Another Debate Question - Rules, Volunteers, Divisions and Tournament Sanctioning

[KD5MDK]

Unfortunately, this probably greatly reduces the pool of potential volunteers since in my opinion, there are few people willing or able to miss four - six days of work/life to train and stay extra days while incurring additional hotel expenses.

BC trainees are put up in the USFA hotel rooms. They have to pay their own travel, but if you were going for your kids anyway, or the NAC is relatively local, that's not a big deal. As far as expecting you to miss 2-6 days of work, the existing staff is already doing that, it's part of the National Tournament baseline.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by teacup

If the USFA needs and wants volunteers, they need to be more specific with their requests. It is hard to get people to volunteer for open ended nebulous requests.

Absolutely.

That said, tchwojko's point is very applicable here. Most of the "on the platform" jobs require more training than can be conveniently given to a one-time volunteer. Even if it's for the entire 4-day tournament. Anything less than that and it doesn't even come close to working out.

This is the same with any of the other "tournament official" positions at any national event. Without training, and some way for those at the event to KNOW that a potential volunteer has had that training, a volunteer can't be used as a referee, as an athletic trainer, or as an armorer. Working the table is no different in that regard. There is usually a limited opportunity for previously-untrained volunteers at the check-in kiosks.

Assuming that we're talking about trained volunteers, what you're asking about is the equivalent of being a "walk-on" official. Not having worked on the DT at a national event, it's hard to say whether or not it would be beneficial to add such people. Referees are a bit more fungible and the Head Refs still maintain the right to decline offers of such service when it's not beneficial.

Speaking more generally, and recapping the content of the linked document:

We need to build out the volunteer infrastructure for all types of volunteer.
* We need to advertise where we have needs.
* We need to proactively ask people to fill those needs.
* We need to make it easy for people to find out how to get started and how to progress in one's personal development as a volunteer.
* We need to create, expand, or expand access to volunteer training systems, some of which are currently in place, some of which are in place but obscure, and some of which are very much ad hoc currently.
* We need to recognize volunteers for their efforts.

The linked proposal includes a number of questions at the end to which we should have written-down and easily-accessible answers.

-B

[mgriff]

Training for bout committee has become more difficult over the past few years, simply because the number of competitors at both NACs and SN has grown so much. Even at many NACs, we're too busy and stressed to be very good at training, and SN is another creature entirely, in terms of the complexity of the schedule, the consequences of errors, and the general pressure.

Normally, anyone who is interested in volunteering for BC work is now required to have significant BC experience at the divisional and sectional level before being taken on as a trainee at NACs. Based on their NAC experience, a trainee may then be asked to work more NACs and may eventually be asked to work SN.

Not all trainees are asked to continue training for BC--temperament is one of the crucial factors we have to consider when evaluating potential BC staff. Some parents get too distracted when their kids are fencing, some volunteers talk too much and don't keep up with the tasks at hand, some get too crabby and irritable and don't work well with others.

BC folks are only just starting to create a more formalized recruiting, training, and rating system like those of the FOC and the armorers, so once that process gets further along, I expect our recruiting and training will get more effective--which will be A Very Good Thing, since we seriously need a larger pool of trained and experienced BC volunteers from which to staff events (says the woman for whom SN will be her 6th event--and 4th as chair--this season).

(I'm only an experienced BC person but am not a member of the TC, so this is only my own impressions and not any kind of official statement.)

Mary

[teacup]

I wasn't suggesting that total novices step in to do registration, etc. I realize that certain tasks require training and/or experience. There have been times when I wish that I had not used volunteers because mistakes made by inexperienced volunteers have taken more time to correct than if I had done things myself.

I also concur with mgriff's post that not everyone is successful running a tournament due to reasons she expressed.

With that said, I think there is a place for novice volunteers to gain experience with various aspects of national tournaments to eventually become competent that doesn't involve them being committed to being there the duration of an event.

[tchwojko]

Originally Posted by teacup

With that said, I think there is a place for novice volunteers to gain experience with various aspects of national tournaments to eventually become competent that doesn't involve being committed to them being there the duration of an event.

You'd need a volunteer coordinator or mentor to keep an eye out for those novices. Perhaps just have the new volunteer shadow a more experienced one for a bit. Not terrific training, but more than none.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by CadetVet

Although I would have expected myself to agree with this statement, I find that I strongly disagree on several counts. First, what we (and many organizations do) is use volunteers until they are "smoked down to the filter." True, people get good at certain tasks, but we don't really do a good job of bringing in - and trusting people - through a development pipeline. The good folks get burned out, but there aren't people who are developed to step in their place. The "top" of the volunteer pyramid is entrenched - but this wouldn't change simply because they get a paycheck - most corporations are remarkably inefficient, too.

Second, people of all skill levels fall in love with the sport. When they find out that they are mediocre fencers - many look for other avenues to stay involved (I'm a case in point). I'm not going to give up my paying job for a $25/hour USFA job... put simply, the USFA couldn't pay enough for the amount of work it requires.

Third, although I hate slippery-slope arguments, I have to ask - why should we "professionalize" the administration - unless we "professionalize" the bout committee and referee cadres? After all, the have a direct effect on the competitors and the competitions - and arguably work harder than most anyone else at our large events.

Far as I can tell, the current financial conundrum was, in part, caused by paid employees. Paying someone doesn't make them better at the task.

Ultimately, I do think that we can manage better - whether we're using mercenaries or an all-volunteer army. We shouldn't let our volunteers burn out like we do. We should do a better job of rotating people in - even if that means occasional quality issues.

A. Neutral80, and 'T' are clearly lacking in experience* running division operations: 1 fulltime person could barely manage the the affairs of ONE division that is small-medium sized, let alone some of those monster divisions on the east coast, or in California.

B. To have some central staff of WHATEVER size managing all affairs of local level activities is really not viable, either, for reason so numerous, and obvious, I shouldn't need to bore you with them...

C. Congrat's to CadetVet on bringing down the big bucks, but I really doubt the USFA would be paying $25/hr for the position described!

D. The 'Politics' will never stop: everyone wants something different, when they don't see it happen, they often, either complain that the systems needs changing, or they go out and make things happen. The problem is when they
either 1, don't equitably enforce policy (as described elsewhere), or do what is what they want, or is good for them, without properly ananlyzing, or caring, whether it is good for fencing in the long run.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by teacup

Christine Simmons is requesting volunteers on the Summer Nationals information page. I wonder how many people have responded.

Personally, I tried to volunteer to help with bout committee at NAC's and was told if I couldn't be there for the whole time, the tournament committee wasn't interested.

Now maybe there was something wrong with me personally and they didn't want my help or maybe there is nothing that could be done for only one or two days, but no other options for volunteering were suggested.

I obviously don't know who/where you are, or what valuable experience you may well have;
The question is does the coordinator...
Next time you go to a NAC, spend some time at the check in booth, and try to get the know how stuff is done, and what knowledge is necessary for that, and other roles...having experience running the Exseed software is also an issue, at the moment, since that is what the USFA is using.

Hopefully, that will soon change, as FencingTime offers so much more in the way of functionality, and ease of use...

Scheduling a lot of folks for 1 or 2 days is pretty challenging for such a long duration event, if you can get them all together beforehand for an afternoon of training, it can make sense...otherwise, it's a pretty tough logistics problem....

If you have worked with them before, there's a good chance they'd welcome your assistance on a more transient basis...

[lindajdunn]

Originally Posted by teacup

Christine Simmons is requesting volunteers on the Summer Nationals information page. I wonder how many people have responded.

Personally, I tried to volunteer to help with bout committee at NAC's and was told if I couldn't be there for the whole time, the tournament committee wasn't interested.

Now maybe there was something wrong with me personally and they didn't want my help or maybe there is nothing that could be done for only one or two days, but no other options for volunteering were suggested.

Do you have a link to that page? All I can find are the links to word or pdf documents.