Can anyone who has organized high school xc meets give me some advice on what to plan for; what to do before the meet, the day of the meet, etc. Thanks!
Can anyone who has organized high school xc meets give me some advice on what to plan for; what to do before the meet, the day of the meet, etc. Thanks!
I'm a recent alum working with the coach and AD to host the conference championship meet for a small, division 3 conference. Both coach and AD are first timers for hosting a meet, while I have a small amount of experience. I've been thinking about this for a while, and think I know what to do for the basics and some more. But I want to cover my but, so I'm hoping for help from letsrun. I even researched old threads. I'm open to any advice or directions on where to look for good information. Thanks.
Oh, and Bump.
It is really not that bad. We put on our first invitational. We kept it really low key and only invited about 15 teams. 6 came, which was just about right everybody loved the meet and said they would come back last year (I put mud pits and hay bales on the course). I would suggest that you start off small and low tech. There is no need to go with all the computerized results business. Here is a list of the things you should have
1. Awards- don't go crazy on these and break your budget
2. Numbers with pull tabs. If you want to go really low tech, just use computer lables and safety pins
3. Clearly mark out an interesting course. It is best if spectators and coaches can see the athletes multiple times.
4. Entry Fees. Make them as cheap as possible. Just try to break even in your first year. I charged only 50 bucks for an entire school. Some schools brought over 75 runners. That is good value for them. Flat rate was easy, I didn't have to calculate any team and individual entry nonsense.
5. Results, get em out as quickly as possible. We did a quick score at the meet and had a team award ceremony as soon as the races ended. I typed up the top 20 that night and e-mailed them to the newspaper and dyestat along with photos. I had a TA type up the rest the following day (we did a wednesday evening "twilight" meet).
Don't forget your starter pistol. I had it back in my class room, but had to yell a loud, "GO" for the first race. Fortunately for me, we had the race on campus and on some vacant land that our school had just bought, so I was able to run back and get the pistol for the other races.
Get to the meet early and walk or jog the course to make sure there aren't any surprises. I was at a cross country meet and the runners in the first race had to climb a fence because someone forgot to unlock a gate.
If you use a lead vehicle, make sure to gas it up at the start of the day! When I organized my first meet earlier in the season, we used a golf cart all day to mark lines and lay out cones, etc. It was halfway through the second of three races that I realized I never once checked the gas level in the thing. Fortunately it didn't run out, but I don't think I'll forget that next year.