When I started with the race I was a bus driver, transporting the participants out of the park, from the finish back to thier cars. The second year as a driver there was a terrible accident at the entrance to Spring Shores Marina at Lucky Peak Resevoir. This is where the participants park their vehicles (because there's no room at Robie Creek). We couldn't get the buses in or out of the marina and had to drop off at the entrance and people had to walk another mile or two to get to their vehicles (after running the "Toughest Half Marathon in the Northwest"). That year I parked my bus halfway between the park and the marina and co-ordinated the busing so we didn't stack up the buses.
The next year I was at Robie Creek co-ordinating all the transportation for Mayflower Contract Services, Inc. (the company I worked for) and worked with Jeff Emacio who represented the committee. At that time we would go up and flag off parking and set up the busing area on Thursday night before the race and would camp up there Friday night before the race so we could finish setting up the morning of the race. We always had a lot of fun.
In 1994 I left Mayflower and Jeff asked me to join him on the committee. I've been attached ever since; even when he left a few years ago. This opportunity has given me many new friends and allowed me to expand my skills and opportunities (including putting me on two other race committees--much to the chagrin of my wife).
The busing has evolved over time to allow us to quickly get the participants out in a timely manner. The most recent improvement I made was about 6 years ago. Spring Shores went through a make-over and decreased the amount of parking we would have for the participants. Idaho Parks & Rec offered their HQ parking lot on Warm Springs Ave. This is about 10 miles from the finish and so we had to devise a way for participants to get there. At first we made 2 separate lines, but that was frustrating for those who parked so far away. They saw a ratio of probably 4:1 buses to Spring Shores vs. Parks & Rec HQ. So I decided that we would bus everyone to Spring Shores and then have a transfer bus there to Parks & Rec HQ. I was worried that the participants would balk at waiting in line for the bus at the park and then have a second long line at the marina. My fears were unfounded. The busing went so smoothly, I thought something was wrong because there was never a long line at the marina.
The second year of the transfers also went smoothly and I felt like I had brought the transportation to a point where now anyone could follow the plan and be successful. I started thinking about taking another job on the committee or leaving; like Jeff did. The race takes a lot of time and is a big commitment, but is addicting.
In late 2006 we learned that our webmaster would not be able to service the website any longer because of his new job. The race director sent out an email asking if anyone would take it over or new anyone who would perform the service for the race. I replied stating that I was interested but had no experience; if she couldn't find anyone I would learn how to do it. She responded almost immediately saying, "You're it!"
And so started my foray into administering a website. There is a huge learning curve associated with it, but I love putting myself in a position to learn new computer skills. It's almost like I have to have a reason to do it, and when I do, I dig in. The website was administered with FrontPage 2002. I muddle around with it and did a passable job keeping it running. My biggest fear for the 2007 race (my first with the site) was that I would do something to mess up registration. Registration kicked off at 8:00am President's Day and my link worked fine; but, within minutes people could not register and our site shut down shortly thereafter. I was in a panic wondering what had happened. Fortunately Darren, our former webmaster, was able to help communicate with our host to get our site back on line, but there was still a problem with registration. What had happened was that this:
- registration had closed rapidly the previous year, less than an hour (the first we did registration completely online) and we had advertised that
- so many people tried to register at once that they overwhelmed the registrar's server
- the registrar's IT guy was out of the country and they had a problem getting it online
- the registrants were upset that they couldn't register and were continually hitting refresh, compounding the problem
- the registrants went to the message board and overwhelmed our server, which caused our host to shut down the site
In 2008 I was prepared and we thought our registrar was also but, alas, they were not. We didn't have the same problem. But their site had issues and registration still took hours and registrants were frustrated once again.
So my skills have been growing in web design and administration. I have a LOT to learn. I mentioned that I was using FrontPage 2002. It's a good program but I felt it was out of date and wanted to make some changes. We had had comments from others that the site was dated and could use refreshing. Some volunteered to help, but all they wanted to do was build the site themselves and did not want to work with me. I wanted to work with them so I could learn more about web design, giving me the ability to make changes when I wanted or needed to. With the director's permission, I purchased the visual editor Expression Web 2 late last year and redesigned the site. It looks better than it did, but still needs work. When I saw this community ed class I knew that it was a bargain and would help me. When I learn something new I learn best hands on. If I can then go back and take a class, having some knowledge of the content, my learning increases exponentially.
This class was one of the best I have had through community ed! The instructor, Bruce Maxwell (http://www.f28webdesign.com/index.php), was very organized and informative. He structured the class so even novices could understand. He went through the XHTML language and CSS language in a way that gave us all a base to use when editing code. His philosophy regarding web design is that one needs to know the code, even when using a visual editing program, so one knows what to look for when issues come up, because the visual editors aren't perfect. I have applied some of the things I learned to the race site and plan to make more improvements over the next year. I'm starting on another website for a different non-profit and I'll post more about that when I finish it.
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