We staggered the mailing dates of the application this year so that everyone would receive it at the same time. We were hoping that by Saturday Jan 15 you and everyone else would have received the 2011 PALM application. If you haven't, download it from www.lmb.org/palm/files/PALMApp2011.pdf now. Remember Monday is the MLK holiday and no mail is delivered. Don't wait to see if you will receive it on Tuesday. We expect that a lot of riders will mail their applications over the weekend and that we will receive a lot of mail on Tuesday. Don't be late. If you want to be on PALM, download the application, fill it out, and mail it now.
Vickie reports that we received the first completed applications on Friday and that we received 36 applications on Saturday. So far we have 61 registrants. The last two years we filled very quickly, 8 days (over the MLK holiday) in 2010, and less than 2 weeks in 2009. But it took us until March or April to send out all the confirmation letters. Registration is a two step process. First Vickie verifies the applications: are all the waivers signed? Is there an emergency contact? If there are minors on the ride without their parents, do we have the parent's signed permission and is there a sponser for the minor? Are the t shirt sizes marked? Is the total amount correct? Is there a check and is it correct? Over 10% of the applications have errors. (Last year we got an application where the rider's name was not filled in.) Every application with an error means that Vickie has to contact the sender by email, phone, or snail mail. Then she sends them to me. I enter them, create the confirmation letters, and the meal, tshirt, jersey, and bus counts. The program I use is not web based, it is a single user program on my computer. We are volunteers: cheap but we have other lives. When it took months for PALM to fill up, all of this was not a problem. But now that we fill up in days and it takes weeks (or months) for confirmation letters to go out, this is a problem.
To address this, when Vickie and Ellie open the applications this year to determine the rider count (and whether we have filled or not) they are going to contact sender to tell them we have received their application and that they are on PALM. So you will know weeks before you receive your confirmation letter that you are on PALM. You can help by including a current email with your application. Please be sure that it's legible. If you have no email, they plan to call you. We hope that this will save a lot of worried emails and phone calls.
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7 comments:
I don't think the staggered mailing worked as intended.
I only live 60 miles from Ann Arbor, but did not get my application until Saturday. That would have been OK, but how did over 60 applications get in before I even recieved mine?
On-Line registration is the only way to go here. Even those without a home computer or internet access can go to their local library to register.
If you received applications on Friday, the stagering of the mailing did not work. I didn't get mine until Saturday.
Perhaps another idea would be to mail them out after the holiday. That might solve some of the problems associated with no mail delivery on MLK holiday.
But again, I don't think we should complain so much as the people doing all the work are volunteering their time and I think are doing a great job.
Our winter address is out state. We didn't get our application until Tuesday. We used on line but because we couldn't get the form until Saturday, it wasn't going to be traveling back to Michigan until Tuesday. Perhaps waiting until the holiday is over would be a suggestion.
Did you download the application and mail it on Tuesday? If your application is postmarked on Tuesday Jan 18, you are on PALM.
I just got back fron the PALM meeting and there was a big discussion about how to handle registration. One suggestion was to post the application on the website and mail out postcards telling everybody on the mailing list when it would be there and have everybody download the application. What do you think? Would you notice a postcard from PALM in the post Christmas mail?
We appreciate the volunteers working on the Palm. Thanks! Ellie we appreciate everything you've tried to do to make the registration fair to the interested riders.
Unfortunately on line registration brings its own set of problems for a ride that fills so quickly. Most rides that allow on line registration also allow a mail-in option for those that don't like to give credit card info over the net -- we wouldn't have that option. It is also very likely that the registration site would crash when 1000 or more people try to sign up simultaneously. When friends want to ride together, it will be hard for them to be sure that each gets registered. The PALM volunteer staff will continue to work on the registration issues, but I doubt that we will find a solution that will make everyone happy.
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