Online Entries - The Future - Have your Say?

[Dee]

An interesting point re promotions and bib number.

No idea is this would work, but if you assume that priority should be given to those in the Division before Paddle Ups, could you be allowed to enter with your 'old' bib number from say Div 1 but be allowed to put in the date of promotion to prem which would have to be in say the past week at the point of the online entry? This would allow the entry to be accepted pending the new bib number coming through.

If the race is full at the point you try to enter on line or by post, then anyone in the host division should leapfrog paddlers on the waiting list. So for the Paul McConkey, the waiting list would the prem paddlers followed by the Div 1 paddlers i.e. priority is given to the host division.

Re your last point - not strictly true.....
It's host paddlers received before the priority date by entry received date
Followed by remaining entries in order of date received
So a host paddler entering day after priority date will find themselves behind all paddle ups who registered before the priority deadline.

Re the first point. There is nothing to stop a newly promoted paddler from entering as a paddle up and then contacting organiser to say they have been promoted which would mean that the Organiser could 'manually' push them to the top of the queue. This is already the case. To do what you suggest sounds simple and is a good idea, but is actually quite complex for what should be a relatively rare case (only really likely to be an issue for a paddler promoted from div 1 to prem exactly 5 weeks before the date of the prem race they want to enter, and may not occur even then if the bib application is sent off immediately and bib officer is not on holiday!).
I'm also slightly concerned of it being open to misuse from the over-ambitious, over-confident paddler jumping the gun.
It is still an option though so I will see if I can find a way of simplifying

[Dee]

I'm not sure about that, I only use Firefox but login from several different PCs so maybe that causes the issue?

Not convinced about the Facebook link to other websites (do they call it app platform or something?) and refuse to enable it anyway

You should be able to log in from several pcs but will need to repeat email process for each. (I'm logged in on a pc plus iPad)
I always refuse sites wanting access to my Facebook profile but am less concerned if it's just the email. However it does add to Facebook's picture of your life I guess.

[CeeBee]

If the race is full at the point you try to enter on line or by post, then anyone in the host division should leapfrog paddlers on the waiting list. So for the Paul McConkey, the waiting list would the prem paddlers followed by the Div 1 paddlers i.e. priority is given to the host division.

This doesn't currently happen and is a suggestion for the future for debate. What do others think? Would this be fairer to the host division?

[Debs]

Love it, much better for parents who can't afford to fork out all the entry fees at beginning of the year. Much better this way.
One query...
How do you enter JUNIOR champs at Llandysul if your in prem?
Do I need to do it by post as online system won't let me do it?

[Dee]

Love it, much better for parents who can't afford to fork out all the entry fees at beginning of the year. Much better this way.
One query...
How do you enter JUNIOR champs at Llandysul if your in prem?
Do I need to do it by post as online system won't let me do it?

I'm trying to find out how "Champs" races and, for that matter "Opens" and "Pan Celtics" are supposed to work.

I know nothing about them and have no concept of what the requirements are - if someone can explain them to me then I can probably do something to incorporate, but having never been involved in any of these either as an organiser or paddler parent (although there was the occasion David and Mal did a C2 run at HPP which might have been Pan Celtic) I'm at a loss. There is surprisingly little detail in the rules and it's the detail that I need.

Who can enter what types of "Champs" races.
Can you enter a Div 2, say, without entering the "Champs"
Are you automatically entered in "Champs" if you enter a ranking race.
If you are eligible for "Champs" can you enter that instead of a different ranking race.
What should the start list look like
What does it cost - if you enter ranking and champs do you pay twice
etc, etc, etc

Similar questions apply to all these "non-standard" races.

In the meantime I think it is probably a postal entry - not sure what Llandysul can then do with it though!

[CeeBee]

My understanding of all Championship events and Pan Celtic events is as follows -

If you enter the ranking race, then your entry counts for the Champs/Pan Celtic with no extra charge.
If you cannot enter the ranking race as either the host division or paddles up, then you just enter the Champs/Pan Celtic race with the same fee as the host Division.

For the Pan Celtic, the team managers determine who is in the team and send the team list to the organiser. The organiser then needs to match up these entries against the ranking entries and will often put say 'Scotland' down as the club so you can see who the PC entries are. This would need to be done manually by the organiser after the online entry has been received.

For J16 Champs say which are held at a Div 1 event, them premier paddlers just enter the event but as a non ranking race, Div 1 enter as a ranking race and Div 2 enter as a Paddles Up. However, those in Prem and Division 2 doing Paddles Up would not be on a 'waiting list' as they have a legitimate championship entry. J16 Championship is further complicated as the age groups are J16,J15,J14,J13 ,J12 and need to be recorded on the start list as this.

[JoS]

"My Entries" is available on the confirmation page (immediately after payment details accepted) and on the main menu bar (when you are logged in). Does it need to be more prominent?

No, I believe I just need to be less daft and tired thank you!

[Dee]

"My Entries" is available on the confirmation page (immediately after payment details accepted) and on the main menu bar (when you are logged in). Does it need to be more prominent?

No, I believe I just need to be less daft and tired thank you!

[Dee]

My understanding of all Championship events and Pan Celtic events is as follows -

If you enter the ranking race, then your entry counts for the Champs/Pan Celtic with no extra charge.
If you cannot enter the ranking race as either the host division or paddles up, then you just enter the Champs/Pan Celtic race with the same fee as the host Division.

For the Pan Celtic, the team managers determine who is in the team and send the team list to the organiser. The organiser then needs to match up these entries against the ranking entries and will often put say 'Scotland' down as the club so you can see who the PC entries are. This would need to be done manually by the organiser after the online entry has been received.

For J16 Champs say which are held at a Div 1 event, them premier paddlers just enter the event but as a non ranking race, Div 1 enter as a ranking race and Div 2 enter as a Paddles Up. However, those in Prem and Division 2 doing Paddles Up would not be on a 'waiting list' as they have a legitimate championship entry. J16 Championship is further complicated as the age groups are J16,J15,J14,J13 ,J12 and need to be recorded on the start list as this.

Pan-Celtic
There is a place in the system that can be used for the organiser to add "Scot", "Eng" etc. However, I had a feeling that there was more to it than this.....

• I think someone suggested that pan-celtics don't always pay/or that they are paid for separately?
• I also got the impression that at a prem race say, a pan-celtic div 1 paddle-up would get priority over other paddle-ups for their pan-celtic entry but would only get the ranking points if they would have otherwise got a place. Very complex, but because prems still had priority the rest could be done manually before awarding waiting list places.
• Does the pan-celtic team remain the same for a whole year?
• Does that mean that at some pan-celtics you might have fewer 'Scots' than 'Engs' or vice-versa, or do those counting work in a given order?
• Do team members get substituted?

Championships

• If a div 2 enters as a paddle-up for a championship should they be accepted immediately, or does their ranking race only count if space would otherwise have been available. Presumably div 3s can enter too.
• Does a ranking entry automatically qualify for a championship race or do they have to state that they want to be entered as such.
• For the Prems and Div 3s, is it like running a specialised open alongside the main competition - but limited by age group.

Thanks for the info, though I do remain a little confused. I can't find anything in the rules allowing the "queue jumping", which is effectively what seems to be allowed here. It does make me wonder whether this all needs to be properly agreed and documented!

Either way Champs do sound like they might add quite a lot of extra complexity as everything suddenly depends on age category - nothing in the online system currently uses age category for decision making and it might be tricky to introduce this without complicating the set up for the rest of the races. Will need to mull it over.

[JimW]

Pan Celtic is complex and the rules have been revised this year so best to ask one of the team managers to send them to you if they aren't online (Rob Softley, Elaine Forbes,?)

One of the complications is that a competitor can be registered as an official or non ranking (i.e. not in division or eligible to PU) in which case the national association pays their entry, but if they will score personal points (in division or PU) they pay their own entry. I think there is somethng in the order they are accepted too.

Speaking to Elaine it sounds like the team managers actually have quite a job to do to get everything straight anyway, it is probably too complex for the online system.

Probably need a 'non-ranking', or maybe a 'comment box' option that can be enabled on PCC and other champs races to let the organiser know the entry needs special consideration, but I doubt if it is sensible to try to do it all automatically. Maybe all PUs have to wait in abeyance for champs events for organiser intervention rather than being automatically accepted once priority deadline passes (would have to apply to all entries after priority deadline too).

[djberriman]

The system could of course give 'promoted' paddlers a bib number automatically and tell the bib officer which bib to send. It would require some work each year for the bib officer to confirm exactly which bibs they have in stock but not a major effort.

However as I currently understand it a paddler is not promoted until they apply for their new bib at which time the ranking officer/bib officer checks the promotion details and if correct allocates a bib and sends it. This process also ensures that the old bib is returned and that the paddlers proves their current BC membership.

There are occasions due to either incorrect paddler details, incorrect loading of data or god forbid bugs in my code when a paddler may be 'promoted' by mistake, thus the manual check is useful, particularly at the start of the season when rule changes may have unforseen impacts on the ranking database (this year in particular has been fun with me having to code the new PU rules).

We have come a long way in the last few years, results are now loaded within a few hours and the ranking lists are immediate.

There is still work to be done, like holding all paddler data on the database which may make the process quicker.

Personally I'd say get your bib application in immediately and also contact any organisers of events to inform them of promotions. I've had quite a few do just that already this year.

Those who have been promoted will have spotted one new feature this year that is your promotion certificate is emailed to you automatically.

[Dee]

Thanks for replying on this Duncan. I must admit that I thought that the idea behind points being confirmed at the completion was that promotions were also immediately confirmed. I obviously got that wrong!

I wonder whether this is something we could aim for in 2019 maybe? Gives a bit more time for the paddle up dust to settle; there will always be changes but this one was a biggy:)

[djberriman]

You are probably right Dee, or perhaps like many things it is unclear and processes or the rule book are playing catch up.

It probably just needs the slalom committee to say this is how it will be.

The current process does however ensure paddlers apply for their bib in a timely manner and return their old one.

[jezrix]

The online entry system worked really well for Yorkshire Slalom's recent Washburn Div 2 event. The event was a double Div 2, but we had to cancel the Sunday at short notice as Yorkshire Water cancelled the dam release. As treasurer, if we'd used postal entries, I would have had to sort out partial refunds, replacement cheques etc. - but with online entries, the system processed the refunds for all but the handful of paddlers who'd entered by post.

We're also using the online entry system for our double Div 2 on July 1/2. However, we're not using online entries for our Washburn double Div 1 event or the Tees Prem/Div 1 weekend. This was due to the large amount of money (relative to Yorkshire Slalom's reserves) that would have been held by Stripe on our behalf for approx 4 weeks between when the payment is taken from paddlers until it is sent to us after the event. We discussed this issue with Dee and found out that Stripe is an ‘Authorised Electronic Money Institution supervised by the FCA’ and subject to UK regulation and as such is required to hold customers' money in a separate account from its own funds - which provides reassurance that the risk to customers' funds is small. However, unlike for UK banks, customers' money held by Stripe is not covered by the UK financial services compensation scheme - so in the (hopefully very unlikely) event of a failure at Stripe (e.g. fraud, theft) then there is the possibility that the money could be lost. Whilst Yorkshire Slalom could cope with the loss of Div 2 event income, it would struggle to cope with the loss of income from Prem/Div1 weekend events. So, whilst the risk is small, the potential consequences would be fairly devastating.

We'd like to use online entries for 2018 for all the slaloms we run. I did make inquires as to whether we could take out insurance for financial loss, but didn't get anywhere. A better solution might be for GB canoeing to underwrite the online system for all events - the risk appears small and the potential loss would be limited to 4 weeks of event entry money held by Stripe (~£30K?) - which is small compared to GB canoeing's income. Do people think this is a good idea? If yes, what would be the best route to make such a request to GB canoeing?

Jez

[Dee]

I have no issue if someone else is able to take this forward.

In the meantime by way of some information (and reassurance):

• You can see that Stripe is authories by searching the online financial services register of the FCA: https://register.fca.org.uk/shpo_search ... 1nht7eg7tr. According to the FCA "It cannot be determined if FSCS cover would apply to this firm.", so for our purposes we have to assume that it isn't.
• The same will apply to most, if not all, of card processing providers - so moving the processing won't help (even if we could find another company that provides a similar service of managed accounts; there are not as many as you think).
• Stripe is well-regarded and probably pays security a higher regard than other equivalent companies which was one of our reasons for selecting it.
• Stripe's key investors include Visa and American Express - this is not a fly-by-night company - we are talking about a very small risk (though given some of the big names that have gone under, I fully accept that we should never say never)
• In the event of Stripe suddenly going into receivership, I think that paddlers who have paid by credit card (the majority) would for the most part be able to get the money back from their card company as it will not have been received by the organisation to whom payment was made, though I realise that there is no guarantee of this. They would then be able to make payment by other means (Note: I do not for one minute suggest this would be an easy solution, but Stripe going into sudden receivership also looks very unlikely!).
• We could consider transferring the money as soon as it has been received, but this would make cancellations (individual and whole event) a nightmare - solving the cancellation issue was always a system priority.
• We currently take payment 3 weeks before the competition and pay out a week after (to allow for clearing of last minute payments). We could consider taking payment later, so shortening the overall time, BUT...... there are a handful of payments that fail each time. Paddlers are automatically emailed and the vast majority of these are resolved within 48hrs, if not 24hrs. The odd one or two need to be chased and the closer we get to the event the less time there is to resolve issues. (Please note payment failure can happen to anyone for all sorts of reasons and is not the fault of the individual paddler; failure to respond to the email by re-supplying payment details is the fault of the paddler)

The whole thing is really a balancing act, so no really easy solution other than accept the tiny risk, get some form of insurance or, as you suggest, Jez, obtain backing of potential loss from BC.