Has anyone here ever heard of or been a part of a TD/Organizer training class? I’m thinking about organizing one in St. Louis. I’m not sure what the fee would or should be, but I’m fairly certain that the amount of material that I’d cover would take about 8 hours. I’m the only one holding tournaments in St. Louis right now (with the exception of the annual St. Louis Open), and not wanting to play in my own events, I don’t get a chance to play anymore unless I’m willing to travel. With two young children, I’d rather not travel anytime soon so I thought this may be a good idea. I’m thinking about sending emails out to see if there are any interested but I wanted to check the forum for any thoughts on this first. Thanks in advance.
It might be easier to ask around to see if there are interested potential TD’s, and then have them be an assistant TD at one of your tournaments. I’m not sure that you would get a big demand for a TD class. Besides, the trick is usually getting an organizer, not a TD. (At least in my experience.)
It sounds like you want an organizer who will direct his/her own tournaments, not just a bunch of qualified TD’s. Correct?
Correct. With the small events in this area (non-scholastic events average about 30 players state wide) I’m thinking that one can easily handle the duties of organizing and directing, especially if they chose to use pairing software. I’ve handled 40+ player events rather easily with it. Let me change the title to TD/Organizer training classes. Thanks for the advice.
I’ve always considered organizing a very different task from directing, though there are some areas of overlap or joint responsibilities.
TDs wind up organizing more because there aren’t others willing to do that work than because they want to do both sets of tasks. (Personally, I’d rather organize than direct, I wind up doing both because there aren’t a lot of TDs available.)
TDCC runs directing workshops at the US Open, and I think there have been organizer workshops there, too.
Thanks for the input. I’m wondering now what type of formats the TDCC use for their workshops, and if there is an official certification attainable for one who would then hold those workshops. If Tim Just happens to read this thread, maybe he can provide some insight. I personally prefer organizing to directing (and teaching to directing to for that matter), but in general I very much enjoy each.
I think that many potential organizers are scared off by the fear of losing money. (Just look at the thread on the US Senior and their discussion of losing money even with a NTD that worked for free.)
However, it would be interesting to put an agenda together for teaching potential organizers. Things like how prize funds are guaranteed (I know someone who was planning his first tournament who didn’t understand that by going over $500 he was guaranteeing half), how much space you need in the playing room, skittles area concerns, all of the misc. expenses that you have from TLA fees to rating fees, standard discounts for hotel room nights, … There is a long list that most of us have learned through having made a mistake at some point along the line.
The choice of the chief director or assistant directors has very little impact on who attends a national event like the Senior Open.
There may be more of a tendency for players to decide whether to play in local events based on their knowledge of the director/organizer, though whether that’s because of the quality of direction or the quality of the event itself may be harder to nail down.
Concerns over losing money definitely impacts the decision to organize events.
Being a stats addict, I put in many hours of research before I became an organizer. This mainly involved a) looking at local tournament statistics available online (Mike is the guru of extracting numbers from member data for this purpose), b) attaining hundreds of email addresses and asking players what tournament conditions they prefer - time controls, entry fee, rounds, days, start times, prize fund ratios, location, etc. (since they are the customer), and c) crunching numbers in spreadsheets, and getting advice from more seasoned organizers to best the chances of finishing in the black rather than the red (I personally try to net as much as the 1st place prize winner). The most difficult part of option c for me was locating an affordable, functional and accessible location, for if there is any functional flaw in the site, I’m confident that my customers will let me know by the end of the event.
This is something that should appear (perhaps along with the "No Tournament Cancellation Without Notice in Chess Life" Rule) at the beginning of the Tounament Life Section [b]every month[/b], to remind organizers and players of their responsibilities and rights, respectively, [i]especially[/i] in events with large, based-on prize funds.
