Re: RC: Re: Ride Fees

[Merryben@aol.com]

Bottom line, why not omit the catered meal and focus all energy on the ride itself?  That's more than enough responsibility.  Then you don't even need pre-registration.  A few of our rides offer a small discount if pre-entered but most are just show up, pay your $$ and ride.  Nice and simple for all since the ride attendance varies little for any particular ride from year to year.  You already know how many vets you'll need.  No refunds to send and very few pre-ride phone calls to field from my experience.
 

We do need prerigistration for our rides.  If you know who is coming and have the packets made up and set out for the people who have sent everything, then you only need to deal with the people who have changes or something that needs clarification.  I cannot tell you how many entries I get where the weight division is not checked, the AERC number is the same for both horse and rider, the ride they want to enter mileage wise is not checked, and many others I can't think of at the moment.  The point is that sometimes people make mistakes on their entries that need to be questioned and changed.  Sometimes new riders are not sure of what some of the blanks are for.  All this needs to be addressed and if you must do them at the time of the ride, there are long lines.  Also, we have not a clue as to how many riders will show up.  We have had as many as 40 show up the day of the ride.  We have also had very small rides when we expected 80 or more.  You need to have some idea so that!
 you know how many vets you need
  Our head vet always tries to have someone on hand to add if need be but when she calls on Wednesday, I need to have a reasonable idea of how many are expected.  Omitting the dinner is fine with me but we still need pre entries......maryben