Da Groj

At the last event we did something a little different. We assigned an experienced "corner captain" to each station, and let the remaining workers fill in as necessary.

So, how did it work?

As a noob I liked it a lot better. It was good knowing I had someone experienced with me so i knew what I was doing was right. Much more smooth imo...

We've always had at least one experienced person on each station. The differences Sunday were 1) calling out a person to make sure the radio, flag, and fire bottle got out there rather than just counting on "someone" to pick them up, 2) charging that person with making sure everyone else knew what to do, and 3) not assigning the rest of the course workers to specific jobs -- just fed them out there ad hoc. That took a little more direction to get people out on course, and I'm not sure it went faster, but it didn't go slower, either.

I'd venture to guess that the time saved by not having to assign all of the individual course workers before the event was less than the time that may have been lost assigning them on-the-fly. I know at one point, I just told the workers to pick a station that didn't already have a bunch of people at it. How easy is that? And if a station is short, the captain has a radio.

I know we always TRY to have an experienced worker at each station. But, when stuff happens... the one experienced guy out of 3 assigned to a station is a no-show and nobody notices (hey, there are still 2 workers there, we're good)... the experienced guy swaps run-groups and another inexperienced guy gets thrown in his place, whatever... I think it will be easier to keep track of just making sure that each station has a qualified corner captain.

In short, I like the idea.

And if it's giving our newbs warm fuzzies, I like it even more!

I was actually kind of nervous about how the course work was going to go. Have to say it was quite easy this way. I enjoyed running after cones lol