Cordele...hello?

On Wednesday, June 14, 2017 at 4:48:36 PM UTC-5, wrote:
It's the end of the National Championship for 3 classes. Not one single word posted on the SSA website for the last 3 days from the contest management.

Other contests are giving a video update each day to interview the winners. So it's not too much to ask that the contest management at least post one paragraph to update those of us across the country who are interested.

Someone please tell Andrea that we appreciate her reports, but they need to be done daily.

Not sure what we could have reported about on the days when it was raining at sunrise, raining during the pilots meeting, raining at grid time, and raining at sunset.

I would have liked to have posted stuff every day, but I just ran out of energy around midnight most days. The CD gig can is busy all by itself, but some of us also have day jobs that required attention, even when we are away at a contest. I know Andreea was even busier than me. Ditto for the rest of contest management.

It's never too much to ask someone else to do something.

All,

I would like to publicly thank the organizers and support team in Cordele. They did a truly outstanding job. This event was extraordinarily well organized and their carefully managed relationship with the city and local government was a masterclass which will provide us all a contest venue for many years to come. The organizers deserve nothing but praise and thanks. They were simply amazing from the pre-contest communications to the award banquet. They were also way beyond excellent behind the scenes with countless small touches and highly successful relationship building efforts.

In regards to informational updates, they were all over social media. They did a fantastic job with updates. Social media is powerful, successful and preferred because it doesn't necessarily rely on one source. It allows for a "community of content." In addition to the many live videos and updates produced by the outstanding Cordele organizers (and SSA helpers on-site), many of the competing pilots, their wives, their friends and their crews in attendance provided regular social media commentary, live videos, photos and updates on their own social media (Twitter, Facebook pages or YouTube) channels.

Banging yours fists on the table and saying "you want updates" but that you "don't want to subscribe to social media" is like saying you want safety but don't refuse to wear seat-belts, helmets or follow any check-lists. It makes no sense.

The reason the contest you desire is well covered on Social media (and not so much on the SSA webpage) is because social media is extremely easy to share (a live video is begun in seconds from a mobile phone). Updating a stale traditional website with links to a constant flow of new content and updates is NOT easy to share. In fact, as a fairly experienced contest organizer, the idea of updating a website to keep on par with social media absolutely sucks. This is why it doesn't get done. So you flat earth folks need to make a choice. Move into the 21st century or don't get updates. Ask someone to help you set up an account. If you can use google you can view social media.

In my opinion each SSA soaring contest should set up (takes 3 minutes, tops) its own contest Facebook page (example: https://m.facebook.com/FAISailplaneGrandPrixUSA/) and all interested parties can add and view content there.. Then the SSA Facebook page can simply share the highlights. Better yet, the SSA website "results and reports" page should simply feature a news feed from each contests Facebook page (welcome to 2015). Then even those who "refuse to participate in social media" can still see the Facebook contest page newsfeed content (deep inhale, slow long exhale, shaking head, sigh 😔).

This really isn't a difficult problem. Let's stop pretending that it is difficult or a problem.

And again, thanks to the Cordele organizers for everything that they did to host a wonderful contest.

Sean

Agree 100%. The contest organizers and volunteers did an absolutely
superb job. I watched Andrea trying to post pictures to the SSA website
one evening and I couldn't help but cringe, it was a time consuming and
cumbersome process compared to any of social media platforms.

Thanks to everyone at Cordele for all the time and effort you put in to
make it a memorable and fun event despite the dismal weather. A special
note of thanks to the CD Wally Berry for calling 3 assigned tasks on the
good weather days and saving the turn area tasks for the days with
uncertain conditions - in my opinion this is how it should be done.


Luke Szczepaniak

OK, so there were many other places with contest info, why not link them into the SSA contest page so those of us that use that have a way to find the others?
Being "staff" on a few automotive sites, I don't have issues there posting info/links but have never posted to the SSA site. Maybe it is a PITA.

For me, and likely others, finding all these alternative contest info sites is a PITA, maybe if they were easier to find, others may use them.

As an aside, while a lot won't use RAS, "711" does post up with a link to his info so at least I can find it here. For others following contests (or other adventures) RAS could be OK, but links through SSA would also be nice.