FRED Update: Beta Testing Please?

[KD5MDK]

Your Personal USFA Referee Cadre
The FOC has long wanted me to provide a service to tournament hosts around the country: the ability to contact a list of USFA referees and request their services without divulging the referees' email addresses. Now on FRED, BC users will find a new option under MyFRED: "My Referee Cadre'. You can build and save a list of referees from the official FOC database, and email them all asking them to ref at your tournament. For now, that's all it does; I want to get a feel for people's use of the referee capabilities before adding more features to that area. Possible future features include listing the refs that are coming to a tournament along with the preregistered fencers, and listing the presiding referee with the bouts in results. Note: referees not included in the FOC's database are excluded at this time. However, every rated referee is in there, as well as most people who've attended a referee seminar recently (those would be the folks that show up in the list with no ratings).

How about "set your price" referee cadre? Cadre can select a setting of what amount they're willing to accept per day. This could be visible or hidden. Organizers could say "I'm willing to pay X per day, who does that make available?" or "If I hire these people, what does that make my total cost?".

[oiuyt]

How about "set your price" referee cadre? Cadre can select a setting of what amount they're willing to accept per day. This could be visible or hidden. Organizers could say "I'm willing to pay X per day, who does that make available?" or "If I hire these people, what does that make my total cost?".

Start submitting RFP's or conducting bidding wars?

The amount I'm willing to accept per day is dependent on for whom I'm working, what the event is, what else is going on that weekend, and where the tournament is located.

While I look at bottom-line amounts, tournament organizers frequently look only at the "pay" amount, even when they include some form of reimbursement. Or look only at "pay" amount, without considering variable expenses (travel, etc.) that aren't reimbursed (or are, but at a non-variable rate, or a rate otherwise disconnected from actual incurred costs).

-B

[seak]

The problem with this is that my (and I'd guess most others) x varies depending on several factors (not even including how much other work I have to do during said period of time). First is distance I have to travel to said tournament. It will also depend on what else they are willing to pay for, whether there are people I want to visit, how many days they are hiring me for, whether it's also a tournament I plan to fence at etc.

For instance tournament A is 100 miles away and offering 50/day plus travel

tournament B is 100 miles away and offering 60/day no travel

In this case even though x is higher for B I would probably work A, and never B unless there were some other circumstances (wanted to visit friends, wanted to fence etc)

[KD5MDK]

True. But then, I didn't say you'd be auctioned to the highest bidder. Just that if someone wants to offer me $20 and a sandwich for lunch, they're not going to get me anywhere.

[trazom]

True. But then, I didn't say you'd be auctioned to the highest bidder. Just that if someone wants to offer me $20 and a sandwich for lunch, they're not going to get me anywhere.

But... what if its a boxed turkey sandwich lunch? And a bag of chips?

But no afternoon cookies.

[oiuyt]

But... what if its a boxed turkey sandwich lunch? And a bag of chips?

But no afternoon cookies.

As a 4 KD5MDK gets $45 plus the sandwich.

And that leaves aside many of the other non-financial benefits of refereeing at a NAC.

Speaking just for myself, and not for KD5MDK, I will accept considerably lower pay (read: down to basically free) if the tournament is paying to fly me somewhere. Pretty much anywhere.

Note that I do, however, have extremely limited availability, given many other (mostly fencing-related) commitments.

-B

[peet]

Any number of such referee hiring preferences could make really good improvements to the foc ref database, such as pay preferences (as suggested above), availability schedules, travel preferences, preferred weapon (not always obvious from the ref's ratings), a "don't bother me" flag, home airport, etc...

Thanks for the input folks!

-p

[KD5MDK]

As a 4 KD5MDK gets $45 plus the sandwich.

Indeed. On other than the last day, it's even more than a sandwich usually.

And that leaves aside many of the other non-financial benefits of refereeing at a NAC.

Like the really big one, eventually becoming a 3...

Speaking just for myself, and not for KD5MDK, I will accept considerably lower pay (read: down to basically free) if the tournament is paying to fly me somewhere. Pretty much anywhere.

I've struck a deal with one friend to referee at his tournament for flight, place to stay (suspect his house), $20 for food and parking at the airport and a nice steak dinner.

[seak]

Waiiit, so does this mean that if I pay for your airfares, promise to make you dinner, and find you a place to stay, both oiuyt and kd5mdk will come ref the cherry blossom for nothing more?

[oiuyt]

I said "pretty much" anywhere... :)

-B

p.s. okay, adding a qualifier to my earlier statement, the amount of incentive the flight provides is a non-linear function that's fairly flat (and low) at the beginning, but jumps quickly beyond a certain distance. 2-3 hour drives (such as to College Park) are prior to that rapid jump. Many destinations will gain a significant bonus boost in addition to the one given via pure travel.

[trazom]

As a 4 KD5MDK gets $45 plus the sandwich.

And that leaves aside many of the other non-financial benefits of refereeing at a NAC.

I can see I need to work on conveying humor... I was trying to be funny.

sigh


I would venture that most of the people who are working nationally for $20/ day are only working at SN, and this past year SN had a very high percentage of box lunches.

OTOH, I know of referees who turn down $100+ /day for a tourney within easy driving range (<2 hours) for a multitude of other tournament-related reasons, not just schedule conflicts

[seak]

I said "pretty much" anywhere...

-B

can't blame a girl for trying