Last Sunday Jan23 was the PALM meeting, Everyone was amazed by how quickly PALM filled up this year. We are using the postmark on the application to determine whether the application made it on time or not. If the application is postmarked Jan 18 or earlier, the application was accepted. With this date we accepted 783 riders and 69 staff (including site people, SAGs, bike shops, truck drivers, etc.). Since the meeting a few more applications postmarked Jan 18 have trickled in. As it stands now, we'll have over 850 people on PALM. So much for the 700 rider cutoff. We trying to determine if the this year's sites can handle the extras. So far it looks like there is enough camping room, but one site's cafeteria can only hold 250 people. We may have to go with extended meal times.
There was a discussion on how we can guarantee that everyone gets the application at the same time. US mail, even 1st class US mail, isn't the answer. One staff member who lives 40 miles from Ann Arbor didn't receive his application until Jan 18 even though it was mailed Jan 13. We have riders who are in Florida, Arizona, and Alabama when the applications are mailed. It takes days for them to receive their applications. Mailing the application a day early wasn't enough. Then there's the MLK holiday. If you got your application before the holiday, it gave you some extra time to fill it out. If you didn't get your application before the holiday, you were dead. We are still trying to figure this all out.
I do the final step of registration which includes mailing out the confirmation letters. I got applications for 8 people at the meeting so that I could check out my programs for this year. It took me a couple of days to enter these applications. Now I'm just 850 behind. Ah well, a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.
Showing posts with label registration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label registration. Show all posts
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Download the 2011 PALM Application NOW
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.
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.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Happy New Year
The First Dozen was on January 1. The high was supposed to be 25. I got a call from a diehard Wolverine Bike club member. She said it was too cold and she wasn't going to ride. I went outside to get the bicycle pump out of my car. The wind was blowing, it was cold, and I hadn't preregistered. I decided not to do it and decided to jog instead. (Biking is always colder than running.) The first 1/2 mile was against the wind and I was really cold. The street was a sheet of ice so I thought that I made the right decision. Later on in the run I warmed up and it wasn't bad. I looked at the main roads: perfectly clear. And to top it off the Wolverine Club member called me up. She did the ride and wanted to know where I was. There is a lesson in this. It's either always try to ride before you decide that you can't or don't live where they have winter, I'm not sure which.
I jog outside year round. Winter in SE Michigan is makes jogging doable: it snows, but snow accumulations of over 6 inches are rare. Granted it doesn't go away, but it does get trampled down. It gets cold, but a winter can go by where it doesn't get to zero. My hands and my face are what get cold. I found a new set of gloves to wear under my mittens now my hands are good. I have a Poletec bandana that I can use to cover my face so that's OK too. I jog in the morning. Not many people are out. Emanuel Stewart lives in my neighborhood and occasionally I see one of his boxers (who leaves me in the dust). It's a kick to be the first one to make tracks in fresh snow. It's different being the first bike to make tracks in the snow. I try to avoid that.
I sent the mailing list for the 2010 PALM applications to the printer today (January 3). There were 3417 addresses for applications. You can still email us your mailing address and we'll put you on the mailing list. We printed up and stamped some extra applications to mail out and we'll try to get you one of those. However the staffer who volunteered to do this (Ellie) slipped on the ice and broke the wrist of the hand she writes with. It seems to be one of the prerequisites for working on registration. She is the one who answers all the email. She's gamely pressing on but you'll notice that her answers are getting shorter. Meanwhile I'm getting the application program ready for this year's registration. (New application fields, changes to the database and the confirmation letter.) I made the changes but I need to test them before the first batch of applications come in.
I jog outside year round. Winter in SE Michigan is makes jogging doable: it snows, but snow accumulations of over 6 inches are rare. Granted it doesn't go away, but it does get trampled down. It gets cold, but a winter can go by where it doesn't get to zero. My hands and my face are what get cold. I found a new set of gloves to wear under my mittens now my hands are good. I have a Poletec bandana that I can use to cover my face so that's OK too. I jog in the morning. Not many people are out. Emanuel Stewart lives in my neighborhood and occasionally I see one of his boxers (who leaves me in the dust). It's a kick to be the first one to make tracks in fresh snow. It's different being the first bike to make tracks in the snow. I try to avoid that.
I sent the mailing list for the 2010 PALM applications to the printer today (January 3). There were 3417 addresses for applications. You can still email us your mailing address and we'll put you on the mailing list. We printed up and stamped some extra applications to mail out and we'll try to get you one of those. However the staffer who volunteered to do this (Ellie) slipped on the ice and broke the wrist of the hand she writes with. It seems to be one of the prerequisites for working on registration. She is the one who answers all the email. She's gamely pressing on but you'll notice that her answers are getting shorter. Meanwhile I'm getting the application program ready for this year's registration. (New application fields, changes to the database and the confirmation letter.) I made the changes but I need to test them before the first batch of applications come in.
Friday, February 6, 2009
First PALM Applications
I got my first 24 PALM applications to process for 2009 yesterday. I'm using these to check out the programs and the confirmation letters for the new year. As I expected most of the people were former PALM riders, but there were people who were added to the mailing list this year and a couple of people who have never been on PALM. I'm wondering how many first time riders we are going to have who aren't on the mailing list. Since we put the application on the web site a week after we mailed it out, these people would have had only one week to (maybe) find PALM, discover that the application was on the web site, download it, and mail it in. Not a lot of time.
I checked the applications, programs, and confirmation letters after I entered first 24. Sure enough, there was a bug in the confirmation letter if you got the bus to Whitehall after the ride and a small formatting problem. I fixed them and the first confirmations have been mailed. This leaves me with 700 to go. But the way I look at it, since we got our first applications two weeks ago Saturday, I'm only 2 weeks behind. This will work up to Wednesday. Two weeks ago Wednesday we got the applications for 181 riders. I'll be working on Wednesday's applications for a while.
I got another batch of 67 applications on Saturday. We've been helped by the rain in Florida. When the sun shines, Vickie rides her bike, otherwise what's the point of being in Florida? She's emailed me that she already sent me another batch after the Saturday applications. It looks like we have the registration machine stoked up.
I checked the applications, programs, and confirmation letters after I entered first 24. Sure enough, there was a bug in the confirmation letter if you got the bus to Whitehall after the ride and a small formatting problem. I fixed them and the first confirmations have been mailed. This leaves me with 700 to go. But the way I look at it, since we got our first applications two weeks ago Saturday, I'm only 2 weeks behind. This will work up to Wednesday. Two weeks ago Wednesday we got the applications for 181 riders. I'll be working on Wednesday's applications for a while.
I got another batch of 67 applications on Saturday. We've been helped by the rain in Florida. When the sun shines, Vickie rides her bike, otherwise what's the point of being in Florida? She's emailed me that she already sent me another batch after the Saturday applications. It looks like we have the registration machine stoked up.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
You still can get on PALM
We have the applications from 500 people (not counting staff and SAGs). Last week we had applications from 350 people, so we added 150 people in the last 8 days. The rate has dropped from 35-40 a day to 25-30 a day. While this means we are filling up rapidly, you still can get on PALM.
As you may know, I work on the registration: I enter the applications into my computer and print out confirmation letters. Another staff member gets the applications first, checks them, fills out stuff for the accountant, and sends them to me. She's in Florida. When we were at 350, she had not seen an application yet. Now she's processed applications for 295 people of them. I finally got some applications to process on Friday (and Monday) and I've processed applications for 95 people. So I'm 200 behind my fellow registrant and 400 behind the real count. This is daunting. And I'm going to be out of town this weekend. It may be a while before you get your confirmation letter. Try to be patient. If you've mailed in application already, you are on the ride.
I had the usual glitches when I tried to process this year's applications. This year we have a jersey you can buy and last year we didn't. I was concentrating so much on getting the directions to the start and end sites to print out right on the confirmation letter that I didn't notice that the jersey field was missing. So if you ordered a jersey, you wouldn't know it from the confirmation letter. Fortunately the very first application (Kevin Degen, who else) was ordering a jersey and I noticed it. That saved some calls.
As you may know, I work on the registration: I enter the applications into my computer and print out confirmation letters. Another staff member gets the applications first, checks them, fills out stuff for the accountant, and sends them to me. She's in Florida. When we were at 350, she had not seen an application yet. Now she's processed applications for 295 people of them. I finally got some applications to process on Friday (and Monday) and I've processed applications for 95 people. So I'm 200 behind my fellow registrant and 400 behind the real count. This is daunting. And I'm going to be out of town this weekend. It may be a while before you get your confirmation letter. Try to be patient. If you've mailed in application already, you are on the ride.
I had the usual glitches when I tried to process this year's applications. This year we have a jersey you can buy and last year we didn't. I was concentrating so much on getting the directions to the start and end sites to print out right on the confirmation letter that I didn't notice that the jersey field was missing. So if you ordered a jersey, you wouldn't know it from the confirmation letter. Fortunately the very first application (Kevin Degen, who else) was ordering a jersey and I noticed it. That saved some calls.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
After the Super Bowl, Lent
The great thing about the Super Bowl is that you have a lot of time to kill. The pre-game is 3 or 4 hours. Lots of time to catch up on things. I finally uploaded the PALM photos taken by Holly Johnson who was our PALM photographer last year. It takes a while to upload 300 photos to Flickr. And I finally created a page for PALM 2007 on the website and added all the links to photos that people have sent me (thanks to Ellie Knesper, Bill Richardson, and Tim Mercer). I chatted about the ride on the web page, but it's been so long I've forgotten that there was a summer. If anyone has some memories of PALM 2007 or any links to photos or blogs, email them to me and I'll be glad to add them to the website.
As you've heard, we have 350 people who have signed up for PALM 2008 already. At this rate (35-40 a day) we will reach our cutoff of 700 riders by Feb 15. So once again, if you are planning to ride PALM this year, mail in your application now. (Don't have an application? Download one.) If you have sent in your application and plan to ride with someone, be sure to tell them to send in their application now.
It's great that we have 350 people already, but I work on registration. I'm 350 people behind and I haven't seen the first application to process yet. Since I work, I can only average processing about 35 people a night. I have a good 10 days of work ahead of me. I guess this is what Lent is all about. And you thought Lent was the time between the Super Bowl and spring training. Wrong.
For Lent I'm giving up coffee, actually caffeine. I drink way too much of it. When you do that and give it up, you get withdrawal symptoms. (Hmm. I guess that coffee is not that good for you). I don't get headaches. Instead my joints ache like when you have the flu. Another thing, if you give up coffee, you can't read anything before noon. It makes for interesting situations at work. I'm thinking of wearing a bike helmet when I'm sitting at my desk. However I sleep like the dead at night.
As you've heard, we have 350 people who have signed up for PALM 2008 already. At this rate (35-40 a day) we will reach our cutoff of 700 riders by Feb 15. So once again, if you are planning to ride PALM this year, mail in your application now. (Don't have an application? Download one.) If you have sent in your application and plan to ride with someone, be sure to tell them to send in their application now.
It's great that we have 350 people already, but I work on registration. I'm 350 people behind and I haven't seen the first application to process yet. Since I work, I can only average processing about 35 people a night. I have a good 10 days of work ahead of me. I guess this is what Lent is all about. And you thought Lent was the time between the Super Bowl and spring training. Wrong.
For Lent I'm giving up coffee, actually caffeine. I drink way too much of it. When you do that and give it up, you get withdrawal symptoms. (Hmm. I guess that coffee is not that good for you). I don't get headaches. Instead my joints ache like when you have the flu. Another thing, if you give up coffee, you can't read anything before noon. It makes for interesting situations at work. I'm thinking of wearing a bike helmet when I'm sitting at my desk. However I sleep like the dead at night.
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