July, 2005

Hello Race Directors,
We are pleased to be sending you the third edition of the Race Director Newsletter for 2005.

Here are the results of the third Cool Running survey on race fees and associated topics.

If a 10K race is very well organized gives out a quality t-shirt offers decent refreshments at the finish of the race and offers numerous other amenities what do you honestly feel is the highest price you would be willing to pay and is a fair price to enter this race:

	Response Total
$10.00	4	1.1%
$15.00	41	10.9%
$20.00	149	39.5%
$25.00	138	36.6%
$30.00	48	12.7%
Total Respondents	377

Is a $2 or $3 difference in an entry fee enough of an incentive to register in advance?

	Response Total
Yes	167	44.4%
No	209	55.6%
Total Respondents	376

Do you feel a no refund policy is fair? Response Total

	Response Total
Yes	293	78.1%
No	82	21.9%
Total Respondents	375

Do you feel a more al-a-cart structure to entry fees would be of more interest to runners that is if you want a shirt or refreshments you pay more and if you don’t you pay less?

	Response Total
Yes	193	51.5%
No	182	49.5%
Total Respondents	375

A significant line item in the budget is the cost of a t-shirt. Would you be in favor of eliminating the t-shirt to reduce the entry fee?

	Response Total
Yes	178	47.6%
No	196	52.4%
Total Respondents	374

Looking for Race and Raffle Prizes?
Courtesy of Loco Sports
LOCO makes it’s easy for you to get prizes for your race.

LOCO, a new line of competitive running shoes offers race gift certificates to race directors anywhere in the country. From 2 gift certificates up to 20 gift certificates these awards are great for raffles or prizes. You are encouraged, but not obligated to list LOCO as a sponsor, and add their logo to your race web site, or race application. Click here for details:

USATF Certified Courses
Courtesy of Running USA

The USATF RRIC provides a complete list of all USATF certified courses using their own search engine. It enables you to look up course certification information by State and Distance.
For more information!
RUSA Home page

Upcoming Events for Race Directors

• Portland Marathon Event Directors Conference October 6-8, 2005
• Road Race Management Race Director’s Meeting October 20-22, 2005
• USA Track & Field Annual Meeting Novermber 30, 2005
• Running USA 2006 February 6-8, 2006

Race Director's Tips

• Online registration is a given today. It makes registration fast and simple and helps insure a greater accuracy of the runner's supplied details. There should be no fear-factor for race director's use of online registration.
• Use incentives to have runners give you their email addresses for legitimate purposes such as newsletters, timely and last minute reminders. Perhaps even have give aways as an additional incentive for the runners to give you their email addresses.
• Press releases even for small regional races, are important and should be written by a person with the best writing skills. Keep it as a separate task so that on race day that person has nothing else to worry about. Use examples from the bigger races as templates. Try to have parts of race reports written before an event so that the final document is sent soon after the race is finished. Prepare and test your distribution list in advance. Find out which media outlets want the press release and the summary results and which want specific geographic cuts.

Feedback

Free calendar listing. Include your event in the Web's most respected and comprehensive calendar of running events. Submit your race now.

Free race results listing. Post your race results on Cool Running. Submit your race results now.

Online advertising. Promote your event with one of our event advertising packages, each carefully tailored for events of specific sizes and needs. Review our event promotion packages.

Your own mini- website. Build your own web page and registration form in minutes with Cool Running's easy-to-use, automated event builder. Your site gets linked in the event calendar and on our race applications page. Try this affordable service now.

Online race registration. Along with our partners at Active.com, we can help you manage your race registration more easily and more efficiently by moving the process online. Contact us for rates and information.

Custom Web design. Engage our designers to build your page from scratch, tapping our years of experience with effective online event promotion. Contact us for rates and information.

Consulting. Our management team has lots of experience with successful race management. Let us help you navigate everything from scoring to insurance to promotion to merchandise. Contact us for rates and information.

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Copyright 2005, Cool Sports, Inc. All rights reserved.