Re: RC: Norco Riverdance Ride

[Lynne Glazer <lynne@glazer.org>]

Lauren, et al.

Because my ride is in an urban area, it attracts a lot more people 
who are new to the sport, as well as crossovers from NATRC.

Do the NRR attendees remember the awards ceremony, where I announced 
for so many completors, that it was their first ride?

OK, major soapbox topic.

Simply, it's the amount of time I spend on the telephone talking to 
new riders, before they've been exposed to AERC, followed by the 
indignity of collecting and submitting non-member rider fees of $10 
per person, in return for no assistance by AERC.  If AERC provided 
support materials "intro to endurance riding", I could mail these out 
and save myself tremendous time and effort, and wouldn't mind the 
extra postage expense.  These rider inquiries are not questions about 
the ridecamp site, but about the basics of endurance riding.  I can 
tell them about the handbook that they'd get if they join, but that 
doesn't help them *right before the event*.

27 out of 58 riders on my LD paid this non-member fee!   I will grant 
that AERC's national publicity efforts deserve some of that fee.  But 
that's it!  *I'm* the uncompensated point man for AERC, as are all 
other RMs for rides that attract new riders.  This sounds like it's 
just an LD issue, but it's not.  I spent a lot of time with the local 
riders who were going to do their first 50s, and those trying 
endurance that are CTR riders normally.

I had 5 people join at the ride, even though it's late in the ride 
year.  The forms provided didn't allow for any proration.  I ran out 
of AERC apps prior to the ride from mailing them to other folks who 
sent them in, and had to ask for more.   Might even be some kind of 
record for a late-year ride.  All of the 50s either were already 
members or joined at the ride.

So many people on ridecamp objected to the non-member fee when it was 
instituted because they felt their region's riders wouldn't want to 
enter because it costs too much.  Not a problem in my area; not one 
person bitched about the fee.   But to me, the fee does *nothing* to 
support my efforts as a RM.   And administration is more complex 
because of the need to collect the fee.

Last year, I answered even more newbie questions.  This year was 
easier, and we had a lot of repeat riders from last year for whom 
this is only their second ride, but I felt like salt was being rubbed 
in the wound as I counted up the number of non-member fees that will 
go to AERC this week.  Many of the riders don't have their own 
trailers and hence haven't gotten to go to any other events. <soapbox 
mode off>

I'm a strong proponent of the "mentor" concept, and think that we'd 
increase our membership if we'd formalize this a bit.  Maybe have a 
check box on the membership or inquiry form to be apprised of members 
living in the prospective rider's area.  A lot of people probably 
join after doing events as a non-member for years, but if our future 
is in attracting more people to the sport, this would be a low cost 
option.

Trail-Rite does it professionally, as do the Zontellis, many of us do 
it for free.  I've gotten 3 other fellow boarders started.  It would 
be nice to provide an option like Steph does on endurance.net, for a 
newbie to have a local mentor that might be able to offer a trailer 
ride, which would lead towards wanting to be a part of the 
organization = membership.

Lynne
Ontario, CA
Norco Riverdance Ride (PS) 9/2/00
and Rem-member Me, Celesteele


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