Derby Talk

Hey all,

I am going to pool the packs to ask about why our district event was so poorly attended.
Here are my ideas so far. What am I missing?
Position: Cubmaster, comm chair, other

Pack #

Do does pack run a PWD? Yes/no

Did anyone from your pack attend the district PWD? Yes/no/don’t know

Did you pack pass on the news about the district derby to pack families? Yes/no/ don’t know

What do you think were the greatest barriers to attending the district PWD this year?
-competing spring actives/sports
-distance to travel
-cost of entry ($5 per car)
-cubscout program fatigue
-mis-match of pack and district rules
-lack of advertisement of the event
-lack of interest in the event
-late notification of date
-change from the initial date
-other

What do you think would improve attendance at future district races?
-knowing the date farther in advance
-proactive reminder system about the event
-different location
-trophies for “best in show” in addition to speed
-Less restrictive district rules
-other

Would your pack be willing to pay a small amount to offset the cost of this district event?

Thanks,
Noskills

If you have the ability to actually poll all the packs in your District, then I think you'll get some good feedback.

In our district, I don't have a way to contact all the packs, so I do my best to advertise by going to round tables and using an email list that people have to sign up for, so I tend to only be able to communicate with those who are already in the know anyway.

I think you will be in good shape simply be stepping up and showing folks that you are interested in their input.

birddog

You might want to try keeping the race out of the month of May. Last year our district race was in April and we got 62 racers. This year we had it this past weekend in May and only had only 31 racers. I'm chalking it up to the "wrong time of year", but since we were planning for at least 60 racers, we definitely took a loss this year.

-Nitro Dan

Nitro Dan wrote:You might want to try keeping the race out of the month of May. Last year our district race was in April and we got 62 racers. This year we had it this past weekend in May and only had only 31 racers. I'm chalking it up to the "wrong time of year", but since we were planning for at least 60 racers, we definitely took a loss this year.

-Nitro Dan

Good idea, always a good idea to have prior to MA, in case some want to do both races.

I agree, I think people are just fatigued by May too.
Thanks,
Seth

Noskills wrote:Would your pack be willing to pay a small amount to offset the cost of this district event?

IMO this question could be more specific. Most units have a tight operating budget. Without a dollar estimate to define "small amount", and considering interest is already lacking, units may automatically react with "no".

Noskills wrote:I think people are just fatigued by May too.

By May, many Webelos have crossed over into Boy Scouts, the Blue & Gold banquet has passed, and Pack activities are winding down for the summer vacation. Perhaps it is "fatigue" (exhaustion by or boredom with Cub Scouting), or, perhaps people have naturally transitioned to "non-PWD" interests by the end of the school year. It appeared that your district leadership dragged its feet and thereby pushed the event too far away from unit races, when interest in PWD is highest. Pinewood Derby tends to be an indoor, winter-time activity, and four months between races is a long time to ask of a small child. In addition to "Does your pack run a Pinewood Derby?" (avoiding the abbreviation "PWD" within survey questions), you might also ask "When?" so that the district event can be scheduled appropriately.

It could be useful if you shared some outcomes from your survey so that others might learn from the insights collected.

Seth,
As someone who's position:
Is on the District Activities Committiee.

In your survey you have named off 2 really good problems that I can see as being barriers.
1st.. Did your pack pass on the news.
2nd.. Distance to travel.

Are there language issues with in your pack or your community
and do the language barriers affect your scouts in other ways?

What about the community and population you serve, is transportation an issue?

Thanks all for the input. I made the survey but had to limit to 10 questions to keep it free. I will post the results once the district leaders have had a go at it. I hope to use this data to make my proposed changes for next year (asking packs to pay, allowing for proxy races, less restrictive rules, best in show trophies etc.)

Seth

Well,
I did my survey and got about 15 responses. What I learned was what I already knew but now I have "input".

Most packs run their race in Jan but some go out as far as April. Most felt that the low turn out was due to competing Sat activities and the late announcements. Suggestions included to pick the date early, advertise like crazy and add design trophies. Also most said that $5 per car to enter was not an issue. I might bump it to $10 then. The packs were all over the place in terms of how much money they would put towards a district race, from $0 to $50 per pack. I am going to ask for $40 per pack and assume only 1/3 will pay. Our track rental is $350 and the trophies about $300. So if we get $280 from the pack, 30 cars at $10 each, thats $300 for a grand total of $580. That still puts us short. I will either find a sponsor, ask my pack to pay the rest (we are pretty good at fund raising) or pay it myself. I also plan to allow proxy racing if one person per pack is there to vouch for the car at inspection. I plan to lighten the rules a bit and add in an adult race. Advertise, remind and recruit other pack members to help.

We shall see how it goes.

Noskills

Some things to consider cost-wise:

1) Getting trophies in kit form may save some money. See http://www.trophykits.com/.
2) On the track, can you get a pack in the district to volunteer their setup? I really don't think that the district should be paying for track rental.
3) You might also consider having a concession stand during the race to make up for any expected shortfall. That can work out well if you have your race close to a meal time.

Across our entire Council, District-level participation is way off from only a few years ago. I busted my behind to get entries this year, and improved our numbers a bit, but still far down from several years ago. The feedback we received in 2014 told us to avoid spring breaks in mid-March, so we moved the event to mid April - and still didn't improve much.

I was hoping to ask the Council to send out a survey, but after recent discussions I'm not sure if we'll get that support. For such a survey, we'd be interested in feedback from those who did attend, but much more interested in hearing from those who didn't attend.

Here is a tip I'll pass along for selecting a date. I learned this one the "hard way" this year.

Our district PWD has been held on the first Saturday in April for at least the last 5 years (probably longer). This year, it happened to fall on Easter weekend. I didn't know that when I just re-used the date from previous years. It turned out not to be an issue, as we had a terrific turn out (even better than last year), but I'm going to avoid that weekend in future years.

My learning is that I cannot just repeat what we've done in the past with respect to date, I need to check for spring break and Easter as well.

Avoiding Spring Break is a must (and of course there are multiple spring breaks to worry about across multiple school districts in a BSA district).

birddog

Birddog,

Thanks for the tip. I booked 4-23 for next year which should miss all that stuff-Oh course its another year for me to run the District.

Heres a question-should scouts that cross as Web 2 in Feb some to the district as Webs or open child? I am thinking the latter to pass the torch...

Seth

Noskills wrote:Birddog,

Thanks for the tip. I booked 4-23 for next year which should miss all that stuff-Oh course its another year for me to run the District.

Heres a question-should scouts that cross as Web 2 in Feb some to the district as Webs or open child? I am thinking the latter to pass the torch...

Seth

If they must qualify to race, then if they qualified as Webelos, they should be allowed to participate as Webelos.

What tracks are the packs using? If any have their own there should be no reason they can't lend it for the district derby. $300 rental is pretty steep.

Our district rents it's track out to all the packs for around $20. I think that may even extend to some non scout entities. The big drawback for that is the track is getting pretty beat up. Most of which can be fixed up if they actually get someone to put in the work to clean it up.

gpraceman wrote:Some things to consider cost-wise:

1) Getting trophies in kit form may save some money. See http://www.trophykits.com/.
2) On the track, can you get a pack in the district to volunteer their setup? I really don't think that the district should be paying for track rental.
3) You might also consider having a concession stand during the race to make up for any expected shortfall. That can work out well if you have your race close to a meal time.