At long last we have entered all the PALM applications except for a handful of problems. We are up to 806 people who have registered. I sent out the confirmation letters on Friday which means that should start receiving them on Monday. This has been an ordeal to say the least. We reached our cutoff before we even started processing the applications but we've closed early before and haven't had this much trouble. There were extenuating circumstances like broken hands and lots of problem applications but still this has taken way too long. This will be something we improve for next year.
I've worked up some preliminary counts. We have 260 first time PALM riders. Typically 35% of our riders have never done PALM before so this is normal. I was worried that because we closed so quickly that first time riders wouldn't have a chance to get on the ride. People who have been on PALM before have applications mailed to them automatically so they would have an advantage. But lots of people who had never ridden PALM before got on the mailing list and received applications when they were first mailed out. That balanced things out.
This year the largest age bracket is 60 to 69 with 183 riders, followed by 50 to 59 with 179, and 10 to 19 with 117. The number of teenagers on our ride has been trending downward since we've started closing early. One of PALM's missions is to promote family biking and to offer a inexpensive family vacation. With this in mind we will need to find out ways that families can know about PALM and feel comfortable registering their families in February for a bike tour that is going to take place in June. If you have any suggestions for how we can accomplish this, please email us.
This year we have 69 riders in the 70 to 79 age bracket and 11 in the 80 to 89 age bracket. This is typical and shows that bicycling is an enjoyable activity that has no age limits and that doing PALM is with in the reach of any active person, not just trained athletes. Roughly 40% of the people who ride PALM are women and women of all ages. (22 of the riders over 70 are women.) The variety of people who do PALM are one of the things that make it a special social and recreational event. It's not just a ride for 20 year old males. And you get a t shirt.
Showing posts with label counts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label counts. Show all posts
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
PALM Filling Fast
The applications are still coming in. Currently 571 riders have sent in their applications. Our limit is 700 riders. It looks like the ride will close Tuesday or Wednesday. If you mail your application today, you may or may not get on PALM depending on your geographic proximity to Ann Arbor. (The people we mailed applications to in England and Norway are in trouble.) Mail the application in anyway. We don't keep a waiting list. Instead we accept 50 or so riders over the 700 limit, generally by accepting all applications on the cutoff date. Then we count on cancellations to bring us down to the 700 limit. Since we started reaching the rider limit, about 50 riders cancel every year: things come up in June that you couldn't know in February/March. In the years where we didn't fill early, we had about 15 cancellations.
No January thaw this year, but February is starting out nicely: it's 33 degrees and the sun is shining. I don't remember the last time it was above freezing. The paper said that we've already gotten twice as much snow as an average winter but it seems a lot more since none of it has gone away. What we've gotten (42 inches of snow so far) in SE Michigan is nothing compared to west Michigan with their lake affect snow, but with the cold, our mobility has really been affected. We seem to be in a snow cave.
We did get out to see the Ann Arbor Folk Festival last night at a sold out Hill Auditorium. One of the headliners was Pete Segeer who is 80 years old. He was in a band with his grandson and Woody Guthrie's granddaughter. The highlight of the evening was Pete Segeer lining out Amazing Grace, doing the call, and the entire audience of 4000 doing the response. That was followed by all the performers and all of the audience singing This Land Is Your Land. It was amazing. I felt sorry for the performers that had to follow.
No January thaw this year, but February is starting out nicely: it's 33 degrees and the sun is shining. I don't remember the last time it was above freezing. The paper said that we've already gotten twice as much snow as an average winter but it seems a lot more since none of it has gone away. What we've gotten (42 inches of snow so far) in SE Michigan is nothing compared to west Michigan with their lake affect snow, but with the cold, our mobility has really been affected. We seem to be in a snow cave.
We did get out to see the Ann Arbor Folk Festival last night at a sold out Hill Auditorium. One of the headliners was Pete Segeer who is 80 years old. He was in a band with his grandson and Woody Guthrie's granddaughter. The highlight of the evening was Pete Segeer lining out Amazing Grace, doing the call, and the entire audience of 4000 doing the response. That was followed by all the performers and all of the audience singing This Land Is Your Land. It was amazing. I felt sorry for the performers that had to follow.
Friday, January 30, 2009
New Single Day Application Record
Yesterday we had 285 riders signed up for PALM. Yesterday's mail had 101 applications in it with 181 riders on them: a new one day record. Now we have 466 riders and, with a rider limit of 700, the ride is 2/3 full. It looks like PALM will fill before the middle of next week. If you sent in your application already, good. If there are people that you are hoping to see on PALM, call them and make sure they have sent in their application. If they haven't sent it in yet, tell them to do so immediately and then light a candle. (Click here for an application.) We've started to make our calls: the oldest rider from last year (90) has mailed his in. Gino has mailed his in. Others we reminded.
If you've mailed in your application already, you're on the ride but your check won't be cashed nor will you get a confirmation for weeks. Let me outline the PALM registration process. First Ellie picks up the mail. She dates and opens the envelopes to count the number of people. Then she sends batches of applications to Vickie in Florida. Vickie checks the applications and assigns rider numbers: all the signatures there? emergency contact? dollars add up? 20% of the applications have errors. Then she has to call people up, get them to correct the errors, and send new checks, applications. When the application is correct, she gathers the info that the accountant uses and then sends the applications to me in Michigan. I enter the corrected applications into my home PC and generate confirmation letters that I mail to you in the self addressed, stamped envelope that you have provided. (Later I'll generate bus lists, meal lists, and the mailing list for next year's applications from what I've entered.) So where are we in the process? The applications have come in so fast that Vickie has yet to get the 1st one. So Vickie and I are 466 applications behind. You won't get your confirmation letter for weeks.
FAQs:
Why can't I register for PALM online? It costs money to do that (I pay $5 to register for races) and we work for free. It will take us a few weeks, but the ride isn't until June and we save riders money. Plus we have a lot of riders who are not friends with the internet.
Why isn't my check cashed? Vickie doesn't cash the checks until she verifies that the applications are correct and 20% of the applications have errors.
If I made a mistake on my application, will I miss PALM? No. Vickie assigns you a rider number and a place on PALM while you correct your application and/or send her the proper amount.
If you've mailed in your application already, you're on the ride but your check won't be cashed nor will you get a confirmation for weeks. Let me outline the PALM registration process. First Ellie picks up the mail. She dates and opens the envelopes to count the number of people. Then she sends batches of applications to Vickie in Florida. Vickie checks the applications and assigns rider numbers: all the signatures there? emergency contact? dollars add up? 20% of the applications have errors. Then she has to call people up, get them to correct the errors, and send new checks, applications. When the application is correct, she gathers the info that the accountant uses and then sends the applications to me in Michigan. I enter the corrected applications into my home PC and generate confirmation letters that I mail to you in the self addressed, stamped envelope that you have provided. (Later I'll generate bus lists, meal lists, and the mailing list for next year's applications from what I've entered.) So where are we in the process? The applications have come in so fast that Vickie has yet to get the 1st one. So Vickie and I are 466 applications behind. You won't get your confirmation letter for weeks.
FAQs:
Why can't I register for PALM online? It costs money to do that (I pay $5 to register for races) and we work for free. It will take us a few weeks, but the ride isn't until June and we save riders money. Plus we have a lot of riders who are not friends with the internet.
Why isn't my check cashed? Vickie doesn't cash the checks until she verifies that the applications are correct and 20% of the applications have errors.
If I made a mistake on my application, will I miss PALM? No. Vickie assigns you a rider number and a place on PALM while you correct your application and/or send her the proper amount.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
You have mail
Ellie picked up the PALM mail on January 27. We now have applications for 165 riders. This is what we experienced last year when the ride was filled by February 19. Ellie said that she got 8 Express mail applications so these 165 are probably the riders who were in line outside the store waiting for it to open, but still it looks like the economic times may not be affecting PALM too drastically.
In any case, our limit is 700 riders and we are 20% there. You might be saying to yourself: it's January, how do I know if I'll be ready for PALM in June? How do I know my family's schedule? Suppose you have to cancel. It will cost an individual $15 to cancel before May 15. If all of your family is on one application, it will cost your family $20 total to cancel by May 15. If you think you can do it or if you've always wanted to do something like this, sign up. It's not like an airline ticket. It won't cost you much if you change your mind.
It's been a week since the PALM applications have been mailed 1st class. If you are on the mailing list, you should have received your application by now. If you haven't then you are never going to get it. If you need an application, click here to download one. I'll be adding this link to the website tonight.
In any case, our limit is 700 riders and we are 20% there. You might be saying to yourself: it's January, how do I know if I'll be ready for PALM in June? How do I know my family's schedule? Suppose you have to cancel. It will cost an individual $15 to cancel before May 15. If all of your family is on one application, it will cost your family $20 total to cancel by May 15. If you think you can do it or if you've always wanted to do something like this, sign up. It's not like an airline ticket. It won't cost you much if you change your mind.
It's been a week since the PALM applications have been mailed 1st class. If you are on the mailing list, you should have received your application by now. If you haven't then you are never going to get it. If you need an application, click here to download one. I'll be adding this link to the website tonight.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Demographics for PALM 2007
I did some breakdowns for PALM 2007 based on the 729 people that we have registered so far. Since we have 22 people whose applications have problems, these statistics are not complete.
Age Range / Counts
There are several things here that may surprise you but are typical for PALM. Notice the large number of people between 10 and 19. We encourage family biking and this is traditionally the first or second largest age group. Notice the number of 20 to 29 year olds is smaller than the kids under 10 and that the number of 20 to 39 year olds is less than the people 70 and over. This shows a couple of things: (1) biking is a great exercise for the long haul and (2) PALM is not an Olympic event but, at an average daily distance of 50 miles, is something within the range of everybody.
Number of PALMs/Counts
A look at the number of PALMs that people have done shows other interesting things. For one, about 35% of the people on the ride are doing the PALM for the first time. This is typical. Last year we did a survey and found that one sixth of our riders have never done a week long bike tour. This is not surprising: we encourage first timers. The median number of PALMs is two, ie, if you add first two totals, it is over 50 % of our total participants. But notice that whole lot of people have done a whole lot of PALMs. As part of last year's survey, we asked people how they heard about PALM. 80% of people said that they heard about PALM either from a friend or from a PALM rider. There is something about PALM that brings a lot of people back over and over and makes them recommend PALM to people they know.
Top 10 Cities/Counts
This year PALM riders come from 242 cities. They are mostly from small towns all around Michigan. Typically Ann Arbor tops the list. Why? Because PALM started off in Ann Arbor and most of the staff originally came from there. This is no longer the case. This year the St. Hubert's youth group is riding PALM and that's why Harrison Twp is second. PALM often hosts groups and family reunions. Last year 4 generations of the same family rode the PALM.
Age Range / Counts
- 0 to 9: 31
- 10 to 19: 165
- 20 to 29: 25
- 30 to 39: 34
- 40 to 49: 98
- 50 to 59: 171
- 60 to 69: 142
- 70 to 79: 52
- 80 & over: 10
There are several things here that may surprise you but are typical for PALM. Notice the large number of people between 10 and 19. We encourage family biking and this is traditionally the first or second largest age group. Notice the number of 20 to 29 year olds is smaller than the kids under 10 and that the number of 20 to 39 year olds is less than the people 70 and over. This shows a couple of things: (1) biking is a great exercise for the long haul and (2) PALM is not an Olympic event but, at an average daily distance of 50 miles, is something within the range of everybody.
Number of PALMs/Counts
- 1 PALM: 255
- 2 PALMs: 149
- 3 PALMs: 86
- 4 PALMs: 36
- 5 PALMs: 44
- 6 PALMs: 18
- 7 PALMs: 24
- 8 PALMs: 23
- 9 PALMs: 8
- 10 PALMs: 9
- 11 - 15 PALMs: 43
- 16 - 20 PALMs: 21
- 21 - 25 PALMs: 13
A look at the number of PALMs that people have done shows other interesting things. For one, about 35% of the people on the ride are doing the PALM for the first time. This is typical. Last year we did a survey and found that one sixth of our riders have never done a week long bike tour. This is not surprising: we encourage first timers. The median number of PALMs is two, ie, if you add first two totals, it is over 50 % of our total participants. But notice that whole lot of people have done a whole lot of PALMs. As part of last year's survey, we asked people how they heard about PALM. 80% of people said that they heard about PALM either from a friend or from a PALM rider. There is something about PALM that brings a lot of people back over and over and makes them recommend PALM to people they know.
Top 10 Cities/Counts
- Ann Arbor: 35
- Harrison Twp: 30
- Battle Creek: 16
- Warren: 13
- Grand Rapids: 12
- Royal Oak: 12
- Tecumseh: 12
- Ooltewah, TN: 11
- Fort Wayne, IN: 10
- Sterling Heights: 10
This year PALM riders come from 242 cities. They are mostly from small towns all around Michigan. Typically Ann Arbor tops the list. Why? Because PALM started off in Ann Arbor and most of the staff originally came from there. This is no longer the case. This year the St. Hubert's youth group is riding PALM and that's why Harrison Twp is second. PALM often hosts groups and family reunions. Last year 4 generations of the same family rode the PALM.
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