In or Out?

[PaperWings]

Omg...
Please people, if you are in a situation where you have to pull out please alert us. I am here looking at running Classical Dressage and I've only 6, that's right SIX, entries out of 14.

I know real life can throw in big shocks, or generally prevent us from jumping on the computer to put horses into their correct events. But this is just silly. You shouldn't have to rely on the Ops/Stewards to message you for you to remember to enter your horse. YOU chose to take part in the event, so YOU should be aware of events going up at some point. Grab a pen and paper and jot down dates or something, is what I've done =D

But anyway, please tell us if you have to drop out. And if you've not dropped out, please try make a note of when you've to event so we don't have to spend 30mins or whatever to message everyone just to find out they are no longer taking part.

Those that are entering their horses religiously, thanks! I actually love you for taking part and keeping on top of it. You are making the whole event what it should be, and you are making our lives a little easier =p Gold stars for you!

Obviously I'm not annoyed for those that genuinely forget to enter, but I swear there are people waiting for us to message them :/ Not impressed!

Anyhoo, those that are actually running their horses: the best of luck to you!

[Kholran]

*nod nod*

Some of my groups are consistently missing the same 4-5 players. I totally understand that some people are eventing in everything and that it's a lot to remember, but it's a lot for the Ops and stewards to remember as well when they have to consistently message 5-6 players in multiple disciplines for every single heat.

Google Calendar is free. The first thing I did when I got my Sport horse schedule was to go in and put what groups were supposed to run when.

As for the events I'm personally eventing in, I pretty much know that when one group is completed, there are more events set up for them, so I try to enter right away. That way even if things come up, I'm good to go for the next 6 days. I keep one event from each group bookmarked, and as long as I check my bookmarks regularly, I catch them pretty quickly after they run.

Those of you who are totally on top of things are awesome and get all the gold stars I can find.

[Prancer]

*nod nod*

Some of my groups are consistently missing the same 4-5 players. I totally understand that some people are eventing in everything and that it's a lot to remember, but it's a lot for the Ops and stewards to remember as well when they have to consistently message 5-6 players in multiple disciplines for every single heat.

Google Calendar is free. The first thing I did when I got my Sport horse schedule was to go in and put what groups were supposed to run when.

As for the events I'm personally eventing in, I pretty much know that when one group is completed, there are more events set up for them, so I try to enter right away. That way even if things come up, I'm good to go for the next 6 days. I keep one event from each group bookmarked, and as long as I check my bookmarks regularly, I catch them pretty quickly after they run.

Those of you who are totally on top of things are awesome and get all the gold stars I can find.

Yeah I've noticed that a lot, been messaging pretty much the same people every single time. Keep wondering if after 2 messages if theres much point in bothering with the 3rd, but I do anyway.

[Kholran]

*nod nod*

Some of my groups are consistently missing the same 4-5 players. I totally understand that some people are eventing in everything and that it's a lot to remember, but it's a lot for the Ops and stewards to remember as well when they have to consistently message 5-6 players in multiple disciplines for every single heat.

Google Calendar is free. The first thing I did when I got my Sport horse schedule was to go in and put what groups were supposed to run when.

As for the events I'm personally eventing in, I pretty much know that when one group is completed, there are more events set up for them, so I try to enter right away. That way even if things come up, I'm good to go for the next 6 days. I keep one event from each group bookmarked, and as long as I check my bookmarks regularly, I catch them pretty quickly after they run.

Those of you who are totally on top of things are awesome and get all the gold stars I can find.

Yeah I've noticed that a lot, been messaging pretty much the same people every single time. Keep wondering if after 2 messages if theres much point in bothering with the 3rd, but I do anyway.

As Bama told me once when I was fretting about not getting messages sent: Players are responsible for remembering to enter. The messages are just an extra bonus. So I stopped stressing when I (or my stewards) just didn't have time. XD

[PaperWings]

I just used excel and made myself a calendar with all the events I am managing. Giving them two tick boxes - one is for "set up" and one is for "ran". Then I ticked them accordingly XD And I also marked down when my own olympic moose's events are just so I know when to enter.

Looking at the ranches of some they haven't been on since the 15th :/ So makes me think if it is worth messaging them. Normally Twit does this all for me, but she actually messaged me to say she'll not be free due to exams. So at least one person is bothering to let me know what is going on!

[Quinnley]

I know I'm one of the guilty parties here. I'm not completely out, I promise! But I did get slammed with the last two weeks of school so I'm fighting RL quite a bit right now. I really appreciate the messages alerting me and in the case of polo, it was greatly needed. I lost track of time on that one. For the other events though, I'm just going to have to enter as I have time. If I can catch everything up here homework wise, I'm going to start tossing horses in events. But regardless, I'll try to be better. Sorry guys. Just a bit overwhelmed right now. I might be completely out for sprint. I just don't have time to train those horses.

[PaperWings]

If you think you're out just message the Op/Stewards running those particular events and just give them a heads up. They'll be happy for the notice =D

[Bodom247]

Some of my groups are consistently missing the same 4-5 players. I totally understand that some people are eventing in everything and that it's a lot to remember, but it's a lot for the Ops and stewards to remember as well when they have to consistently message 5-6 players in multiple disciplines for every single heat.

Yes, there are a lot of names I have come to recognize since I have had to send so many messages to them... can't tell you how many times I've had to send like 8 messages for a single event.
And yes I totally understand simply forgetting, I myself am competing in some stock & warmblood events and have gotten a message from a steward and went, "Oh crap!" Prancer was especially tolerant when I, probably twice, missed entering some events (and I know how annoying that can be having dealt with it myself) xD But it's quite a different matter when it happens every single time, and I've also thought that people are relying on me to send them a message. That is totally unfair, if that is the case. I especially love the people that still enter, even if their horses aren't winning! It is such a huge help.

[rebs9]

I wrote down on my calendar, by my bed, when every single set of my events was going to start, and which horses are in each event. I look at it at 5am every morning when I get up. Because of my new job, sometimes I just cannot get on a computer, can't even look at one, until 9pm, which by that time I am exhausted and just have to go to bed. I have to admit, I must have had about 5 messages from stewards asking me to enter my horses, and I have those messages because I havn't been able to get online. I would like to be one of those to say I am sorry I am entering so late, I don't want to drop any horses out (because that means more fillers), and I am, and will continue to try and enter my horses as quickly as I possibly can. Unfortunately I got the job after I started the Olympics preparation, and was unaware of how much time I had to put into my work. Thank goodness for weekends *sigh*

A big shout out to all the Ops and stewards who are working their behinds off, you are making this a super experience, and I know everybody appreciates all of your effort

[elise:)]

Thank you to the Ops who have had to remind me as well. I just have so many events to get in, that I try to do all my entering once a week or so, when i get a good 3 hour block that i can devote to olympic eventing. So, often the events that go up right after I do my weekly entering, i'm a bit late getting into. And those always seem to be halter (love you twit!) and wb events (thanks Prancer!)
It really bothers me though that some people seem to have just given up... Not only is it more work for the Ops, having to send out messages and add fillers, but it's frustrating for the active participants, because the events get behind because the Ops try to be nice and leave the events up past when they should be run, to allow people to enter. It also makes it more complicated for Ops to make sure that all the events for a given discipline are being run with the same number of entries.
I mean this - http://www.virtualhorseranch.com/events ... 5372&club= is ridiculous. At -8 days with only 4 entries. 4 entries from only TWO people. And it's the 2nd round, so you'd think that we'd be past the point of people who've dropped out. Ugh, it's just frustrating. I don't want to run in an olympic event against only one other player, where's the competition in that? I don't want my horses to move up placings just because other horses missed sets of events... maybe that's just me though. I'm the kind of person that would rather lose to some really tough competition than win with no competition. And this is the friggin' Olympics for crying out loud! What kind of olympic event has only two people competing?

I just hope once more and more events move into the finals, people will, as a whole, get entered faster so that we can hurry up and start seeing some medal results!!

[PaperWings]

If the events filled right away, we'd run them at -1 day. Which would actually be nice. I think I've only had one set of events for a group be filled, once.

And that event at -8 is shocking. 2nd round should have definately picked out all the unwilling eventers. That is one reason why I look forward to the next round of events.

I think in future, if we run an Olympic event again we should try limit the number of horses people can enter. Because some people really have bitten off more than they can chew with 4 horses in like every other disc. which to me is insane. I struggle with just one!

[Karebear]

*hangs head in shame*

I'll lift my hands up and say I am one of the main offenders here. I'm so very sorry that I am one of the people slowing the Olympics down for everybody.

The thing is for me it's not remembering the events that is causing the difficulty, it's getting the time to get my horses in the events now my exam work is kicking up a gear. And especially as life has thrown me a bunch of crap right now I'm finding it difficult to get online each day. But I have every day timetabled so I know which horses to event where, and I try and look at it every day... but sometimes it is just impossible, and I feel absolutely dreadful about it. I mean, I got to school worrying about which horses I need to enter if I don't manage to get online before school and enter my trained horses :/. But I have some spare time now so I'll get all of my trained horses for this week entered, and notify the correct people about horses I'm not going to be able to enter.

Thankyou so much for posting this Paper, this is going to sound very ignorant of me but I didn't realise that not notifying the correct people was causing such hassle and annoyance to the people running the Olympics.

Bear.

[PaperWings]

It just confusing when people have started eventing, then they don't log onto that account for a week. We have to wonder if it is worth delaying events a day just to see if they pop on, or just to run them knowing that if that person does log on again they'll be a fair few points behind.

The worst part is having to put fillers in when we need to enter more than 4. Because the Olympic ranch has no special ability to enter more than 4, so we've to lease them out then log into another account and enter all those events again. I mean I was putting 6-7 fillers in events the other day. And that took me a good hour. I don't fancy staying up til 1am every time I've to run events when I've work the next day >.>

[Bodom247]

I think in future, if we run an Olympic event again we should try limit the number of horses people can enter. Because some people really have bitten off more than they can chew with 4 horses in like every other disc. which to me is insane. I struggle with just one!

Haha, I agree XD I have I think like 16 or 20 horses entered, or something like that! And I'm entering all my horses on time (except once), being a steward, have a full-time job and am a full-time college student AND have to deal with a lot of crappy things in life, and have a boyfriend that pretty much demands I see him every day, and work out for at least an hour every day. And, I haven't gotten too far behind! It is possible to juggle everything.

[Twisted]

yeah I totally see where it would get annoying to keep on havin to PM people to enter their horses, thats why I always get mine entered by -2 days, of coarse Im only doing the warmblood dressage & team dressage so it wasnt hard for me to "stay on top" lol