Regatta entry races through storm. Photo by CL Borinski
Technology was supposed to make our lives easier, giving us more free time after programming the machines do the manual labor. But somewhere along the line, we used those extra hours to cram as much as possible into a 24-hour day.
Today, our world is measured in a 24 hour, seven day-a-week cycle. Days can be chaotic, stressful, and frustrating. But by learning to use technology for its intent, we can make our lives easier.
Many clubs and organizations rely on volunteers to manage registration, entry fees and all the aspects of running an event. Sailing regattas is one example of a complicated event often entered by hundreds of people from near and far. How does a small club or marina with very little budget manage something that large?
Step in Event Manager, a turnkey program from Compete-At that takes the stress out of running a regatta.
“Most of these events rely on volunteers to do much of the work of signing up contestants, collecting money and providing updates and reminders to the participants,” said David Ross, chief executive officer of Compete-At. “We saw a need to be filled for generic event management and developed the technology to help solve these issues.”
Clients of Compete-At include race organizers from a variety of sports – running, cycling, golf, even curling and archery. Each module is tailored to that sport by using the specific terminology and categories. Chief Marketing Officer Tom Berger said they count hundreds of yacht clubs as clients in the regatta market alone.
“New accounts signing up in the first quarter of 2009 indicate tremendous growth for this year," he said.
A new client, Sara Elizabeth Watson, director of Institutional Advancement, Herreshoff Marine Museum, America's Cup Hall of Fame, said they have been using the Compete-At product for about two months now.
“It has given us the ability to create detailed and accurate reports about event attendees and donors, and makes registration easier for our supporters,” she said. “I find the most useful part the ease with which you can export information, and how easy it is to set up events.”
The turnkey system is Web based and user friendly. Event organizers can save money by not having to hire technical help. The software is intuitive and replaces traditional paper copies and manual entries of participants.
When the program is launched, the viewer sees a page containing a clearly defined form. Dates, fees, news, contacts and more are available at a quick glance. Dig deeper, entrants will find forums and boards from other sailors, sign up to crew or look for crews to round out their teams. Once an account is created, it can be used on other events, saving time re-entering information.
“The clubs don’t have the budget to hire companies to manage an event,” Ross said. “We give them and their volunteers the tools to make organizing an event easier. Also, they traditionally have a high turnover rate for volunteers and by using Compete-At, they don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time someone new comes in.”
One feature especially helpful is a notification engine that sends e-mails on a schedule, or on demand, to remind race participants of upcoming deadlines, changes in the race schedule and other administrative notes which otherwise would have to be sent via snail mail, by phone or by typing in all the various e-mail addresses.
Anne McCormack, race administrator for the San Francisco Yacht Club, confirmed the notification system has saved many hours of work which used to be accomplished manually.
“You can select from several different options: all, those who have paid, or not paid, and send one message. It is very useful.” she said. “And since the system retains the entrants’ information, we can send a note announcing upcoming events, helping to increase participation.”
For the event organizers, Compete-At can help to increase entrants by allowing people to enter up to the last minute and offers a secure, pay on-line feature, eliminating trips to the bank to cash checks which take up to 10 days to clear. On one screen, the number of people signed up is also clearly visible.
“We had one sailing customer expect a decrease in registration due to the economy,” Berger said. “But in fact their registrations for the regatta was up 25 percent this year with online registration.”
Organizers can post rules and guidelines, saving repetition, confusion and possible inconsistency in relaying information to entrants.
Using a laptop with wireless capability, organizers can post race results in real time, and photos of the winners. This feature can increase media exposure by allowing race organizers to send links to local newspapers and sailing magazines.
The Web presence allows millions to find the event by search engines and from social media sites such as Twitter and My Space, increasing the potential number of entrants to an event.
Like all technology, there are sometimes glitches. Ross said Compete At developers test the software on all major web browsers for both Macintosh and Windows platforms. He said they keep up with new technology, doing pre-emptive fixes when a problem is discovered.
“We are not content to sit and wait for issues to pop up,” Ross said. “We constantly monitor e-mail and voicemails, analyzing the trouble tickets and repair any issues and make incremental improvements to make the experience both pleasant and productive for the client.”
McCormack, who has been using Compete-At for three years, said she would recommend the product to anyone.
“The staff is very supportive, responsive and well-informed,” she said. “We ran a very complicated event a few years ago and they were on-call for me at all hours of the night.”
Watson concurred. “I would certainly recommend it to others - not only is it easy to use, but when you do have a question, the support staff is responsive and helpful.”
Using technology to release the administrative load and do the repetitive work is why the computer was invented in the first place.
Comments