Unofficial UK Slalom BBS

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:46 am**

Whatever system is introduced will need to allow for payment by cash/ cheque should the competitor wish to do so as there are still people out there that (for whatever reason) do not have the facility to pay for goods online. There are also clubs with community accounts that can only pay by cheque (one of the reasons the banks have delayed getting rid of cheques).

Posted: **Tue Aug 23, 2011 8:42 pm**

OK folks there are a few of you out there willing to look at the online entries, it will also possibly be worth engaging with Alan Adams who runs the Nene and already does this, also some research going on in Scotland.

so if you would like to e-mail me I will put you all in touch [email]anne.hounslow@btinternet.com.[/email] If you can put some sort of proposal forward for the ACM ( need by begining of Nov) that would be really great.

I look forward to hearing from you.

xxx Anne

Posted: **Fri Aug 26, 2011 8:34 am**

ukkayaker wrote:Perhaps the payment side would then be able to link to a "central point" where, depending on the event, the payment would be directed to the merchant account.

Personally, I would be willing to pay for about 8 entry fees in one go at the start of the season. These fees could be held 'on account'. Bulk payments like this would reduce the impact of paypal fees. Direct bank transfers would take away any fees. Although just a quick telephone call away with my bank, I don't know how easy other banks make it.

Unused credit could be carried over to the next season.

Posted: **Fri Aug 26, 2011 11:36 am**

Not sure that would make a difference as PAYpal take a % not a fixed amount per payment ?

I may of course have missed something

Posted: **Fri Aug 26, 2011 11:41 am**

Sorry pressed send to quickly :p

What may be of interest is the change going on at some banks - there must be some banking types pout there in the paddling world who could inform us? -

Recently I have moved my business account (which was costing a fair amount of money in electronic charges) to a more self managed internet model which costs me - nothing. As long as I dont bank or take out cash or cheques over a certain amount every month (which I don't everything is on line) its free! So the only thing I pay for now is any debit interest and overseas payments. Everything else is free. This is HSBC but I suspect other banks will have a similar product?

SO totally FOC electronic on-line banking is possible

Posted: **Fri Aug 26, 2011 4:59 pm**

But as a club I would not be happy for one person to be able to do with the club accounts what they please. By having cheques we can require two signatories so all payments have to be authorised.

It is telling that the BBC this week reported that there was a complete u-turn on phasing out chequest for now...

Posted: **Fri Aug 26, 2011 11:17 pm**

Time for a change and get this sport out of the dark ages is well needed! How fortunate we are to be an Olympic sport, given the state of the administrative procedures, (and not just race entries).
I have just witnessed an email exchange regarding post slalom admin and TBH, if I had been an organiser I would never do this again - it is absolutely ridiculous - the amount of paperwork, the numerous envelopes that need addressing - please remember most of us actually have day jobs beyond the weekend and do not appreciate snide comments when things go wrong, beyond our control.
there is a lot that needs sorting out, so in the mean time please can the powers that be "VALUE VOLUNTEERS"!

Posted: **Sat Aug 27, 2011 3:42 pm**

Great if all this can be can be made to work, cost effective and not get in the way. This bit, right at the start, is the key problem: "Create an online data base which holds every ranked paddler's details with regard to ranking, age group, club, address, BCU number, email address, and assumed risk tick box. Bib application would incorporate registering onto the database."
In season, new paddlers appear every week. Many are not yet bibbed. The system has to be very tolerant, or we would find ourselves refusing entries and losing people from the sport. I would rather have quaint systems than that.

Posted: **Mon Aug 29, 2011 4:40 pm**

Munchkin

Online banking verification systems can be used. But presumably someone checks/audits your club accounts?? So discrepancies would show. Someone can be as fraudulent with a cheque book system as with an online system!

But in any case you are going to have to find an alternative to cheques sooner rather than later.

Posted: **Tue Aug 30, 2011 12:05 am**

I am trying to get my head around all this. A few points:
- I have spent some time looking at on line payment solutions this year. We use these in the SCA but there is a cost and at the moment this is effectively sitting at around 6% to the recipient. There are a variety of models and the cost goes down as the volume goes up. Card companies all want their share to pay for their costs and provide their profits.
- I offered to take electronic payments at Easter for Tully and only had one request! Our bank then could not manage to process properly! Because of multiple signatures at the moment they have not provided on line access to details and can't produce the paper.
- Cheques are now definitely still with us for some time to come.
- I would love to get rid of entry cards but there remain some devoted to us having signatures!
- There is an issue that we need to solve (signatures don't I think cover it) of identifying the adult that sanctions the entry of minors to any event and the ability to tie back the responsibility therefore for ensuring proper and appropriate adult supervision at the event.
- Computers can help but they are not the answer to everything. We could get the section judges to enter points etc. directly into a system as with data from start and finish but power and environmental conditions up and down a riverbank would have challenges. We could set up wireless networks - there is one at HPP - but the average home access point would not be man (or woman) enough for the job.
- If going electronic we still need an option B as when the generator cooked the routers at Washburn and brought us down.
- We can barely afford what we have at the moment let alone investing in more kit. We need to find ways of moving forward incrementally on these issues.
- I have no doubt that we need to deal with the issues of unrecognised promotion but there are other ways of dealing with this - more to follow in due course....
- the ranking compilers currently hold the definitive lists not the website.
- we do need to move away from envelopes and stamps and pillar boxes in favour of electronic sharing of data and this certainly needs to be improved.

Posted: **Fri Sep 02, 2011 1:05 pm**

A simpler way of assisting Organisers may be to have all the ranking and bib officers on email. Then I could send out a request to appropriate officers and have a list of new promotee numbers latest ranking etc available for the event.

Post event it is easier to get results through and potentially checked/corrected by email than posting large quantities of paper & card.

Moving online in time may well come but we can progress in stages. At present having already had to revert to pen and paper with fried computers & printers smoking on site. I am not convinced that we all have suitable facilities to rely on technology based solution, (portable petrol generator with a steel shipping container for shelter are not what I regard as suitable or reliable).

PS - To all the various Ranking/Bib officers I do appreciate your efforts and yes I know I am invariably late in posting paperwork.

Posted: **Sat Sep 03, 2011 5:43 pm**

I agree with Seedy Paddler.

It would improve processing if we could move to using e-mail instead of post. Sending the results and any other papework by e-mail to ranking and bib officers would speed things up and could lead to us being able to potentially dispense with using post. We could have a simple mail group for each Division which sends the results to all those interested in that Division e.g. the Div 2 mail group would have all the e-mail address for the bib officers and ranking compilers for Div 2 plus the administrator.

We are always going to need some means to display results and at the moment, entry cards work best for this. As an organiser, I wouldn't want to complete some sort of info for each paddler so that I could display the run time and penalties at the race.

It would be an improvement if both sides of the entry card where portrait and the entrant also put in their e-mail address. This would enable queries by organisers and ranking/bib compilers to be dealt with much more easily than now. If there was a concern over juniors, parent's e-mail addresses could be used instead.

E-mail could be used to advise
1. paddlers that they were within 1 result of promotion
2. paddlers that they were promoted so they were prompted to apply for the next division's bib
3. paddlers that raced without a bib and so needed to apply for a bib before their result would count.

All of this takes time and effort and so we need to be careful that any changes improve the experience not only for our paddlers but also our many valuable volunteers.

Only once you have organised an event and come home after a long tiring weekend, do you realise that the event is not over until you have done all the paperwork. This is often done late at night after working all day and trying to catch up on all other other tasks you haven't done for weeks because you have been organising a race.

Posted: **Mon Sep 05, 2011 8:33 pm**

Sending the results and any other papework by e-mail to ranking and bib officers would speed things up and could lead to us being able to potentially dispense with using post.

As an organiser I sympathise with this, but as an ex-ranking officer..... one of the jobs was to check the cards against a results to look for entry errors (remember that paddlers check the cards to decide when to protest etc). Can't check the cards without the cards! So we would need to dispose of cards and only have the entered results displayed. But

As an organiser, I wouldn't want to complete some sort of info for each paddler so that I could display the run time and penalties at the race.

and of course need a backup when systems fail

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:47 am**

Dee - I accept this is a challenge but needs to progress.

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2011 7:40 am**

There are many reasons both technical and statutory why an on-line database is not yet feasible.
What is eminently feasible is for all orgainsers to use a very limited variety of event control software that gives results in published electronic format that can then be processed centrally and potentially with some degree of automation.
One option for all Div4 and even Div3 events would be to use a standard Excel (or compatible) spreadsheet; completed at or after the event and submitted for validation and publishing.

Unofficial UK Slalom BBS

Time for a change??