Adding Sponsors as a group I missed is a good suggestion.
Dean’s List judges, too.
I’ve also since added Shipping and Crowd Control as well. More people teams should be aware of. I always feel sorry for the crowd control volunteers as sometimes getting the least respect from the crowd in the stands.
I think I’ll create an additional category for the groups that don’t directly interact with teams, such as the website & WFA judges.
I’ll remove the confusing thin blue stripes from the first chart. The diagrams began as full wheels and degenerated into what you see. After the basic info’s vetted I’ll worry more about esthetic design. I need to decide on a more versatile drawing tool than PowerPoint.
For the Event Who’s Who I may try an initial chart with just major categories to limit the frightening clutter, then go into detail in subsequent charts.
P.S.
I’ll try to cover in subsequent pages who to go to for what: LRI/CSA are your technical starting points, Pit Admin for administrative issues, Judge Advisor if there are judging issues, who should the conspiracy theorists talk to (our LRI usually handles that too), etc. I can try to highlight them on the initial chart and I’ll add your LRI training comments to the LRI job description Al. Does this training hold true across all Regional/District events?
Give me some more opinions on that.
As a side note, I tend to think some kind of event omnibudsman is necessary. That may be the LRI or it may be the help desk depending on the particular event staff. The people to talk to has varied widely between events I’ve attended as you’d expect with volunteers. Sometimes it’s the LRI and sometimes they are only helpful if it’s, say a mechanical speciality. The CSA is good if they have full systems experience, but I’ve run into rookie CSAs too. The trick with a volunteer acting as omnibudsman is that they need to be able to quickly identify the root issue and pass the problem on to specialists, so the omnibudsman quickly becomes available for the next team in line. I think of that as more how pit Administration or the help desk should assist. They should always be at their desk, something the LRI or CSA cannot be if they are out helping people.
A lot of problems I see going by at competition are the result of not knowing the right people to ask. It’s great when you get help from the pit next door, but not so great when they don’t refer you to the LRI or CSA or FTA or other Help Desk assistance that’s available. At every event someone has the answer to any particular problem, but I’ve even seen inexperienced event staff getting tunnel vision trying to solve problems themselves without communicating the issue to those around them that may already have the answer. The key is to learn to keep asking everyone I suppose, but then how to identify the true expert a rookie’s first time at an event?
For our local Regional I’ll be able to name names and give contact information. I’ll keep that as a separate chart so as to maintain the bulk of the presentation as generic.
Part of the presentation will address how many of these people are often available to help ahead of competition. The difficulty with rookies is getting them introduced and connected ahead of time. Of course, the other side of the coin is getting folks to recognize when they really need to ask for help ahead of time-sort of knowing what you don’t know.
