[SBU Board] Lynnwood regional feedback

[Ann Romeo]

and one more comment I overheard that I thought offered good insight:
"It would be great if we were more folksy"-that is, if we made an welcoming
announcement, or let people know where things were, or what to expect
(stickers on Friday, snack bar open/close, lunch on Sunday, bathroom
locations, credit card sales, lost and found, things like that).

Ann Romeo
Personal email: annromeo at gmail.com
Local home: 425-392-8417
Work email: Ann.Romeo at ORCInternational.com
Work direct dial: 212-463-6331
My cell: 425-615-1413









On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 12:54 PM, Eric Sieg <easieg at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I really enjoyed our recent regional in Lynnwood. It was my first regional
> in 6-7 years and it was a lot of fun having a solid week of bridge that was
> within easy driving distance of Seattle. Before the regional began, I
> started a thread on BridgeWinners asking about regional schedules which can
> be found here: http://bridgewinners.com/artic
> le/view/acbl-regional-schedules-previous-experiments/ . This was prompted
> by two things. First, I overheard some discussion about the schedule with
> people wishing for changes. Second: several people I really enjoy playing
> with could only play at night but I wanted to play 2 session events which
> meant we weren't able to play together.
>
> Throughout the regional, especially at the start, I had a variety of
> people come up and express appreciation for the bridge winners thread.
> While the opinions varied somewhat, the #1 consistent thing I heard
> throughout the week is that people really wished there was some sort of
> survey to ask their opinion. I, too, really wish there was a survey because
> there seemed to be a lot of things that were done really well and some
> things that I was unhappy about that I wanted to communicate upwards in
> hopes of something changing in the future.
>
> There are even some things I heard people complaining about but might not
> if they knew the reasons. For example, the catering was pretty sparse.
> However, my understanding is that this is because they don't let us bring
> things in and its super expensive to pay them to cater. If that was a
> survey question: "Catering at Lynnwood is currently limited because it is
> unusually expensive. Would you prefer better catering with a higher entry
> fee?" that might help people feel like they are part of the decision. A
> local club sent out a similar survey when raising entry fees and I think it
> ameliorated any minor grumbling that might have occurred.
>
> Absent that sort of survey, here is my personal feedback:
>
> 1) Partnership was amazing.
> 2) The credit card thing was really awesome. I didn't even realize it was
> there until the end, but that's really cool and I'll use it in the future.
> I had to make a special run to the ATM at one point because I thought I
> needed cash.
> 3) The bulletin was super awesome. I didn't even realize it existed until
> Saturday - is there any way to get the word out better? Maybe word of mouth
> is fine and in future regionals I'll know and be able to inform others.
> 4) I was disappointed that pair events earlier in the week had 33 boards
> in play. This resulted in less overlap which made the duplicate aspect less
> relevant and also made comparing with friends harder since we frequently
> had 12 boards not in common. Talking to the directors, they said it's an
> organizer decision and if they have more pre-made boards they can run a web
> so everyone is playing the same boards.
> 5) I overheard people complaining that the 199er event Thursday evening
> was folded into the main side game. The people discussing it said the 199er
> event had 4 full tables and that they were added in a line so that some
> people played them all and some people did not which skewed results. I was
> unable to confirm the 4 full (it looked like 3.5 but had a strange gap,
> maybe a pair decided to leave?), but it did look like the last tables had
> the 199ers in a row.
> 6) I wish the schedule was more in line with what Atlanta is doing this
> year. Specifically: Horizontal events in the evening, and 2 session events
> during the day. My personal preference would be 10:30, 2:30, and 7:15. Not
> only does this let the evening people play in 2 session events, but it also
> makes it easier to play in 3 session events. Starting at 9AM the next day
> was brutal when I have to plan 45 minutes for the commute (and many people
> commute to this regional) and I would hesitate to do that again in the
> future. An extra 1.5 hours of sleep/relaxing at home would be fabulous if
> trying to play 3 sessions. Finally, the gap between 1 and 7:15 felt
> gigantic and on some days we finished dinner and going over boards and
> still had 1.5 hours to kill before the evening session started.
> 7) It would be fun to perhaps see some unusual events scattered in there.
> For example, what about a "Canada vs USA" 64 board match on Sunday that is
> hosted in Lynnwood and Vancouver in alternating years? Or maybe north vs
> south or Seattle vs Vancouver or some similar lines. A 2 session BAM also
> sounds really fun.
>
> Note: sending to unit and district, so my apologies if you received this
> long email and don't feel it applies.
>
> Eric
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