Posted by Kenny Pfeiffer on December 13, 2010 at 13:19:11:
I have heard that several people are disappointed that the club cut the schedule down to only 9 races this year, so I wanted to address a few things here for all members and anyone else that is considering membership to see. In the past several years we have put on 15 or so races per year and it is very time consuming. We are a "Volunteer" run organization and it became quite difficult for us to have enough volunteers to cover all of the races. After Kerry Rehm resigned from the course marshal position (which he held for several years), no one wanted to assume the role. You cannot have a race without a course marshal, and so the board members have been doing it. For those not familiar with the course marshal position, here is a brief description of the duties. Friday evening-load the truck, trailer, van, etc. for the next morning's race. Saturday morning-pick up the truck, trailer, etc at the pacer office and be at the race site by 6:00 am, unload the truck, set up the clocks, mark the course, set up the finish line, start the clocks for the race, wait for the race to end and results to be ready, break down the course, break down the finish line, load the trailer, clean up from the post race party, etc. Then you have to take the truck, trailer, etc. back to the office. Your day starts at around 4:30 am and you do not get home until roughly 2:00 or so. And all of this is done on a volunteer basis. No one is paid to do this. Most people also have a full-time job. No one really wants to spend their entire Saturday working and not getting paid (I don't even work paid overtime at work...40 hrs is enough).
So what ended up happening is we had the same set of very dedicated volunteers giving up 18 Saturday's per year to work these races, which they did with very few complaints...but there was a strain. When the pacers ask for volunteers, it isn't because we are trying to con you in to helping out. Most of us are runners who would like to, as Mr. Hilliard stated, RUN! We could not continue to put on so many races with so few volunteers.
I am sorry if I got on a soapbox here, but if you are disappointed in the number of pacer races on the schedule this year, you should first ask yourself when was the last time you volunteered. If its been more than a year, I would say that your time is now. If we get more volunteers then going back to a larger racing schedule is possible but right now it is just not feasible.