Launch Event Volunteers – new topic name

[djsrocKeymaster]

Ok I feel really bad about not gettin in any volunteering in. I got too involved trying to get my L1 flight in. Rushed like a mad man trying to get things prepped and of course failed. Lesson learned….BE PREPARED!!
So anyways feelers were pretty bent and was kinda out of it til I launched my 38mm rocket and had a perfect flight.

Anyways Ill be up for helpin next launch anyway I can.

Good news is after crash, rocket is rebuildable and will fly again.

[elviss_boy]

Honestly I thought that Saturday went pretty smooth. Yea there was a line, but it was MHM and if you have ever been to LDRS its like that to. The problem I saw was that most flyers had rods not rails. And the left range had only one 1/4 inch rod. If maybe we had three we could fly more at a time.

[SCOTT EVANS]

Ok I feel really bad about not gettin in any volunteering in. I got too involved trying to get my L1 flight in. Rushed like a mad man trying to get things prepped and of course failed. Lesson learned….BE PREPARED!!
So anyways feelers were pretty bent and was kinda out of it til I launched my 38mm rocket and had a perfect flight.

Anyways Ill be up for helpin next launch anyway I can.

Good news is after crash, rocket is rebuildable and will fly again.

Worry about your cert first!
They are talking about you being the victom! 😉
Get level 2 then you will be the target!!! LOL

Scitt e

[Bruce R. Schaefer]

Listen, djsroc, what Scott said is right. This club is all about CERTS AND HAVING FUN FLYING! There are unsung heroes in the club, Joe being at the top, the rest clean our equipment, Art Hoag who is ALWAYS there at the “away pads” ready to help–plus he adds extra duty volunteering doing other stuff (RSO, LCO), those who tow our equipment, the diehards who setup and teardown, ones who register us and give away the really great raffle prizes, etc. These members need do no more. BTW, our #1 club guy, our prez, said, “Ohtay.” That means we’ve said enough, Spanky. 😉 While I agree with Warren–though “crowd control” is part of safety (RSO), we all did what we could, and it was great, let ‘er ride. IF we have any more issues, we’ll take ’em up at the next launch in June, the semi-annual club meeting. This last point is to new members, I’ve been flying rockets since 1965, AND THIS IS THE BEST CLUB I’VE FOUND.

[slipstick]

There wasn’t as much Mayhem on the ground, as there was in the air, and isn’t that the point of this event? It was my first, and I loved being there, and was able to coerce the fetching Mrs. Konshak to actually put a rocket on a rod (the Callisto that I one at the annual meeting and repainted) and call it hers for her 1st ever rocket launch (Send Becky a congratulatory email at bkonshak[at]mindspring[dot]com and hopefully she’ll be more enamored to hang with us). She named her rocket “Sky Doggie” after the shepard mix we adopted from the Boulder Humane Society that we named “Sky Rocket”. 😀

My only regret is spending too much time working on and chasing rockets and not enough time scoping out and assisting on everyone else’s projects. I was able to help a few with supplies and such, but as usual, I sucked more help out than I proffered. I would have loved to have spent the entire time studying everyone else’s work and visiting with all the players. I’m still struggling with knowing who’s name is attached to which face and forum handle.

FYI, the scribbles in the RCO box on Saturady afternoon were mine, MVK all wrapped together.

All in all it was a great show.

[Warren B. MusselmanModerator]

A few years ago I got it in my head that NCR was such a great club with such a great launch site that we should host LDRS. I brought it up at one of my first Executive Committee meetings and was shot down from all sides. After thinking about it a bit, I agree with everyone who nailed me.

A big event takes LOTS of work – far more than you can possibly believe. How clubs like Kloudbusters and POTROCS can do it, essentially year after year, is beyond me. If you’re throwing a big event, don’t expect to fly is basically what it comes down to. NCR’s Mile Hi Mayhem and Oktoberfest aren’t really big events but actually kinda small to middlin’ affairs as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Our biggest, the highly over-publicized Oktoberfest of 2005, drew over 500 people and a large percentage of them spectators who read about it in the local papers. We were pretty overwhelmed and the porta-potties were frightening on Sunday morning. That was something of a wakeup call and we’ve gotten a bit more organized since then. Even still, we really run things in a pretty casual way compared to events like LDRS. Think about these points…

– We do no traffic or parking management
– In an entire day – even a heavy day – we’ve never done more than 300 launches. (LDRS frequently will do well over 500)
– Much of the time the LCO also ends up functioning as RSO, pad manager and crowd controller.
– We have never had more than 5 people on duty EVER. (LDRS frequently has 20-30 people working to manage everything from the admin tent to parking to multiple RSO’s to many pad managers and other positions we’ve never even considered)
– 16 HPR pads and 8 low power pads is pretty much as big as we’ve ever gotten. LDRS sometimes runs nearly 100 pads (at least I’ve seen pads numbered in the 80’s and 90’s in some LDRS videos I’ve seen)

All in all, our launches are quite managable and I, for one, would like to keep them that way. There are a number of things we can do to improve the way we run these launches to make them run smoother and a bit more organized and so we could handle more flyers. The big question is how far does the club membership want it to go?

Personally, I think we could do a few things:

1- Start advertising to the membership that volunteers are needed for Mayhem at the January annual meeting and for Oktoberfest at the June meeting. Follow this up with repeated solicitations via email, the web site, and perhaps even snail mail until we have all the slots filled well ahead of time. Then, we have to remind people of their commitments at multiple points before the event and then again when they show up to the registration tent.

2 – We could use a few extra bodies to ensure that parking and traffic is managed properly so we don’t violate USFS rules for using the land. We had to chase a couple vehicles back to the flight line on Saturday morning.

3 – We could definitely use a crowd control person at the range gateway on Saturday during the busy time and probably another RSO. RSO’s should NOT be doing crowd management, but focusing on rocket safety exclusively.

4 – On Saturdays, we definitely need one dedicated pad manager at the low power pads at all times. Another one exclusively for the high power pads is also necessary. A Pad manager can’t do both. Pad managers also need to do what they can to keep people efficient when they’re setting up on the pad. We can’t have people running back and forth and holding up the range for everyone else. (When I was LCO, I had to hold up range left for over 15 minutes while one flyer repeatedly ran back and forth to his car for tape, igniter, and finally screwdriver to arm his electronics – I should have closed the range and cleared the pads in between each of his jaunts. If someone had been out there able to assist it would have helped a lot – the one pad manager was at the Estes pads helping the kids and didn’t have the tape or the screwdriver on him anyway.)

5 – We have a layout map for the range, but we don’t have enough pads to provide something for everyone that shows up necessitating changing out rods or rails on occasion. Not a big deal BUT things don’t get put back and stuff is left laying on the range where people end up tripping over it or bending rods, etc. The pad managers have to take a proactive stance on getting things set back up. We need to have more 1010 rails, more pads with larger rods and more 1/4″ rods in the high power pad area.

6 – We have the launch controller and range boxes to support a total of 32 pads – 16 low, 16 high, but we don’t have the pads themselves to manage that. We could use the range right pads with 8 low power and 8 more mid power and take some of the heat off of range left if we had the pads. The problem is that of the 12 tripod pads the club once had, a couple have dissapeared and have not been returned because no one kept track of who borrowed what. We’re also missing at least two 1010 and one 1515 rails that were there following Oktoberfest.

We have (or have access to) 4 more large pads for HPR flights that are typically used as Away Cells – the Extreme pad, the pad Mark Lionberger donated to the club, the Swing Set and Doug Gerrard’s pad when he comes to fly with us giving us 16 high power pads. Getting them all out there would allow us to put up more rails and more larger rods thereby necessitating fewer pad changes.

None of these things are huge, they are just issues of pre-event organization and planning. Pad managers with a roll of tape, a screwdriver, a ladder available on the range and a map of what goes where. Bruce’s idea of color coded cards at each pad so it can be seen at a glance what size rod or rail is mounted. Lots of little things.

More to come on this topic.

Warren

[muleParticipant]

Hey Warren,
How about making a new thread for just this topic and copy what you guys have said over in to it?
I would like to get in on the discussion and have some ideas and some offerings but don’t want to do it on this one….
Greg

[SCOTT EVANS]

Whats wrong.
Got somthin against my thread? 😥

[muleParticipant]

No, I kind of thought this was a thread hijack and don’t want to step on your toes 😀 No offense meant.

Plus, it’s hard to know that we are talking about ideas and volunteer stuff for launches under a thread called launch logs…….

Greg

[muleParticipant]

Ok,
Since I’m basically given permission to go for it.

I use to be one of the leadership of Mile Hi Jeep club. We had an event called All-4-Fun every year that hundreds came to from all over the world – yes – all over the world….. We charged for the event, just like you do. However, let me point out some things we did that you don’t that I think will help.

Sorry, these kind of wonder around, but I’m typing them as they come to me.
1. Each area had one leader and a team under him/her. ALL teams help with setup and tear down unless there is one team that just does that.
2. There was a central tent for meetings, talking out of the weather ect.
3. Volunteers did not have to pay entrance fee and got some little “gift”. Team leaders got a hat or t-shirt plus the gift.
4. Parking had cones and flagging. Orange ribbon wrapped around sticks stuck out of the cones works well.
5. There were outing sign ups so we knew how many people were going out – in the case of the club, a simple sigh up list of how many different powers that are going to fly. That could be a checkoff sheet on the admission table, it would give the pad managers an idea of what to expect.
6. Important club equipment can not be checked out. In NCR’s case, the launch rods/rails/pads should never leave the trailer.

Now, on a personal thing. I can make about anything you need. I have two HP pads that I built using 10/10 rails, one is 6′ the other 8′ (uncut). I have built two 4 rail LP pads one for myself and one for Jeremiah. They don’t take much, I can build more if I had someone getting the supplies with me and giving me some parameters. I can do some of the controllers, but have not been shown how yours are made otherwise I would leave that to someone else. I can have rails drop shipped to my house using my personal business.

Also, I can pull the equipment trailer if I am in town (I work in KS a lot) and I give my wife PLENTY OF NOTICE IN ADVANCE!

One other thing.
On flow of traffic – people that is – There ought to be two or three lines depending on the pads needed. Those ought to be clearly marked giving the power range for each group of pads. With what I saw on Saturday, the guys running things did one heck of a good job with what they were given.

I like Warren’s idea on the pad managers thing…..

How’s that Scott????? 😀

Greg M.

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