99. Racing Handout

John Gilmour · Post by **John Gilmour** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 6:30 pm

I would like to see the development of a racing handout given to spectators at events. It could include racers profiles and rules and some room for sponsors.

Perhaps we could have some photos with text attached available for download- for each racer as his profile.

My favorite paper format is the one used by Apple in promoting their 17 inch powerbook. The way the thing folds is easy- since there is an offset staple (no need for a special stapler). It enables you to open up the page quite wide to see a picture of the power book that is wider than the sheets of paper it is printed on.

We could easily fit ALL the racers onto this single foldout page.

If racers all had profiles it would be a matter of dragging and dropping the photo profile onto this template. The way I see it- racers would drag this photo onto the template when registering so it is no extra work for the promoter. Racers could be listed alphabetically, by region, pro am, whatever.

Kids would like it for autographs....as would the racers.

Jani Soderhall · Post by **Jani Soderhall** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 6:59 pm

This forum
One of the reasons I started this specific sub-forum was to have a place to record biographies and show photos of individual skaters. Racer organizers would then know where to go to find a picture of a skater and some facts about the guy.

Ultimately every person who has signed up to this forum would have his own thread in here with a selection of pictures and a profile that could be updated as events come and go.

To make this happen I would have to write 280 biographies to catch up with where we are at the moment, so it's not likely to happen if I'm the only one working on it.

I have plenty of pictures of slalomers but recent and older, so I'd be happy to decorate posts whenever somebody else posts a profile. If you make a post it doesn't have to be ambitious or complete, but try to be accurate. If you have a friend who you consider should be listed here, please create a new topic and write a few words about him. Everybody is then invited to complement the information and add pictures to the topic.

Race results
Ultimately race results would be handled in a separate searchable database, but we're not there yet.

Race programs, leaflets
Once we have a good profile forum going, race organizers would easily be able to get the info they need here, and produce leaflets, programs to be distributed or sold, or simply collectors cards like we've previously discussed on this forum. Anything which has a picture on it is likely to encourage a spectator to request and autograph, and we all like signing autographs don't we?

John, I never considered getting an Apple 17" portable. Can you describe that specific format they used in their ads better?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 7:04 pm

jani - a way to fill this section in would be to pick 10 questions for all users to fill out. OR, when a user signs up maybe those questions are in their profile.

There could be a section for users of the site, that THEY themselves maintian their own pages and another section for well known slalomers that might not be part of the site (Luca, Gatti, etc)

Jani Soderhall · Post by **Jani Soderhall** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 7:23 pm

At this moment I don't want to add things that require specific programming to the site so let's try to deal with what we have.

We have a forum where all registered members can make posts about themselves or about friends or skaters they consider are worth of a profile. (In my opinion that's everybody who's ever been to a race).

If a skater posts something about himself he'll be able to edit it. Like that he can keep his list of results up-to-date himself.

I'd like this part of the site to be somewhat organized so editing by the moderator(s) may be stronger than elsewhere to make sure that information is as accurate and appropriate as possible.

After the last couple of European races I've been to I think I have decent shots of almost everybody who has raced in Europe this year, and with my Slalom! archive I have many historical pictures of (mostly) European racers, so I'd happily add to any posts that would be made about European racers. On the American side I know less people, and I've only been to the FCR Worlds 2002, but I assume there are 1000's of race images out there among the rest of you.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 7:26 pm

Jani - then come up with 8-10 standard questions for all of us....make it know that it would be nice for all users to come into this frum and answer the questions about themselves and it will be done. I think you will get most of the active members to fill in their profiles.

One small programming thing that would be good for this section is that tis section would order itself alphabetically, instead of by the most recent post.

Skaters names would be listed "last name, first name"

that makes it easy to find people once the section grows.

The "Paul Price" profile is a nice model, though I think having 8-10 standard questions for skaters to respond to is eaier than having someone (or the skater themselves) write an essay about themselves (though if they wanted to they could)
I used this very model when i built the first Turner website. We got alot of good feedback from it.

Take a look at the old team section here;

http://homepage.mac.com/ur13/csd/work/turner_htm/d.html

Look at Gary holl's or Mike maysey's profiles. they were the best about keeping their info updated.

(BTW ) Gilmour...notice we always had the shot of Attila's from the first FCR race in San Fran on the team main page...the one with you in it...even after you got canned from the team. It was always my little personal protest to keep you on that page...hhaha. it all seems so drab and petty now though.)

Jani Soderhall · Post by **Jani Soderhall** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 7:50 pm

One small programming thing that would be good for this section is that this section would order itself alphabetically, instead of by the most recent post.

Excellent idea, it's almost a must! I don't see how we can do that now, but I'll try to find out how we can do it. Whoever posted the last is of less interest in this part.

Skaters names would be listed "last name, first name".

It doesn't read out as nice, but it'll probably be required for the sorting. I can edit them afterwards, so we can apply that rule once we know if (rather how) we can sort them.

8-10 standard questions for skaters...

Let's work out a joint proposal:

Here are a few:

- Name, country (should be in the topic title).
- Year of birth (easier to store than age)
- Started skating, year
- Best race results (top 5-10 events or more if you like).
- Team / Sponsors
- Other interesting facts about yourself

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 7:54 pm

The two quesions I always liked from the Turner ones were;

Who are some of your favorite skaters to watch and why?

What was your most memerable moment from last season? (which could read from skating in general so that people don't need to update every year.)

any other ideas guys?

John Gilmour · Post by **John Gilmour** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 4:35 am

UR13 I know you of all people would covet the Apple 17 inch powerbook. Do you have a copy of the little brochure to scan in? If not I'll send Jani a copy.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 4:55 am

JG - no on coveting the 17" powerbook (it is actually crap) the ibooks are better...and no on the brochure, though I will stop in at the local apple store this weekend and see if I can find one for you...

vlad - I miss the old turner too...you know when Turner had a point and/or meant something...oh whoops...ditto on the website....blah

Mike Maysey · Post by **Mike Maysey** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 7:35 pm

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: mike maysey on 2003-08-14 11:41 ]</font>

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 9:20 pm

***Upon thinking this entire thing over I have decided to pull my comments. I will no longer comment publically about anything to do with Turner at all...as far as I'm concerned it is over and done and I have moved WELL on.

However for shits and giggles anything I had prior posted stays...so if you want to be a nerd and dig it all up...go ahead....but I stand behind my comments.

Mike if you really care...you know my e-mail address...ask me there.

John Gilmour · Post by **John Gilmour** » Mon Aug 18, 2003 7:18 pm

I was thinking that we would try to make a small racing handout- very simple. Nothing more than a pair of two stapled pages like the Apple 17 inch powerbook pamphlet. I think the Pamplet is actually printed on a single page which is then cut in half and folded.

On the fold out section we could put a lot of racers photos- provided the resolution is good as is the color. A small photo say 1-1.5 inches square. Date of birth- hometown- why you skate slalom- Years skating- favorite competitions- results. Just large enough for skaters to autograph for the younger kids so they don't get bored and drag their parents, the potential new slalomers, away- lol. If a kid gets autographs on teh thing- he likely won't lose it so his father can find out about racing after he's dug up his old fibreflex a month later from his parents garage.

I went through the fold up thing with Wesley and he seems to understand it. I think it isn't necessary to have all the skaters on the flyer for every race- and even some can be on the flyter that might not be in attendance- its up to the spectators and kids to figure it out.

I remeber Jani had a handout like this for one of the races I went to. I think it had two skaters listed per page. It was in black and white and at the time color copying and printing was very expensive so the resolution suffered a bit which is probably why the images were so large to make up for that. I do know of several extremely low cost color copy places that do two sided color at rates similar to black and white xerox.

I thought that we could have these at all the races and if a promoter wanted to add a sheet to it he could.

Jani Soderhall · Post by **Jani Soderhall** » Mon Aug 18, 2003 9:51 pm

The Swedish national team has had small booklets several times to hand out during competitions. It allowed us to sign more autographs. At the time though desktop publishing was new and the quality pretty poor, but nobody cared. We got to sign and the kids got their autographs.

The one you're thinking about was certainly from the Pyreneean Adventure Games. I think I have scanned it and I will publish it here when I next lay my hands on it.

Slappy Maxwell · Post by **Slappy Maxwell** » Tue Aug 19, 2003 12:12 am

This sounds like something vendors should be creating and funding to market their own teams.

I would also question hoisting the whole autograph/bio thing of skaters on the public. It would create the impression that it must be difficult to become involved in the sport.
I would let the public decide when and how they want autographs.

And let's be honest...who really wants the autograph of a guy that's participating in a sport that can't support even semi-pro riders at this point.

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