Cordele...hello?

On Tuesday, June 6, 2017 at 9:27:25 PM UTC-4, wrote:
So its 9:00 PM on Day 2 of the Standard, 15M, and Open Nationals at Cordele and the outside world doesn't even know if contestants even gridded, launched, or scored. Nothing on SSA site, nothing on Fly Cordele-Soaring Contests Facebook, and nothing on Glide Port. Disappointing. US competition soaring would be better served if the world soaring community were kept informed.


A Cordele contest report is up now. Not much to report with regards to the actual contest. Rain, rain, and rain. Even the farmers are getting tired of it. I'll do my best to keep reporting up to date from here on out. Expect a brief morning report, maybe a brief after gate opening report, and a report in the evening.

CD

Thank you.

On Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 10:03:43 PM UTC-4, WB wrote:
On Tuesday, June 6, 2017 at 9:27:25 PM UTC-4, wrote:
So its 9:00 PM on Day 2 of the Standard, 15M, and Open Nationals at Cordele and the outside world doesn't even know if contestants even gridded, launched, or scored. Nothing on SSA site, nothing on Fly Cordele-Soaring Contests Facebook, and nothing on Glide Port. Disappointing. US competition soaring would be better served if the world soaring community were kept informed.


A Cordele contest report is up now. Not much to report with regards to the actual contest. Rain, rain, and rain. Even the farmers are getting tired of it. I'll do my best to keep reporting up to date from here on out. Expect a brief morning report, maybe a brief after gate opening report, and a report in the evening.

CD

Thanks Wally!
Post some pictures of FP's conversion!
Best regards
KO

Agree it would be nice to see daily reports on the SSA site.

However, Andreea put up a number of nice videos on facebook sometimes several per day. She deserves a lot of credit for the time and effort being creative and testing this different approach.

On Wednesday, June 14, 2017 at 3:13:04 PM UTC-7, Glider RN wrote:
Agree it would be nice to see daily reports on the SSA site.

However, Andreea put up a number of nice videos on facebook sometimes several per day. She deserves a lot of credit for the time and effort being creative and testing this different approach.

On three of the last four days they didn't fly.
Today they flew, they got disgusted, they canceled the day, they landed. They put gliders back in boxes.
Right now they're wining and dining after sitting under the overcast (perhaps that's whining and dining?) for so long.
Jim

It's a shame that there wasn't more coverage from the contest. IIRC, an analysis of website traffic from a few years back showed that contest reports was one of (if not THE) most frequently accessed links on the SSA server. That was a while back, so maybe that's changed.

Every contest where I've been the CD, done the weather, or had some other official capacity, I volunteered to either do the reports or contribute. It just takes a CM that has this on the critical path checklist. It's not like the CM or CD need to do this; they just need to make sure it gets done. Sean Fidler and team really raised the bar at the SGP at Seminole this year.

Erik Mann (P3)

On Wednesday, June 14, 2017 at 6:13:04 PM UTC-4, Glider RN wrote:
Agree it would be nice to see daily reports on the SSA site.

However, Andreea put up a number of nice videos on facebook sometimes several per day. She deserves a lot of credit for the time and effort being creative and testing this different approach.

Please don't post to FB! Not everyone has a FB account and reading about the contest will not make me opening one, either. The SSA has a website that we - the SSA members - pay for and I would appreciate reading the updates there. I am not sure if there is a difference in time & effort between posting to FB and the SSA site, though.

Uli
'AS'

Watching the Live tracker and checking the results page provides information in the quickest possible way.
Pilots on site get their information that way.
What else would you want to know?
I like the Facebook post. It is quick and easy to post and view.
Use an pseudo-anonymous account like other pilots if you are worried about security.

For those of us not on Facebook, all we are asking is to copy and paste the information from Facebook to our SSA website so we can be included in the national contest news. Perhaps take 5 minutes each day to do that, or designate someone to do this.

That would be much better than no reporting at all.

On Thursday, June 15, 2017 at 5:02:39 AM UTC-6, AS wrote:
On Wednesday, June 14, 2017 at 6:13:04 PM UTC-4, Glider RN wrote:
Agree it would be nice to see daily reports on the SSA site.

However, Andreea put up a number of nice videos on facebook sometimes several per day. She deserves a lot of credit for the time and effort being creative and testing this different approach.

Please don't post to FB! Not everyone has a FB account and reading about the contest will not make me opening one, either. The SSA has a website that we - the SSA members - pay for and I would appreciate reading the updates there. I am not sure if there is a difference in time & effort between posting to FB and the SSA site, though.

Uli
'AS'

Social media works fine and is easy for the most part and allows sharing of interesting content far beyond the soaring community, so there is an upside. Those organizing SSA sanctioned events at the regional and national level are supposed to list Contest Personnel on the Sanction Application. We have so few willing to host regional and national contests, that posting to the SSA web site for archival purposes languishes due to lack of volunteers, though it is not difficult as a process. Online Internet access from many sites is poor to non-existent and overloaded when 65 pilots/crews show up to strain the local bandwidth. Smart phone capabilities have pushed this trend.

Digital media is a shifting paradigm and social media a component of that. Twitter is in wide use in Europe.

Yes, the SSA server a member asset. It was migrated late last year to a more current operation system and , a process that took about five weeks of voluntary and paid effort and increased hosting costs. We might express that to contest organizers to include use of the server in their planning. Each member also has personal blog space. Members may also subscribe to RSS feeds to each area of the web site for notifications of posting regarding SSA programs, committees, and members. This in one place where it can be archived and is backed up regularly.

Frank Whiteley