Long Course. Do members want it?

We had 8 competitor's (and just 1 helper) on Sunday. Not sure where everybody else was.

We have never covered our costs for the hire of Oundle pool through swimming alone. To this end we have to charge a Membership fee, and to keep this fee down we organise races such as the Mini-Series and Sunday's Long Course. Last year we put the Membership fee down in order to encourage more members to rejoin.

We made a loss on the Long Course on Sunday. Is this a race that members wish to retain? We have lots of members "going long", who this race is targeted at. We always try to put it on, both on a day when not much else is going on, and a few weeks before the major long open races. Let us know on the Forum where we are going wrong. Is it simply a race that members don't want. We always felt that the low attendance at the Ride and Tie was because members were scared of it, but why the Long Course should be so little supported is a strange one.

Strange indeed as the event is at a sociable time(8.30) , warm weather guaranteed if not dry.
The distances are somewhere between Olympic and middle and its cheap as chips!
Maybe the sprint distance participants feel its a big jump but for anyone who has done an Olympic
event its a great stepping stone to middle distance without the £100 plus outlay. Maybe it should be compulsory
for members after three years or offer 20% of the race fee as a prize ( which would have been a grand £9.60 sunday).
Hope it keeps going from my point of view as I feel entry fees of £100, petrol and overnight accomodation to participate in an event is a little rich!

agree entirely - had it not been for childcare issues I would deffo have been there on Sunday (had kit on; didn't quite make it out the door!) because it's my favourite PACTRAC race by a mile. No idea why we consistently get 30-50 people for a mid-week sprint but can't get a decent turnout for a race at a more sensible time over a more sensible distance!

I'd be gutted if we had to bin it, but it's really hard to justify to organisers/marshals/timers when fewer than ten people turn up.

I'm planning on doing the long course next year, so I hope it doesn't get binned before then! It'd be a good warm-up for the Vitruvian in September.

This is the club event that I enjoy the most - even if I take longer to enjoy it than everyone else !

Me too Richard; I'm too slow for the minis so much prefer the longer races. Hopefully we can get enough interest to keep it going

Tom