I know I do it every year - I like making things better - no point just accepting you've got it to an OK state and thinking that's good enough
On behalf of the paddock team which was gewy and myself I only want to focus on the Hill Activity – venue, toilets, camping, show field in fact anything not hill related - save that for another thread or better still start one yourself – rules are always the same - Just the Hill please
Fundamentally the process is always the same – find out what could be improved – make plans to improve – we can resolve pretty much most things apart from the weather
Looking for feedback from any participants, spectators or any other perspective
We’re not fishing for compliments – This year was better than last year and last year was better than the previous year and so on - we've done that with your help and feedback
- I’m just after what we did wrong or what didn't work
- What anyone thinks could be done to improve it
Whilst it's nice to know what worked, if it worked this year we are probably gonna do it again next year
I also use this thread as a reference before we start organizing the activities next year because frankly I am rubbish at writing stuff down in any detail it swims around my head after the show and then if I don’t write it down I forget it
Again this year was much better than last year so we're happy we had some lessons learned but there were areas that we didn't do so well
So from my mental notes
Pre-selling
Fundamentally what we want to make sure is people don't spend hours wasted in Queues (part of the same reason we went for a pre-sell process - we don't end up with 120 or more people spending a large chunk of the show time standing in line esp when that line is in a paddock with moving cars. Apart from a large number of drop outs this year we see no reason to change it – I had work commitments which meant it had to be completed in a specific time window in June.
Morning session
Start up
So just like last year we didn't run group 1 as MS01 to MS30 and group 2 and MS31 to MS60 – the reward for getting up early and arriving in the first thirty cars for the morning was the potential chance of an extra run – I think it helped everyone understand this by explaining it in the how the hill is gonna run thread.
Lanes
We repeated what we did last year - so much better for the cars and the air in the paddock
Reasons why it works is people quickly work out what's going on and that's it's fair
I did see a few drivers thinking they should be going back into the same lane every time but they quickly realised that it made no difference overall and I also saw that people realized they could play a new "lane game" to their advantage
Want to get a mobile signal at the top of the hill - go in the left lane and get up the top early
Need a comfort break or get some food/drink go in the right lane and you'll have 20 mins from the session start before you need to fire up and move
We had a little moment of confusion when a group ended earlier than planned (apparently I had to use a lollipop to communicate with the Shelsley team – which was a new one on me) so for a while in the morning we had a much larger group and a smaller one but we evened it all out within a couple of sessions – sorry for those of you affected by the group moves but it really was a surprise to us and we had to think on our feet to fix it..
As it was both groups got more than 3 runs if they wanted it – one group got 5 runs and the other 4 runs but there was a little attrition in the numbers and that’s the first time we have seen that in the morning session
There was an accident out on the roads somewhere so we did have some late arrivals and also the need for some extra briefings but that was easily dealt with.
Afternoon session
Changeover - Last year we did this badly – it really didn’t work at all. I changed the info packs to make it clear how we were going to do it and it worked much better. Afternoon session people could sign on at anytime after 9.30 am during the morning.
Again first 30 cars in the paddock became group one and second thirty became group 2 – sticker numbers weren’t an indication of grouping.
Filling up the Group one on a first arrived basis meant that if we did have some late arrivals or want to drop in some reserves we could do it by dropping in reserves into group 2 and they wouldn't drop a run.
Info packs (Morning, Afternoon and Guests)
Some didn’t get them we’d allowed plenty of time for postal delays not sure if the missing ones ever turned up – but first class clearly isn’t as fast as it once was. The back up plan worked and also was adopted for late notice reserves back filling spaces resulting from drop outs.
Stickers We got some cars signed on on Sat Night so we could reduce traffic – the instructions from Shelsley are stickers on passenger (left) side of windscreen front – I think we only had a couple of cars that didn’t comply and one of those rectified it – the Hot Rod was the only one that stayed wrong all day but it didn’t have a windscreen to start with.
Right so they were my "takeaways" from the hill - I'd really like to hear yours
I know not everyone who participated in the RWYB are on the forum so if I get chance I will email the people who signed up for the sessions in advance.
Might need to edit this because I knocked it out without drafting
On behalf of the paddock team which was gewy and myself I only want to focus on the Hill Activity – venue, toilets, camping, show field in fact anything not hill related - save that for another thread or better still start one yourself – rules are always the same - Just the Hill please
Fundamentally the process is always the same – find out what could be improved – make plans to improve – we can resolve pretty much most things apart from the weather
Looking for feedback from any participants, spectators or any other perspective
We’re not fishing for compliments – This year was better than last year and last year was better than the previous year and so on - we've done that with your help and feedback
- I’m just after what we did wrong or what didn't work
- What anyone thinks could be done to improve it
Whilst it's nice to know what worked, if it worked this year we are probably gonna do it again next year
I also use this thread as a reference before we start organizing the activities next year because frankly I am rubbish at writing stuff down in any detail it swims around my head after the show and then if I don’t write it down I forget it
Again this year was much better than last year so we're happy we had some lessons learned but there were areas that we didn't do so well
So from my mental notes
Pre-selling
Fundamentally what we want to make sure is people don't spend hours wasted in Queues (part of the same reason we went for a pre-sell process - we don't end up with 120 or more people spending a large chunk of the show time standing in line esp when that line is in a paddock with moving cars. Apart from a large number of drop outs this year we see no reason to change it – I had work commitments which meant it had to be completed in a specific time window in June.
Morning session
Start up
So just like last year we didn't run group 1 as MS01 to MS30 and group 2 and MS31 to MS60 – the reward for getting up early and arriving in the first thirty cars for the morning was the potential chance of an extra run – I think it helped everyone understand this by explaining it in the how the hill is gonna run thread.
Lanes
We repeated what we did last year - so much better for the cars and the air in the paddock
Reasons why it works is people quickly work out what's going on and that's it's fair
I did see a few drivers thinking they should be going back into the same lane every time but they quickly realised that it made no difference overall and I also saw that people realized they could play a new "lane game" to their advantage
Want to get a mobile signal at the top of the hill - go in the left lane and get up the top early
Need a comfort break or get some food/drink go in the right lane and you'll have 20 mins from the session start before you need to fire up and move
We had a little moment of confusion when a group ended earlier than planned (apparently I had to use a lollipop to communicate with the Shelsley team – which was a new one on me) so for a while in the morning we had a much larger group and a smaller one but we evened it all out within a couple of sessions – sorry for those of you affected by the group moves but it really was a surprise to us and we had to think on our feet to fix it..
As it was both groups got more than 3 runs if they wanted it – one group got 5 runs and the other 4 runs but there was a little attrition in the numbers and that’s the first time we have seen that in the morning session
There was an accident out on the roads somewhere so we did have some late arrivals and also the need for some extra briefings but that was easily dealt with.
Afternoon session
Changeover - Last year we did this badly – it really didn’t work at all. I changed the info packs to make it clear how we were going to do it and it worked much better. Afternoon session people could sign on at anytime after 9.30 am during the morning.
Again first 30 cars in the paddock became group one and second thirty became group 2 – sticker numbers weren’t an indication of grouping.
Filling up the Group one on a first arrived basis meant that if we did have some late arrivals or want to drop in some reserves we could do it by dropping in reserves into group 2 and they wouldn't drop a run.
Info packs (Morning, Afternoon and Guests)
Some didn’t get them we’d allowed plenty of time for postal delays not sure if the missing ones ever turned up – but first class clearly isn’t as fast as it once was. The back up plan worked and also was adopted for late notice reserves back filling spaces resulting from drop outs.
Stickers We got some cars signed on on Sat Night so we could reduce traffic – the instructions from Shelsley are stickers on passenger (left) side of windscreen front – I think we only had a couple of cars that didn’t comply and one of those rectified it – the Hot Rod was the only one that stayed wrong all day but it didn’t have a windscreen to start with.
Right so they were my "takeaways" from the hill - I'd really like to hear yours
I know not everyone who participated in the RWYB are on the forum so if I get chance I will email the people who signed up for the sessions in advance.
Might need to edit this because I knocked it out without drafting
Keep up good work!!!
