Hello Fellow Race Directors, In this edition we expand on how to more effectively publish the results from your events. There is a temptation to feel that once the event is finished then you do not need to put a lot of effort into the final tasks, including posting the results. We developed this tool so that you can post your results (and a photo and story) from almost anywhere immediately they are available. As a personal story I remember posting the complete results (5000 finishers) of the Downtown 5K from behind the bar of an Irish pub in Providence six years ago. Over a 28.8KB modem it took the same time to post the results as it took to pour a perfect Guinness. I kid you not! Race Results - put them on the web for all to see - part 2 Last month we discussed the importance of getting your results on-line, both on your site and and especially on the Cool Running site using our results loader tool. This tool allows you to have your own results posting account with your own "look and feel" header and associated links and verbiage. This can include a link to your event and club web sites and even a link to an "early bird" registration page to encourage early registrations in the next event. Over 1300 race directors and timing companies have taken advantage of this service over the last seven years. The options you have under the tool include:
If you are not already a user of this tool, we suggest you create your own account and even practice with a dummy set of results. The tool allows you delete or modify a set of results up to 14 days after posting them. By posting your results on Cool Running, as well as your own site, you are making more people aware of your event and laying a broader foundation for future events. For an example of how a couple of our regular suppliers of results setup the headers of the results they upload:
Here is an example where multiple races were under the umbrella of one event: The files that you can include in the results set can be text files (.txt), html files or csv (comma separated variables) files. The type of files that work best are basic text files with the columns aligned. For anyone using scoring software such as "Runscore", text file output can very easily be generated, ready for posting. For anyone using spreadsheet such as Excel, all that is needed is to align the columns and save the output as a .prn (space delimited) file and rename the .prn as a .txt file. Remember try and post the results immediately after the event. They can be posted from any terminal connected to the Internet. If the results are only preliminary, label them accordingly and post the final results when available. Other recent race director newsletters: Advertisement
A Road Race specialty of ours is our "Course Clock/splits" service. Our technicians do it all from start to finish with up to 25 clocks for complete marathon coverage. Many of the best-known races in New England have used this service for years. Take a look at our Reference page on our web site www.starsystemsco.com. Bob Gibb & Family, owners Advertisement - a Cool Running Partner
The Racer's Resource features listings of fitness activities including: road races, walks, triathlons, duathlons, and multi-sport activities. Our hope is to make races easy and accessible for both participants and event directors. Advertisement - a Cool Running Partner Provide personal fundraising pages to your runners
The service will enable runners to quickly and easily set up an online fundraising page that can be personalized with their own picture, text message, fundraising goal and page title. It enables them to send out emails to family and friends and enables them to make secure online donations with a credit card that are automatically processed and sent to the charity. Click here to see a sample page: http://www.justgiving.com/PFP/pages/default.asp?id=CGG/1036 You can offer this capability to your runners directly as a way to help them raise more funds for charity more easily. You can also enable your "official" charities to offer the service to their supporters participating in your event and is a great way to unite more charity runners around your event. The service can be set up to enable runners to raise funds only for charities designated by you or for any charity (the service includes a vetting process to ensure that organizations nominated by runners have a 501c3 tax status). The service has no set up fees for you, your runners or the charities, there is only a small processing fee when donations are actually made so there is no risk. This personal fundraising service can help your event to raise more funds for charity, reduce effort associated with managing your charity program, will help charities get more participants for your event and can provide some great public relations opportunities. How to get started: Parting Words Free calendar listing. Include your event in the Web's most respected and comprehensive calendar of running events. We suggest you post your event calendar as early as possible and at least four months before race day. 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. Paid link. Include your website or race application page on our race applications page for a modest fee. Contact us for rates and information. 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 Sign Me Up Sports, 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. To subscribe to the newsletter: Copyright 2003, Cool Sports, Inc. All rights reserved. |
The Racer's Resource
Cool Running is introducing a new service to enable your runners to create their own online fundraising page. This service will help more runners raise more money and take the hassle out of the fundraising process.