Having managed four consecutive contests at Cordele, two Nationals,
and 4 Regionals (the nationals had concurrent Regionals), I like some
of your ideas, but others show evidence of unfamiliarity with the
subject. Especially the financial aspects. We spent a great deal of
time before and during the contests trying very hard to break even.
Cordele has no ongoing soaring operation, so all towpilots must be
imported, as must the towplanes. Thus ferry fuel and housing are an
expense. No tow operation will give up their Pawnee for a week and two
weekends without a guaranteed income--tow or no tow. Are you aware of
the cost of operating a Pawnee, per tow?

As to meals, well, for $10 what can you get? Do you import volunteers
to cook burgers? Every day?

On the ground you need a CD, CM, Dir Ops. These people must be fully
familiar with glider contest operations. You might be able to get WX
and Scorer remotely, but on site is much better. So--food and housing
for these.
You must have a competent Retrieve Office. They need an office, phone
lines, internet

I could go on and on, but my fingers are tired, and you get the idea.
We filtered a lot of money, and worked hard for very little profit. If
we got paid $1.00 per hour we would be way ahead!

Go talk at length to someone who has done this a few times.







On Jun 16, 1:43*am, wrote:
Some other suggestions I have are these:

1. *Eliminate the $200 sanctioning fee with the SSA to help promote clubs to host contests (especially the small or first time contests). *This will bring down costs to promote races.

2. *Put a max on meal prices of $10. *$17 per person is too high. *For a family of 4, that's $68 each night!

3. *Since Sports class and Club class typically consist of younger pilots with kids in school, host these nationals (maybe regionals too) when school is out for the summer.

4. *Consider a "contest stimulus package" from the SSA to clubs who host their very first contest. *Give $500 from the SSA to the club ONLY if they yield less than 10 competitors. *Now that the SSA is back on their feet financially, time for a give back.

5. *Update the list of nation wide towpilots who are willing to act as a tow in a contest. *This list is outdated.

6. *Form a list of volunteer CD's and CM's who love the sport and donate a weeks worth of time to help host a contest.

7. *Develop a guide to understanding the rules, just the basics, maybe a page or two. *Too many people get bogged down trying to read the massive rulebook. *The rulebook is mundane and hard to read.

8. *Eliminate the fixed contest entry fee and just have the variable contest fee. *If you pay $430 and the contest gets rained out...that's alot of cash blown. *With the variable entry fee you would only be out $200.

9. *Explore the possibility of having an remote/online scorer. *Running Winscore is tricky if your not familiar with it. *Scorers can be hard to come by for a contest, especially a new contest, if there's permission to email your flight logs to a remote scorer each evening and have them email the score sheet right back, this might help enable a contest or give birth to a new contest

10. *Get in line with the rest of the world, BRING BACK HIGH SPEED LOW PASS FINISHES!!!