How we can do better next time:

[Handlebars]

An Adopt-a-noob program?

I'd be willing to take on a newbie. I showed Mitch around on Fins-n-Things, it was his first trip to Moab. It was a blast! He had a smile that would barely fit back into his Jeep. That was the guy we were looking to buy your towhooks for. His XJ was as stock as could be!

One other suggestion would be to come up with a better plan to recruit trail leaders. These big events with multiple trails each day always have more trails scheduled than leaders. How about "paying" them something more tangible? I would gladly do it for a free year's membership. A " Trail Leader" t-shirt or jacket might tempt other people. Having more trail leaders than trails going into the event would be even better! Josh and John shared a Jeep and leading duties on Fins-n-Things, Josh was able to walk (or run) around to spot vehicles while John kept the group moving. It was a very effective system and worked really smoothly.

Printing out maps showing staging areas and making sure those locations still exist would be nice. A printed list of trail runs would be nice too. I was able to access this information on my phone while in Moab and catch timely updates. Maybe just plan on having everybody check the forum each day for updates? Surely everyone has a smartphone or other mobile device to get this information.

 

[GSequoia]

I'd be all for Adopt-A-Noob. Nothing pleases me more than leading a stocker run and opening one or more newbies eyes into what their vehicle is capable of.

 

[Boatwrench]

other than the weather, the Show and Shine went fine.

 

[Boatwrench]

The wife says she wants us to buy slickrock when I retire and run it...

Also has lots of plans to spend money to upgrade it...

We met the old owners as they own the Blue Pig now...they said in the 8 years since they have owned it, they are pretty sure the new owner hasn't made one upgrade...

mac 'not sure if its a dream or a nightmare' gyvr

Mary (rightseatsis) and I discussed this also. I would definitely figure out how to keep the Jeepers in one area away from the general population and build a pavillion / clubhouse with a set of taps (the beer kind). Maybe a rent by the hour shop.....

 

[DrMoab]

clubhouse with a set of taps (the beer kind).

Not in Utah you won't. LOL

 

[GSequoia]

Not in Utah you won't. LOL

Hey, if we're dreaming we'll have a full license and make it a carved out area, hello private party!

 

[RedHeep]

The problem with the campground was technically my fault. I certainly wasn't thrilled with the way it was handled, but I made the reservation a year ago thinking we were going to stay until sunday and I never changed it.

The girl at checkin didn't verify the reservation with me and the girl at checkout refused to adjust the price for our actual stay. Had I caught it when we checked in, I wouldn't have overpaid in the first place.

The only part that really frustrated me was the inattention that there is at the business end of the campground and the attitude that the business is always right. It's the attitude that you get when you're in a tourist trap and you're the only game in town. They complied with their posted policy (on a dry erase board) but it could have been handled better to a customer that dropped 5 bills on a cabin. Makes me not want to go back.

The show and shine needs to happen earlier. Trails can be planned so that folks can show up at 1600, get the lineup and judging done and enjoy the food. Unfortunately, that means the folks that volunteer to run that event have to pretty much take the day off. If it was me, I would try and get the community center on thursday and friday and have the show and shine there so you can utilize the kitchen and the meeting area.

 

[DrMoab]

The show and shine needs to happen earlier. Trails can be planned so that folks can show up at 1600, get the lineup and judging done and enjoy the food. Unfortunately, that means the folks that volunteer to run that event have to pretty much take the day off. If it was me, I would try and get the community center on thursday and friday and have the show and shine there so you can utilize the kitchen and the meeting area.

Couldn't agree more.

Or...do them on the same day and just not plan on wheeling that day. Show and shine in the afternoon and dinner at night.

 

[GrimmJeeper]

Also, have a large sized poster with the runs scheduled on the side of Cabin 1 at all times so if folks walk up anytime of the day, not just when registration is open, in addition to the final runs thread on the site.

im late to the thread here but this is an excellent idea, and i'm in to make it happen in 18x24 or 24x36 (whichever is the biggest piece of posterboard I can get my hands on at the time) on my dime. just let me know at least 2 weeks ahead of when it needs to be done. :cheers:

 

[Fred]

I think our esteemed president should have made the effort to introduce himself to all of us. I do appreciate the hard work that went into the event, but I was truly disappointed that at the sign up area I didn't hear: "Hi, I'm Mcguyver."

 

[XJensen]

well on my part I would say an itemized list for all the orders in addition to the print out of the orders. Even a list of names, (alphabetically) and order numbers would have helped to track down the order forms faster and made things much smoother. I did this for SierraFest and it worked pretty well.

Also inventorying the goods against the orders before hand would have been great to know what we had to sell ahead of time.

I will take responsibility for both issues and hope others learn from it as I did. I could not have made it through the first day if it was not for all the great help, thanks everyone who suffered through that with me.

Josh

 

[macgyvr]

well on my part I would say an itemized list for all the orders in addition to the print out of the orders. Even a list of names, (alphabetically) and order numbers would have helped to track down the order forms faster and made things much smoother. I did this for SierraFest and it worked pretty well.

Also inventorying the goods against the orders before hand would have been great to know what we had to sell ahead of time.

I will take responsibility for both issues and hope others learn from it as I did. I could not have made it through the first day if it was not for all the great help, thanks everyone who suffered through that with me.

Josh

Definitely could've streamlined registration a bit. Sounds like you have some good on ideas on making it better. Hopefully we refer back to this thread for the next event.

Thanks for your help Josh.

mac 'been home almost a week already' gyvr

 

[CharlesS]

The problem with the campground was technically my fault. I certainly wasn't thrilled with the way it was handled, but I made the reservation a year ago thinking we were going to stay until sunday and I never changed it.

The girl at checkin didn't verify the reservation with me and the girl at checkout refused to adjust the price for our actual stay. Had I caught it when we checked in, I wouldn't have overpaid in the first place.

The only part that really frustrated me was the inattention that there is at the business end of the campground and the attitude that the business is always right. It's the attitude that you get when you're in a tourist trap and you're the only game in town. They complied with their posted policy (on a dry erase board) but it could have been handled better to a customer that dropped 5 bills on a cabin. Makes me not want to go back.

This along with other reasons are why after staying at SRCG since 1999; I will not be staying there ANYMORE. Not until the present owners either sell the place to someone who cares OR invest ALOT of money to get the CG back to the way it was many years ago.
This year I rented a cabin on the south end of town and there was a screw up with the reservation. The manager not only took ownership of the problem; he made it right by paying for our last nights stay at their sister campground.
That is good business practice and makes you want to come back again.

 

[GSequoia]

Slickrock treated me right in 2006, not sure if that is old or new owner. They messed up and lost my dad's reservation, we camped for free that week.

Still I agree that it's run down but I like that they're more open to the realities of our group and is where everybody is.

 

[jmaxj]

2006 was when rex owned it and he was at least trying to fix what the previous owners neglected. These new owners seem to be neglecting what rex fixed among other things.

 

[XJEEPER]

These ideas have mostly been covered, so I'll just add votes for:

• Perhaps a suggested (required?) minimum equipment level for each trail in addition to the numeric ratings. For the Moab noob, it can be difficult to assess in advance whether or not your rig is properly equipped for a given trail, even after consulting Wells. As was previously mentioned, there are some obstacles on some trails that a properly driven stock XJ could climb, or that are optional (think Hell's Gate). But there are other trails with a similar rating (think Cliffhanger) which that same driver/rig might prefer to avoid as there are few (if any) bypasses.

That last one could be tough to implement and possibly a bit controversial. But there a lot of drivers here with tons of experience on those trails. The first-timers could really benefit from some of that acquired knowledge, but I'm not exactly sure how to go about it.

Guess this info wasn't published enough, but it was made available way back in April. http://www.rr4w.com/trails.cfm http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1098814

In the future, an actual event web page needs to be deployed as a source of consolidation of event info, trail runs, registration, links to lodging and repair shops etc. instead of multiple threads with pages and pages to sift through. I've mentioned this multiple times, but this club sponsored run page http://www.winterontherocks.com/ could be used as a model for chapters annual events, with our own twists applied.