Technical -- Timing & Results Committee: 2005 AGM Report

Technical -- Timing & Results Committee: 2005 AGM Report

by Kevin Miller

I have been the the Chair of the Technical -- Timing & Results Committee for the past 7 years. Committee members in 2005 were Michelle Barnet, Anita Miller, and Jaclyn Vallis.

My 2003 and 2004 reports evaluated our seasons' timing and results experience against the Goals, Objectives, and Major Tasks listed in our Game Plan. The parts of this year's Game Plan that pertain to Timing & Results did not change, and for the most part, our actions and experiences also did not change; we were every bit as successful in 2005 as we had been in 2003 and 2004. Therefore, this report will simply note miscellaneous things that were different in 2005.

The timing equipment was stored at Jaclyn's house rather than my house. One exception was the notebook computer, which remained at my house. Therefore, Jaclyn rather than Anita ensured that batteries were charged, and all equipment was returned from a race and working well.
We used V4.36 of Race Wizard in 2005.
At meetings in the off-season, we addressed the role of staff at a race. We agreed that one staff member (or senior Board member) would be at every race, and we formally defined that person's role. For timing & results, the role was defined as "support", not "doing results". This essentially meant helping with timing, not leading the timing & results effort. We decided it would be up to the Race Director to either find a qualified volunteer to lead timing & results, or to hire a qualified person. In early spring I asked all qualified people (three of them, other than Anita and I) if they would be willing to be hired by a race, but none were interested. That essentially left the majority of the races to be handled by Anita and/or me. Fortunately, it all worked out fairly well.
- In late April, Anita and I held a timing & results training session at our house for the new organizers of the Birds Hill Duathlon Series. It was extremely successful. Dave Desharnais, whose education and profession involves "working with computers", did an exceptional job handling registration/timing/results for the five races in that series.
- At the Triple Threat Tri, Jaclyn handled the staff role, and Anita and I volunteered to lead registration/timing/results because this was our club's race. Summer Development Coordinator Mandy Johnson was also helping at this race, but her biggest role was to learn. The weather made it a challenging day. The rain and wind forced us to set up registration in the Birds Hill Park East Beach changeroom and Anita and I to do the Race Wizard / computer work in the front seats of our van. There were many no-shows, and the race started late. It was a miserable day for everybody, so I felt we were under major pressure to get the results out very fast before everyone left for home. Things went very well under these circumstances. Given that there isn't a decent building to work from at East Beach, Triple Threat should consider borrowing a motorhome or trailer to use as results headquarters. (This is the solution that St Malo, Pinawa, and Morden use because they also do not have a building to work out of.)
- At St Malo Multisport, which was also a Triathlon Canada Junior/U23 Development Series race, Jaclyn handled the staff role, and Dave Desharnais, who was now an experienced Race Wizard user, was hired to lead their timing & results. Leading up to the race, there was some confusion about responsibilities between the Race Director, the Registration Coordinator, and Dave. On race-day there were a few minor problems that I fixed up when I received the the file after the race, but there was also one fairly major problem: interim results were not produced for the Junior/U23 heats because nobody had realized or identified that as a special requirement for this event. The results for those heats were produced at the same time as the St Malo Multisport results -- 4 hours after the Junior/U23 heats had ended. In the future, the U23/Junior heats should be set up as a completely separate race in Race Wizard.
- At the inaugural Tri In The Park, which was not a Grand Prix event, Jaclyn, Mandy, Anita (and Amber) handled most organization functions, including timing & results. It was a lot of work by our staff, especially considering the small turnout and the fact the results weren't used at post-race.
- At Pinawa Free Spirit, Jaclyn handled the staff role, and Anita volunteered to lead registration/timing/results as a favor to the Race Director. A very bright Computer Science student, who was working in Pinawa for the summer, assisted Anita. Everything went very well.
- At Morden, the Race Director hired Anita and I to lead registration/timing/results. Anita and I also shared the staff role. Everything went very well. We were impressed with the dedication of the Race Director's timing volunteers who worked from 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM.
- At Lac du Bonnet, Mandy handled the staff role, and Michelle Barnet led registration/timing/results because the LdB Tri is her race. Michelle did the run segment for one of her Corporate Relay teams because she couldn't find another runner for the team, so the Race Wizard results work started quite late during the race. When a few minor timing errors surfaced, Anita, who was at LdB as a racer, jumped in and worked with Michelle to straighten things out. Unfortunately, results were very late arriving at the post-race banquet, and many participants had already eaten and left for home.
- At the inaugural Kenora Borealis MultiSport, Anita and I were hired to lead registration/timing/results. Anita and I also shared the staff role. Everything went very well.
- At Riding Mountain, Mandy handled the staff role, and for the 5th year in a row, the Race Director hired Anita and I to lead registration/timing/results. Everything went very well.
- At Duathlon Mitch Hildebrand, which was not a Grand Prix event, for the second year in a row Jaclyn handled the staff role and registration/timing/results using Race Wizard, but this year there was a highly skilled and enthusiastic local volunteer who helped her, and who had read through our procedures and played around with Race Wizard prior to the race. This Ste Anne volunteer has indicated that she would like to work at other races in 2006. This is great news for us.
- Results at all eight Kids of Steel races were again done with paper and pencil (no splits), and typed by Anita into an HTML (website page) template. Anita led registration/timing/results all all races (with assistance from Jaclyn, Mandy, Kevin, Brent, Amber, and/or others) except St Malo and Curran Park where Jaclyn and/or Mandy led the effort.
- All Northern Manitoba races were completely handled by the Race Director; registration/timing/results was done done with paper and pencil, then typed into a file and e-mailed to Anita for posting on our website.
- I was the technical support person at all major races (the five Birds Hill Duathlon Series and the seven big Grand Prix races) except Lac du Bonnet where it was Michelle. Dave is also a qualified Tech Support person.
- It is very likely that Anita, and especially me, will not be attending this many races in 2006. Therefore, it is important that I encourage Michelle, and especially Dave to be available to be hired by Race Directors for timing & results in 2006. We're committed to fully training the woman from Ste Anne. It's also important that Triathlon Manitoba hires a Summer Development Coordinator in 2006 who is as skilled as Mandy Johnson.
This was our third year of offering and supporting consistent online registration with EventsOnline.CA at all seven major Grand Prix races.
- Last January, I finally wrote detailed documentation about online registration so that every race would not have to depend on me to set up their online registration, and also do their data download into Race Wizard:
  - I wrote a four page document entitled Triathlon Manitoba -- Online Registration that listed the background of online registration for Triathlon Manitoba, and explained how to set up and use online registration for an event.
  - I updated the Triathlon Manitoba -- Race Wizard Timing & Results document with a new section entitled Downloading racers from EventsOnline.CA . It lists the format of the EventsOnline.CA Data File, and it also gives detailed instructions for downloading the online registration Data File, and then importing it into the Race Wizard Racers Register and Start Order by using Race Wizard’s Import Data File feature.
  - We also have a Triathlon Manitoba -- Timing With TimeTech Sprint 8 document.
  Dave and Michelle set up online registration and downloaded the Data File for St Malo and LdB respectively. Martha Laverock set up online registration for Pinawa Free Spirit. I set up online registration and downloaded the Data File for all other races because Anita and I were hired (or volunteered) to do that. Other than LdB where EventsOnline.CA somehow muffed the integrity and/or contents of the Data File (which caused Michelle and I a few hours of grief), everything went very well. For all races, I analyzed the contents of the Data File prior to data download -- I looked for all the inconsistencies I documented in my 2003 report (David Doe versus Dave Doe, etc) to determine what I (or Michelle or Dave) would have to do to contents of the Data File after downloaded, but before importing it into Race Wizard.

Online registration for Kids of Steel

A few parents have asked us to offer online registration for Kids of Steel. If we did that, registrants would pay a $2 transaction fee to EventsOnline.CA . With a $10 KoS entry fee, most parents would not bother, and the benefit to us is questionable.
In order to make it convenient and worthwhile for both the registrant and us, we'd want one online form for all KoS races -- the registrant would be able to register for any number of the 8 KoS races at one time, and the registrant would be able to register 2 kids at one time (or perhaps 3 kids). If the KoS Committee thinks this is a good idea, I could ask John Litherland of EventsOnline.CA if he could create such a flexible form (I think so),
and I'd work with him to create a Data File format that was easy for us (Anita) to use.

Great work by all the people mentioned in this report, and the many timing volunteers at all the races, resulted in a very good year for registration, timing, and results with few problems.

Please also refer to my Technical - Timing & Results Committee annual reports from the previous seven years: 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004.

This page was last updated on September 26, 2005