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DIR Return to: 2020-12-08 Executive Meeting
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#Post#: 152--------------------------------------------------
Suspend Guests on Events
By: rhandom Date: November 10, 2020, 4:19 am
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In the 2000s, we had paper waivers for everyone. It was an
absolute nightmare for collecting, recording and monitoring
waivers collected. When we moved to an online waiver for
members, we alleviated a lot of that, but still had to contend
with monitoring, collecting and recording guest waivers. We did
an analysis of how much benefit we were getting from allowing
guests vs the cost (in effort) to do the work, and decided to
make event attendance for members-only. Reasoning:
1) The club was free to join and attend, so if someone wanted to
just come out on an event now and then, they could still do that
with a free membership (and accept the online waiver);
2) There were very few child guests attending, and there was a
high level of discomfort with the legalities of allowing
children, so we decided to disallow their attendance.
A few years ago, Mark M (president at the time) felt very
strongly that allowing guests was the solution to dwindling club
attendance and brought back guests, including the guest waivers.
The process was:
1) Event coordinators would collect the guest waivers, and then
submit an electronic copy to the club;
2) Mark would monitor to ensure guest waivers were completed and
submitted properly (Mark has long since left the exec team).
My concerns:
1) Our non-profit status protects members from being sued by
other members. Our executive insurance protects the board from
being sued by external parties. For the sake of allowing
guests, we are, in my opinion, negating the protection afforded
our coordinators by the non-profit status
2) I'm not sure that an electronic copy of a waiver is
sufficient if the COC were to be sued. We may be introducing
further legal risk by failing to retain the paper/original
waiver copies.
3) Collection and submission of waivers is currently on an
"honor system" - there is no one who actively monitors what
events allow guests and whether waivers are collected and
submitted for those events.
My proposal:
1) If/when we return to a voluntary donation funding model for
Regular Members, there is no "benefit" for an adult to attending
as a guest. They should be encouraged to sign up for a free
membership and attend as a member, accepting the online waiver.
2) If/when we have coordinators who wish to allow children on
their events, the club could re-instate guest attendance with
the condition that it will be in effect only as long as we have
a minimum of one, preferably two, volunteers committed to
monitoring and collecting guest waivers.
If/when we re-instate guest attendance, we can research some of
my concerns regarding electronic waiver copies. If we're going
to disallow guests regardless, that research can wait until or
unless we have coordinators wishing to allow children on their
events.
#Post#: 169--------------------------------------------------
Re: Suspend Guests on Events
By: Duane Date: November 15, 2020, 10:14 pm
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The majority of my events have always been for members only.
Under the free membership structure I typically instructed any
non-member interested in attending one of my events to join the
club first and then register. Almost all of them did and for
most it resulted in further activity with the club which is key!
That is exactly why we need to get back to a free membership
model as soon as possible so people with even a casual interest
in our group will be more likely to take the leap and join us.
If/when we return to free memberships, I am 100% in favour of
eliminating the guest option. Our goal as club volunteers
should be to turn everyone we meet into a member.
Also in my experience I have found people are much more
committed to showing up or at least removing themselves by the
deadline when they are responsible for their own registration.
Guests tend to feel a little less obligated and are more likely
to bail last minute leaving their friend to inform the
coordinator at the event itself. I have seen this happen
countless times.
#Post#: 255--------------------------------------------------
Re: Suspend Guests on Events
By: rhandom Date: December 6, 2020, 8:14 am
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We have two former volunteers who may be interested in running
"child-friendly" events for the COC. Here's an e-mail that I
sent to both of them today:
I wanted to reach out to you to talk about COC events with
guests (including children).
I think it's awesome that you're interested in maybe
coordinating again for the COC, and maybe offering events that
would be kid-friendly.
That being said, I don't love the COC's implementation of
guests/waivers right now. You'll probably recall that the COC
shut down guests entirely for a time "back in the day" because
of:1) The amount of administration required in monitoring and
recording waivers received; AND2) The uncertain liability of
allowing children on events.
The EOC had a situation several years ago where someone was
frequently bringing her nieces and nephews on club events.
Nothing ever happened, thankfully, but it did open the question
of, well, so our club member can be trusted not to sue us, but
she's not even the PARENT. The parents were a completely
unknown entity to the club, and there was a lot of anxiety
around what might happen if something happened to one of those
kids on an event. That factored largely into EOC's decision to
shut down guests entirely.
Now, when the COC started allowing guests again a few years ago,
it was with an "agreement" with Mark MacGilvray that he would
personally monitor that waivers were correctly being collected
and submitted to the club. Mark is no longer a volunteer with
the club, and there is no one currently monitoring waivers. The
two event coordinators who are currently allowing guests on
their events have been great about submitting waivers, and I'm
not super concerned about it at this time, however, as we
(hopefully) rebuild our event coordinator team, we're going to
be running a greater and greater risk in this space... a risk
that must be mitigated.
When the club changes back to free membership for regular
members (hopefully) on December 10th, there will again be little
to no value in allowing adult guests on events. Adults who want
to attend can simply sign up for a free membership. CHILDREN,
however, may only attend as guests. It is my intention on
December 9th to recommend that the club suspend guest
functionality again. You can see the executive committee event
at
HTML https://www.calgaryoutdoorclub.com/events/details.asp?eventid=27592<br
/>and the discussion forum item (we're not going to discuss at t
he
meeting, only make the decision, with the discussion being done
ahead of time through the forum) is here:
HTML https://cocreboot.createaforum.com/2020-12-08/suspend-guests-on-events/
Note that guest functionality can easily be switched on and off.
Switching it off today doesn't mean that we can't switch it
back on tomorrow, and we'll be more than happy to switch it back
on when we have a volunteer who is willing to take on the task
of monitoring events (i.e., check every event posted to see if
it allows guests), and for every event that does allow guests,
monitor that the coordinator submits the signed waiver.
I am very much in favor of your vision to offer child-friendly
events. I think there would potentially be a good amount of
interest in that. I just want to make sure that the club can do
it safely and responsibly. At this time, with no one in the
position of monitoring waivers, we are not doing it
"responsibly".
As you are thinking about offering events with the COC which
would allow child guests, can you please also think about
whether you'd be willing and able to step up to that position of
monitoring guest waiver collection? If we allow guests on
events, we will discourage (but not disallow) adult guests, so
hopefully it wouldn't be too onerous of a task, and if our
"child-friendly" events become so popular that it DOES become
and onerous task, well, then we simply have to recruit a larger
"team" of people to do the monitoring.
This is all just FYI for now, as I know that you're not
necessarily ready to start coordinating "child friendly" events
tomorrow, but I don't want you to be blind-sided by this. I
want you to know exactly what it would entail.
#Post#: 256--------------------------------------------------
Re: Suspend Guests on Events
By: rhandom Date: December 6, 2020, 10:17 am
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I am going to add "Waiver Administrator" back as a volunteer job
description. The club should have a policy of allowing guests
only when this position is filled and being performed.
#Post#: 257--------------------------------------------------
Re: Suspend Guests on Events
By: rhandom Date: December 6, 2020, 10:19 am
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Regardless of whether we suspend guests or not, I want to write
into our rules that CHILD guests may only attend with their
PARENT (children may not attend under the supervision of another
family member, or a family friend). I want to have this
because, even if the attendee wouldn't sue us if something
happens to the child, if there isn't a parent in attendance, we
don't know for sure that there is permission in place for the
child to attend, nor do we know that the parents wouldn't sue us
if something happens to the child.
#Post#: 258--------------------------------------------------
Re: Suspend Guests on Events
By: LenK Date: December 6, 2020, 12:07 pm
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The COC will be going back to being free to join. As a result
there isn't any need for the guest category. All people need to
do is take a few minutes to join.
#Post#: 260--------------------------------------------------
Re: Suspend Guests on Events
By: rhandom Date: December 6, 2020, 3:54 pm
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Yes, for adults. The only reason for us to consider keeping
guests is for children, in which case, as I said in my e-mail to
the two former volunteers, if they want to offer child-friendly
events, we'd love to have them, but only if we have a volunteer
who's monitoring waivers. Essentially, they'd have to put the
work in to make it happen (i.e., those of us who aren't going to
run child-friendly events aren't going to put in that effort to
make it possible on their behalf).
#Post#: 265--------------------------------------------------
Re: Suspend Guests on Events
By: Duane Date: December 8, 2020, 12:09 am
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As I've indicated before, I've rarely allowed guests on my
events and will be voting to suspend (for now at least) the
guest functionality at the upcoming executive meeting. That
being said, if there are coordinators interested in posting
child friendly events in the future when we have a designated
volunteer in place to monitor waivers and a strict policy that
only allows children to attend an event when accompanied by
their parent(s), I would be in favour of lifting the suspension.
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