been interesting to learn what people thought we could do better next time. Response rates have been reasonable - ranging from 10% to about 15% from one event to the next - we had about a 10% response for last month's regional event.

[Big Jon]

"Mentoring is I believe more beneficial" I would have thought that all clubs would offer this as part of the introduction of novices to the planner and organiser role.

[denzil53]

Having recently been a graded athletics official, I would say that the system causes more annoyance than the benefits it brings. The success of such a system depends on who does the grading, and whether there is pressure to provide the sport with more/less higher graded officials.

[Arnold]

I would have thought that peer pressure / prior vetting should ensure bad planners aren't let near important events. Potential planners for these events will have planned before so it should be easy to look at their track record. You would think that BOF (for big events), the club / the region (for medium ones) will look at a planner's track record and decide whether they're up to the challenge.

Thinking about this now, I guess it does happen for BOF events (can't remember a terribly planned JK etc) but probably not for regional events where the yearly club event gets shared around and I do remember some awful regional event courses (not to mention colour codeds)

Again you would have thought clubs would police their own events to ensure continued attendance / good feedback but doesn't always seem to happen - as long as it's ok overall people will probably continue attending. And planning lots of events every year needs lots of planners so you can't be too choosy either.

In any case I don't think a vetting system is the best solution & really cumbersome to implement. Think transparency via feedback etc. is better. And of course (my hobby horse) having many fewer regional-type events so they are on average planned by better planners (and on better areas).

[graeme]

Potential planners for these events will have planned before so it should be easy to look at their track record.

How? It's easy to see who has planned what, but there's no record of whether it was any good. In the end, you are reduced to word of mouth, and if you have some boxticking paper requirements of planning a level X-1 event with N courses before being allowed a level X you only end up with the same old suspects who're likely too old to test run everything by the time they're qualified (cf controllers).
This weekend I ran an exceptionally well planned sprint-training race: probably the trickiest of the year. Knowing the planner, I knew the events would be good - but he'd never planned an event on the BOF list. Same applied to the SHI when I controlled that: no visible experience, top quality, fully pre-run, courses.

[mharky]

Whatever grade types we have, we should have some method of actually dealing with planners and controllers who constantly or drastically fail to meet the set standards.

Scottish Champs Individual 2005, Tentsmuir. Some extremely poor planning and probably the worst controlling I, and many others, have ever experienced at a badge/national event.

As far as I am aware, nothing was done about it (please correct me if I am wrong). In fact, I overheard people complaining about people complaining, saying there would be no volunteers left in Scotland if people kept complaining.

As far as I'm concerned, the two men responsible should not have been ALLOWED to plan or control without some retraining or strict observation, let alone being invited to do so...

Volunteer or not, you have to meet the standards set upon you. If you are not fit to do the job, even as a volunteer, you shouldn't be doing it.

[Arnold]

How? It's easy to see who has planned what, but there's no record of whether it was any good. In the end, you are reduced to word of mouth

Yes but that's exactly what I'm talking about - it needs to be word of mouth. Which I think for big events is fine - if you're BOF and you are offered someone as a planner, you ask around to see what they've done before. It shouldn't be that hard to find some evidence one way or another. Now whether anything is done about that...

For that matter if I plan an event and am told who the controller might be I always check them out. Presume controllers do the same about planners?

Anyway word of mouth is the best we have. It just needs to be used.

[andypat]

Agree about the mentoring, whether this is via the Controller or separately via informal support. I learned loads from planning a sprint event earlier this year where I had a great couple of mentors from FVO.

[70plus]

EddieH is right (as usual) when he talks about weather risks. Controlling a January badge event about 20 years ago, I asked about contingency parking, to be told they couldn't find any. The intended field looked adequate but had only one uphill exit. The run-up to the event made us all cross our fingers, but on the Saturday it froze hard so we had no problems [of course I took the credit for that]. Most would probably agree that it is better to have an event with a soggy field, than to cancel because there is no alternative car park.

I always comment on any significant problems or complaints, partly to record the experience, but also to show that such things are not just swept under the carpet. Luckily, after controlling more than 30 such events I haven't had to grovel very often. But Comments seem to be dying out, along with printed results?

The traditional career path for controllers has been to start at the bottom and advance as experience grows. The same thing tends to happen for organisers and planners, but it hasn't been quantified by the system. Club officials usually know who has done what, and who is persuadable to do it just one more time.

[AndyO]

From reading the discussion here (including the horror stories) there is broad agreement that officials would welcome some kind of feedback, but not much consensus as to how this can be translated into lessons that can be learned far less to actually "grading" officials.

I am pretty certain that any attempt to do so would become extremely beaurocratic and I hope I'm not opening up Pandora's box but here are my first thoughts:

1. Devise a standard post-event review form to seek views on the quality of planning, organisation and controlling. This should include a grading scale (I'd suggest a simple 1-3 scale, where 1 = below standard; 2 = OK; 3 = good), with reasons, and areas for "development" if any particular problems are identified.
2. A copy of this form should be completed by each of the event officials, where they comment on their own and the other officials performance. The form should also be completed by some experienced competitors, by invitation or perhaps even by completing a form after their run or later online.
3. The forms should be reviewed by the organisation running the event: Club, Association or BOF and an overall grade confirmed for each official with any suggestions for further training. I suppose the results would have to be fed into a database of some sort, and would have to be accessible to those appointing officials for forthcoming events.

I'm sure there may be some concern, possibly even to the apparently open criticism of individuals, but remember that a competitor's results are available to all, even when runs are embarrasingly bad. This will build up into a record of performance which can be linked to different event levels, like a ranking list of officials for at least levels 1 and 2 events.

Any thoughts?

[Big Jon]

Andy - if you are prepared to draft an initial document, I am happy to help refine it and we could trial it at Maroc events next year.

[NeilC]

Devise a standard post-event review form to seek views on the quality of planning, organisation and controlling.

You mean like this one..
http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/Neil_Crickmore/feedback2.html
(see post at top of page)

[70plus]

I'm not sure that filling in a form after an event will lead to genuine assessments. The circle of active planners and controllers is not large, and when controlling I am always conscious that too much criticism or nit-picking (quite possibly of someone I already know well) may seem the right thing in the short term but not necessarily in the long term. Expecting or presuming too much from familiar people may be a common cause of errors at events?

That is another reason why I try to record any hiccups in my comments, hopefully without seeming to direct flak at anyone in particular, but possibly indicating potential problems for others. Once or twice I have received 3-star ratings from planners I have controlled for .

[AndyC]

I've started giving other planners I know constructive criticism discretely (via email) along the lines of "I liked X but did you consider Y " or " would it have been better if you'd have done Z?" and I hope for similar to be returned to me. I have replies that varied from "good point" to "I thought of that but" and " I thought somepeople might make that error that's why I left it in".
Recently I rehashed an event from a year before exactly as originally delivered (to a different group of competitors) and I was surprised at how many things I would have done differently if the opportunity presented itself -not that the courses had anything really wrong.
Planning is a learning process even the most experienced (not that that includes me) can learn each time but we do need to know what competitors thought

[EddieH]

Many many years ago I planned a W43 (that tells you how long ago) course which did not match the typical course shape expected. 2 of the 14? legs were about 3/4 of the length of the whole course.
It was interesting that [b]all[/b] of the 14 W43's on the course at the event spoke to me - 7 to praise the long legs, and 7 to complain about all that dstance without a control. What am I to judge from that