Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

April,

[rant on]

Try and look at this from the RM's POV. In your recent long posts, you kind
of complained about a few things regarding the ride you attended (meal
wasn't at the time originally pubicized -- although someone DID invite you
to it, stock markers unavailable, something about a completion award). I
will guarantee you that the RM is doing their best. As on trail, the rider
needs to take a lot of the responsibility for finding out what's going on.
Quit fiddling with your GPS and your HRM and walk around and talk to some
people.

Did you not get a completion award at all or did you simply not get the
pre-printed T-Shirt or whatever they were offering? It's in the AERC rules
that every completer must get a completion award. If you didn't get one, RC
is not the place to complain.

IF the person pre-entered (i.e. sent money in) I agree that there should be
every effort made for them to get the "pre-printed" completion award. If you
didn't pre-enter, well....? An RM usually must guess how many completion
awards to order. I know of a ride  this spring where the RM had a HUGE
drive-up entry and didn't have enough pre-printed T-shirts for everyone, but
they did all get completion awards. I commend that RM for her quick
thinking. She probably had to scramble to get someone to go to a store some
distance away to be able to purchase something in a large quantity. Last
year at our club ride, we had a huge drive-up entry and I think they had to
delve into the previous year's extras for completion awards.

Also, volunteers deserve some sort of recognition. (They deserve worship,
actually.) It's customary in these parts to give volunteers a completion
award. If the "pre-printed" awards run out for the riders because they've
been given to volunteers, well....? If I'm an RM, I'm thinking of my
volunteers who make the ride safe, who stand around in the weather all day
on sore feet, who help get stuck rigs out of the mud. Even if a person does
pre-enter and doesn't get a T-shirt just because they're out there a long
time, if it was me I'd still cut the RM some slack. It's a long day,
weekend, week to put on a ride. Geez, just getting and keeping the trail
marked is enough to put a person over the edge. RM's get RMID -- the
opposite of DIMR. It's Ride Management Induced Dementia.

You said at the ride you attended recently that the camp was mucky -- an
RM's nightmare if there ever was one. And that there was a huge entry. Under
those circumstances in particular I'd be willing to forgive the RM for not
making sure that stock markers were available to all (they were probably
there, they likely just "walked off" with people) and that the meal plans
were fully communicated. And that I didn't get the pre-printed completion
award.

[rant off]

RM's don't put on rides to hear thank yous from riders (but it helps make
RM'ing suck less >g<). Yes, RM's collect money from participants, but I
don't know of any RM making money at it (and actually, I don't begrudge
anyone who does make some -- it's a lot of work plus it's money in the bank
for bad weather years). It's mostly a labor of love. That, and if you go to
enough parties, eventually you should throw one yourself.

Deanna (Ohio)
(All this said, this RM will make every effort to make sure everyone has a
great time at the Colorific CTR me and my friend are putting on this fall.
We're ordering 100 completion awards, just guessing at what we'll need. We
give completion awards to those who complete and entry awards to those who
don't. April, it's within driving distance from you and, if the footing is
good, will be run at as close to a 7mph pace as we can!)


-----------------------------------

I agree here. If you're going to give "consolation" prizes, at LEAST make
them something other than the completion awards. And make sure you have
enough completion awards to give those that completed, before you start
giving completion awards to those that didn't.

April
Nashville, TN

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rides 2 Far" <rides2far@xxxxxxxx>

If you want completion awards to be motivation, they need to go back to
being COMPLETION awards...not "you paid your entry fee" awards.


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