Clusterfoofoo

Pardon my French, but that is the only way to describe how things went today at the Space Derby. For those of you not familiar with Space Derby it is like the cub scout's pinewood car derby, but with rocket ships. Fun, right??

I spent a lot of time making sure that things would run smoothly. Every year it is always a mess trying to get the heats run in a timely fashion. No one knows where they are supposed to be and we spend a lot of time waiting around for someone to realize that they are up. This year, I thought I would help take the guess work out of it and listed all the races and heats including lane assignments.

Now there is an actual method to the madness and we needed to know how many folks would be there so we could plan accordingly. We have a 4 lane track we had 17 rockets. I wasn't worried about the extra rocket, because I knew folks would show up that hadn't RSVP'd. I had 3 extra slots so I figured I was alright. GUESS AGAIN!!
I had 21 rockets. This now meant that all my hard work and planning were out the window. Now, no one would know in advance when they would be racing. I had to announce the heats and folks would actually have to listen. Guess where things fell apart??

I don't know how many times I can say please, oh pretty please, pay attention and be where you need to be. I must say since Joj and I were completely in the weeds Ben was forced to manage his rocket all by himself.Not only that he was were he needed to be when he needed to be there (some adults could have learned a thing or two from him)

Now besides folks not LISTENING, we had a group of dad's (I don't think any kids touched their rockets the whole day) who felt compelled to get that extra edge by winding the rubber band engine an extra 5 times. Guess what happens when you get past 120 winds?? The rubber band BREAKS!! You would think the first 2 times this happened they would learn, but NO!!! I swear every time rocket 5 was supposed to race, the rubber band would break and we had to sit and wait. We finally decided to move other racers into 5's slot and that created another huge mess when it came to the scoring.
And speaking of scoring, Joj and I had about 6 inches between us and the wall and we had to repeatedly ask the adults to not stand behind us who were making sure we were scoring correctly. Ironically, everyone trying to "help" us resulted in a scoring mistake. Of course the Dad who this effected was not happy. He put on a good face, but he was not happy. Neither were all his buddies who corned me post event wanting to see the results sheet and get a briefing on what kind of math was used to calculate the final standings. I felt so bad, we did the best we could. Of course, the dad in question was tied for 1st. So now at the next Pack meeting I get to go before everyone and say that we messed up and so and so was actually tied for first and give his kid a fist place medal. No good deed...

So you are probably what life lesson was learned today? Well, I'll tell ya. There is a REASON folks ask you to RSVP. By letting someone know you are actually coming to the event it allows those in charge to plan for you and make sure you get what you need. If you do not RSVP I can not be held responsible for the crazy lady at rocket check in.

Thanks for letting me vent. The good news is that was the last event I'm involved with for other people. Now I get to focus on my own fun stuff like not hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year (all I have to do is make some pies)and our annual Christmas party. There is still a lot to do, but at least it is for ME and that makes it a lot more fun :0)