District Race - Location

General race coordinator discussions.
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gpraceman
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District Race - Location

Post by gpraceman »

I will be running this year's race for our district and I was a bit shocked to find out what facilities had been costing us. We were paying about $450 for an elementary or middle school gym. We couldn't get in to setup the night before the race (without paying more) and the gyms didn't have any sound system or projection system (as would be expected).

I found that by checking with churches within our district, that hosted BSA packs or troops, that we could get a facility for no cost. We have a large fellowship hall reserved and they will give us access to their sound system and projection system.

I don't know why previous district PWD chairs didn't try that option. Maybe schools were considered to be more convenient or less threatening (to non-church goers). To me, it seems like a great option that can be low cost or no cost and can come with nice extras like the sound system and projection system.
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Re: District Race - Location

Post by pwdarchitect »

Good choice on the church fellowship hall because it is rated as an assembly space in the code books. One thing that the Distict Activities Chair found with our District here in the St. Louis area is a Mall that is basically vacant and they have a large gathering type of room which could be used for the 230 or so cubs that participate in this event. One new thing that they did last year was to set it up as a Distict wide fair where the cub could earn patches and do things that they normally wouldn't have the opportunity to do. I believe they are also planning on holding this again in the same facilities with the same format.
http://www.boonetrails.org/Public_Relat ... intro.html
http://www.boonetrails.org/Public_Relat ... dlines.PDF
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RandyUnderwood
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Re: District Race - Location

Post by RandyUnderwood »

Randy,

One of the things we do is offer achievements - we do this primarily to keep the scouts entertained when they are not racing - but it's turned out to be a draw - we try to offer achievements they may not normally have an opportunity to get - the OA plans and runs it - so all I have to do is make sure they have enough room.
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Re: District Race - Location

Post by SpinDoctor »

Last year districts were at a school the previous year a church.
We do all our scout functions at the VFW hall that we are privledged to use at no cost. If you look hard enough you can find a free facility for a scout activity.
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Stan Pope
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Re: District Race - Location

Post by Stan Pope »

Facility cost should be one consideration when selecting a district PWD site! Features, safe capacity, comfortable capacity, parking, convenience, safety, and repeatability are others. (By "repeatability" I mean, can I get the facility or one like it each year?)

Event registration cost needs to be consistent from year to year ... and the cost needs to be seen as "reasonable" by those who pay.
Stan
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2kids10horses
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Re: District Race - Location

Post by 2kids10horses »

Randy,

Our Pack's track really belongs to a local church. For years they let us set it up in the school gym. Then one year, it was returned damaged, so they decided to charge us $50 to rent it. (To offset repair costs.) I don't know what damage was done.

So, last year, I coordinated our Pack race with their AWANA race. They set the track up in their Fellowship hall, and we raced our Pack race the day after their AWANA race. No damage to the track, and it was free.

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Re: District Race - Location

Post by rdeis »

Anyone consider track visibility?

It might be a luxury to be able to worry about this, but knowing that I'd be running our race this year, I attended several races last year looking for inspiration, and the most common irritation I noticed was how hard it was for spectators past the first or second row to see the track.

It seemed almost universal that you had to push your way forward for your heats in order to see. With a well published schedule you can at least know when to go forward, but keeping the schedule-- and more importantly communicating it well so people up front move away when they aren't running-- can be tough.

I chose the high school gym for us because it was the same price as the elementry school gym we had been using, and it offers bleachers so everyone can see.
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Re: District Race - Location

Post by Mr. Slick »

Visibility is one of the main reasons I use 64 foot tracks for most of the races, especially the large race of over 100 cars like district races.
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