Dave & Sarah - who else asks us for info pre-con? what other reports do we run?
1. What division or department did you run for '06? Registration
What division does your department/area answer to? Treasurer
2. What does your department/area do? Provides registration services to the con. Badges for all attendees. "Single" source of address and phone number data.
What services do you provide? Data feed for Zambia. Addresses for mailings. Email addresses for mailings.
What convention needs do you answer? Pre-sales, current year sales.
3. What is the most challenging aspect of running your department/area? Keeping the lines moving.
What is the easiest part of running your department/area? We always have a great crew.
4. What pre-convention preparation does running your department/area require?
- immediately after the previous convention - Run reports so Treasury can balance out books
- shortly after the con - Get the new online registration form online
- over the summer - Process online registrations*, process mailed in registrations*, make sure BabySitting? is updated whenever a babysitting membership comes in* (the parents get a special confirmation with a link to the babysitting form), forward volunteer requests to VolunteerCoordinator? as they come in*, make sure FastTrack is updated whenever a Fast Track membership comes in*, generate export for mailings
- 3 months before the convention - Work with Programming to get them the data they need
- 2 months before the convention - Start talking to DivHeads? about getting their comp lists, figure out badge order, figure out other supplies (check with Dave)
- 1 month before the convention - Get DivHeads? comp lists, get FastTrack and BabySitting? counts*
- 3 weeks before the convention - Figure out what signage is needed
- 2 weeks before the convention - Test hardware to make sure system is working properly
- in the last week before the convention - Help get hardware packed up, make sure all supplies are on hand, make sure all comps have been entered and everything is ready to go
- Thursday before the convention - Take down the online registration form, collect last database dump
- upon arrival at the hotel (Thursday) - Unpack hardware and set up system, run staff badges, run any badges that are to be picked up by a single person (DealersHead?, Rocky Horror, Higgins, etc)
Footnote * means that once it starts, this activity is ongoing until the convention
5. What is needed in terms of supplies for your area? Cash box, credit card machine, water setup, 3 tables (in registration area), 2 tables (to hold brochures across from Registration windows), crowd control thingie (the poles and "bars"), 4 bar stools, 4-5 regular chairs, publications, 3(?) round bar tables (for kiosks)**
6. What is needed for setup upon arrival in terms of supplies and personnel? 3 tables, 4-5 regular chairs, water setup
When do you need to arrive at the hotel? Thursday afternoon
7. What is your minimum and maximum staffing requirements? Does not include managers
Thursday - Setup: Would be nice to have 1 or 2 people to help carry things in and set up the terminals, etc in addition to Dave and Lisa.
Friday - Setup: Would be nice to have 1 or 2 people in addition to Dave and Lisa.
Friday - 2 pm-5 pm: 2 cashiers, 1 line wrangler, 1 gopher, 1 badger (5 volunteers)
Friday - 5 pm-8 pm: 4 cashiers, 1 line wrangler, 2 gophers, 2 badgers (9 volunteers)
Friday - 8 pm-11 pm: 2 cashiers, 1 line wrangler, 1 gopher, 1 badger (5 volunteers)
Saturday - 9 am-1 pm: 4 cashiers, 1 line wrangler, 2 gophers, 2 badgers (9 volunteers)
Saturday - 1 pm-4 pm: 2 cashiers, 1 line wrangler, 1 badger, 1 gopher? (4-5 volunteers)
Saturday - 4 pm-8 pm: 1 cashier, 1 line wrangler, 1 badger (3 volunteers)
Sunday - 10 am-1 pm: 1 cashier, 1 line wrangler, 1 badger (3 volunteers)
Sunday - 1 pm-4 pm: 1 cashier, 1 line wrangler, 1 badger (3 volunteers)
Total number of hours registration is open - 26 hours
Hours for setup - 5-8 hours on Thursday
Hours for breakdown - ~2 hours on Sunday
8. If you are involved with your department/area budgeting:
What is your average budget requirement? Dave?
Does your department/area generate revenue? You betcha!
9. For your department/area, what does your convention weekend schedule look like? See #7
What does your staff schedule look like? See #7
10. What is the time requirement and process for your department/area breakdown? Breakdown happens Sunday after 4 pm. It takes about an hour or two and then everything is brought down to the loading area and loaded in the vehicle.
11. How many times have you run your department/area? This is the second year that I've been a key player.
How long have you been involved (if not running) with your department/area? Third year.
12. What comments, advice and cautions would you give to someone running this department/area for the first time? Run away. Ok, not really. But you'll want to make sure you have one of the following people either working with you for the first year or handy to answer questions: Dave Belfer-Shevett, Lisa Holsberg or Sarah Twichell.
What are your top Do's and Dont's? Post to LJ to get volunteers early. Keep track of the good ones and woo them for the following year. Make sure people eat and stay hydrated. Don't forget to sleep and take time away from Registration.
13. What other department/areas have your run? I helped with the website last year.
14. Do you have any comments or advice on running those areas? Make sure you get people to use the department aliases and not send email directly to you or you'll get swamped.
15. Do you have any other comments you would like to add? Thank you for putting this together!
Footnote ** Instead of kiosks, Sarah and I had talked about setting up another 6' table (plus 2 chairs) with 2 terminals and having that be another pre-registration processing location. Then having 2-3 good typists at the windows (and 1-2 pre-reg lines depending on traffic) and having our people type in the data because that's likely faster.
Downside - Need to figure out a form for the new regs to use that would get their name, badge name and mailing list prefs, but indicates that we need them to have their ID out. Also, would want to have Coconut print a receipt (2 part) when they paid that they could pick up with their badges that would contain their reg info as well as who registered them, payment type, payment amount, etc.
Upside - We probably type faster than most of Joe Congoer so this should speed things up.
Other notes:
- need to make sure that the reg types are made generic before badges are printed... no differentiation between how much someone paid or comp vs paid.
- Fast Track badges will be printed by the list from Reg and sent to FT for them to hand out to the kids. But not for the parents.
- write import routine for NCOA updates so it doesn't have to be done by hand
- finish coding merge functionality and clean up data
- blinky lights above reg stations to let people know when they can go to the window
