AXCS: Club Resources
How To...XC Ski Events -- Part Two
Basic Event Planning and Organization
1.) Establish a planning and organizational committee
Many people have a love/hate relationship with committees, but sometimes you actually need them and this is one of those times. The chair of your organizing committee has got to be the bottom-line in terms of planning and decisions -- and the one person that would most likely benefit from reading this xcskiworld.com Web-resource! With event production
you can tailor the amount of committee members to the needs of the event. A small
event might take a committee of 3 while a National or International event will take up to several dozen people.
2.) Your event committee needs to meet on a regular basis.
If you are doing a good job of front-loading your event production, you will be
able to use these meetings as a way of keeping committee folks on track with their
different projects. It is a good idea to go over the event several times in meetings
for general knowledge, but I've found that only a few committee members will ever retain
all the details for weeks or months on end. In one case, my Chief of Course Marshals
and Safety actually had to be reminded what his job was a week before a major Championship--and he had been at our meetings for 4 months prior! It happens.
3.) Make your planning meetings short, sweet and productive.
After the early meetings with lots of event design decisions, you'll mainly just want progress
reports from different leaders and a check-off of what needs to be done by the next
meeting. It is a great idea to have a big chart made with all the major tasks listed
on it. That way as you get closer to the event you can physically see your progress
(or lack thereof). As with any meeting, prior organization is key! If the other committee
members see that the leader has his/her act together right from the start with efficient and productive meetings and plenty of communication -- they will almost always
respond with the same kind of organization in their respective areas. On the other hand, sloppy planning, disorganized meetings, and poor communication will almost certainly guarantee endless headaches and you run the risk of a very poorly run event.
4.) Specific jobs
Your exact list will depend greatly on the nature of the specific event. What is a luxury item for an elite race might be of critical importance for a local tour...and vice versa. Here is a typical committee structure for a major XC ski event--small ski events may allow one person to absorb many roles while larger events might need every role to be a separate person.
Keep in mind that you can change this list around a dozen ways to fit your situation.
For example, if you have some paid "volunteers", usually staff at a commercial area,
it is fairly easy to lump a couple jobs into one. Often at events I've directed I
have served in 1-2 other positions in addition to being in charge of the event although
this is not the ideal situation for some folks. If you develop a particularly large
event (500+ participants) you can start thinking about creating a part-time job
for the organizing chair but only if you can fund the position without increasing fees or cutting
back services.
IMPORTANT: Before anyone is allowed to be inked in for any position you should be
absolutely certain that every person knows exactly what they are signing up for.
A great tool in this process are simple job descriptions with exactly what is expected and when. You never want to get caught in a position of having someone bail out or do a terrible job because they didn't know how much they needed to do.
5.) Written Event Plan
After you have determined all your key positions and figured out your key checklist
items, you will want to come up with a detailed plan containing all the when, where, what, why, and how's from your preliminary planning meetings to your final thank you letters. Writing this plan is a tough job and will probably take one whole committee meeting just to outline plus several evenings on your own (for large events) but it is a fabulous asset to any size event! Put everything you can possibly think of into this document including all the due dates and deadlines for all the different jobs. Everything.
A big benefit of creating and going over this plan with the help of your whole committee present is that you get everyone jumping in with suggestions, ideas, and key points.
I always forget tons of important things when I create my scenario rough draft but
after a couple committee meetings most of the holes will get filled. In addition, by
getting the group to participate you'll end up with several folks that have a big-picture
grasp of the entire event--something that can always come in handy later on.
Try to start out functional with any new event and add ideas where you can later on.
Lots of new event leaders and committees get caught up in too many details and they
end up neglecting or forgetting important necessities! Conversely, many events deteriorate over time because leadership fails to keep implementing simple new ideas and improvements.
Find a balance. Finally, once you come up with this written scenario make several
copies and always save at least one for next year! Each year is slightly different
but having a scenario in place saves tons of time and effort.
Some useful event management links...
Very good article about the efficiency that on-line registration can bring to any endurance event. Written for running races, but the material applies to XC ski events as well.
General outline for running races by a Boston Marathon race director. Useful stuff.
USA Track and Field's checklist for running races. Some things won't apply, but still worth a visit.
