Pulling out of a race early.

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Comments

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    I'm a runner, if I enter a race and have to miss it due to injury or illness, i see that as hard luck, an occupational hazard.

    It's happened twice in 11 years, so not something I see any need to change things over.

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭
    Dave The Ex- Spartan wrote (see)
    You pay a computer twat to write it for you


    And after the 5 race he might even have moved on from the beta version to one that works

     

    That's what I thought, and I guess that's why clubs don't want to do it.  

  • David Falconer 3 wrote (see)

    I assume it would probably be for the organisers to prevent being sued, so like for instance Im running along, trip and break my leg, I sue the organisers and then their insurance covers the legal cost for the action to defend it.

    And I assume medically it would cover the cost of basic care? I really have no idea, bet most people have no idea.

     

    I don't think the insurance would cover that kind of personal injury - The fact that you could trip and break your leg would be considered your 'own risk', and probably in the disclaimer when you sign up.

    The exception might be if the organisers had been negligent in some way, eg. taking the route accross a busy dual carriageway, not making provision to stop traffic, and a runner getting hit. Or, say, the giant start clock falls on a runner (I'm struggling to think of the sort of incidents which could realistically occur!)

    I 'believe', insurance is more from a 3rd party respect e.g. a runner ignores marshals or strays off course and knocks down a pedestrian / damages property.... and the pedestrian or owner of the property sues. That kind of thing.

    I'm basing this on the type of insurance other organisations (Rotary club etc) tend to take out for their events. It would be interesting to hear from someone in the Insurance business.

     

  • XX1XX1 ✭✭✭
    Wilkie -- I don't see anyone on this thread suggesting that anyone, let alone small running clubs, set up computer systems or anything else... Who do you think is advocating that?
  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    It's being advocated that events should have that kind of system, and many events are organised by running clubs.

    Nearly all the events I do are organised by clubs.

  • Stevie G . wrote (see)

    I'm a runner, if I enter a race and have to miss it due to injury or illness, i see that as hard luck, an occupational hazard.

    It's happened twice in 11 years, so not something I see any need to change things over.

     

    You should be so lucky. Many who enter events are also carers and parents and are forced to miss races when perfectly fit themselves. Organisers need to look after their customers and I fail to see why official transfers cannot be made. I really don't go along with the idea that it causes far too much work. There is one organiser, for instance, on the Events thread who is adamantly 'no transfers' but seems to spend so much time on the Forum that he would have been able to transfer half the field if necessary.

  • And 10 years to get it to do what it says on the tin
  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    Not everyone is as nice as you DF, to do it for free!

  • The only time a software engineer gives anything away for free, is when they realise they would never get the public to pay for it !
  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    In fairness, a lot of what running clubs SAY about their races differs to what actually HAPPENS.

    Example....no entries on day. My old club said this, but weren't daft. They knew people would try and just run it without a place otherwise, so they made sure they allowed it on the day on the low.

    Most reasonable clubs will allow transfers, but again, they're not stupid enough to advertise the fact as it invites more work.

  • XX1XX1 ✭✭✭
    Wilkie -- Your post today at 16:21... I can see the advocation of existing system modification, which clearly would not impact running clubs that do not currently have their own.
  • XX1XX1 ✭✭✭
    DF3 -- I think we just need a few high spec systems... Running clubs, even the small ones, already have access to these types of systems via Full On Sport, etc... I don't see that every little running club having their own crappy low spec system as being the way forward image
  • UluruUluru ✭✭✭

    IN the end the race had to be postponed due to weather. Entrants were then given the chance to defer to one of two races (amazingly one was the race which the organisers said they had nothing to do with), run on the renewed date or donate your entry fee to the race who would donate it to charity

     

     

  • Also-ranAlso-ran ✭✭✭

    No doubt the debate will be back soon.

    Milton Keynes marathon incorporates transfer of places. Good on them. Shame it can't cope with the simplest of transfers, e.g. from affiliated runner to unaffiliated runner without manual intervention from the race organisers.

    = Yet another badly spec'd out bit of development work  that a developer was only too willing to implement for them.

  • DeanR7DeanR7 ✭✭✭

    taxi - but davids offering will be cheaper than using full on sport etc... so to make it accessible to smaller events on tighter budgets per user

    david, what about ongoing maintenance?  as we know software/systems fall over. who is going to be on call free of charge to set this up.  Look at this forum, something falls over and it takes weeks to resolve.  A small running club event will be anxious to take such a risk.

    Anyway it sounds like you have an excellent opportunity to make some very easy $ david.  This easy to set up system can be created off the shelf for events and maintained by you in your down time.  It will be repeat business as the event is each yr and can be rolled out to many events with no re-work. 

     

  • Also-ranAlso-ran ✭✭✭

    Will you also donate the server that this is going to be hosted on? Transfers sometimes require additional payment - have you thought that through? As a small business owner the amount of red tape I get caught up in with PCI security etc can be a nightmare.

    David as a developer, are you not reinventing something that already exists? Why not look at the online event registration systems that exist, e.g. regonline.activeeurope.com Some of these systems can cope with transfers, although someone somewhere either has not spe'd the full requirements, or the developer got bored and moved on to more fertile pastured.

  • Also-ranAlso-ran ✭✭✭
    Yes, things aren't like they used to be in I.T. In my day we used to charge out the work experience guy at ??1100 a day.



    Regonline is one of the ones that does transfers badly. Probably used the work experience on that one.



    I guess taking all this on, along with the ongoing costs will help you sleep at night image
  • DeanR7DeanR7 ✭✭✭

    as a lead on an IT project with a budget of approx $200m i know exactly how the charge out rates v quality of work ratio isnt in line image

    but as a pet project why not build it and charge less than 50p a user and see who bites.

    but lets not forget how this all kicked off.  It was about transfers not entries.  you will need a central control over transfer changes unless you go down the user password option which is adding more potential issues.  So the transfers will be maintained by a nurse/gardener/surveyor who is the race director who doesnt feel comfortable using this tech.  they will need support which entails more cost/time.

  • here's one

    http://www.premiermarathons.com/

    uses paypal or similar for payment gateway

     

    This company also does a lot of value add stuff like race packs, chip timing etc, each with a price and profit for the company.  Works really well.

     

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