08-06-2014, 03:38 PM
BFT team,
I wanted to let you all know some of the numbers from our event last Saturday. We only had 64 of the 99 veterans that were signed up for the event show up. We also had 38 of the 47 boaters that were signed up with an additional 4 boaters that were not on the list show up that we were grateful for. In the end this all worked out pretty well. As you can all imagine these are some of the things that add complexity to pulling off an event like this.
We were anticipating 90+ veterans and did not know until after they all arrived that there were significantly less than that. We were sweating out not having enough boat space for all of them and therefor were assigning everyone the max until we got down close to the end and were informed of the shortfall. This left us with a few boats that we did not have veterans for. Liketrolling was one of these boats and we are so grateful that these boaters were willing to take out some of our staff members .In the end we had someone on every one of the 42 boats.
We have a new doctor working with us from the VA this year that has really helped tremendously in organizing things on their end. He will be following up with every one of the veterans that signed up and confirmed for the trip but did not show up. Dr K is committed to working with our team to try and make this event as good as it can possibly be for the veterans and for the volunteer boaters. Another improvement we will make next year is a phone call from them with a headcount when they leave SLC so that we can better manage dispersing the vets we know are coming with what we know we have for boats. Had we received that communication this year it would have been easy to have at least one veteran on every boat which is our number one priority each year. Next year I expect to achieve that goal. Dr K will also be working with us next year to try and get the veterans up earlier and closer to on time.
We will also be looking into the possibility of moving this event up possibly late June time frame when the fishing should be better.
Here are a few improvements we made this year:
We sectioned out he registration into 3 alphabetical groups. This greatly sped up the registration and licensing phase.
We assigned veterans to boats in the order of the boater's check in so that the first boaters to check in were the first to receive veterans and be off fishing.
We had more ground staff to escort veterans through the entire process and all the way to their assigned boats. This really sped up the process and ensured that the veterans got on the boat assigned.
We had 2 golf carts brought in by Johannes Berndt that shuttled the veterans that could not walk well down to the ramp.
We streamlined the rod, gift bag, coffee, donut lines to ensure these did not create delays.
Boaters did an AWESOME job of staying close enough to hear the PA announcements and stayed with their boats which helped eliminate confusion with veterans and boat assignment.
While we definitely see room for improvement we felt like our execution once the veterans arrived this year was the best yet at getting them out fishing as quickly as possible.
Thank you all for your support. Without you volunteer boaters we would not have an event!!! You all deserve our gratitude.
[signature]
I wanted to let you all know some of the numbers from our event last Saturday. We only had 64 of the 99 veterans that were signed up for the event show up. We also had 38 of the 47 boaters that were signed up with an additional 4 boaters that were not on the list show up that we were grateful for. In the end this all worked out pretty well. As you can all imagine these are some of the things that add complexity to pulling off an event like this.
We were anticipating 90+ veterans and did not know until after they all arrived that there were significantly less than that. We were sweating out not having enough boat space for all of them and therefor were assigning everyone the max until we got down close to the end and were informed of the shortfall. This left us with a few boats that we did not have veterans for. Liketrolling was one of these boats and we are so grateful that these boaters were willing to take out some of our staff members .In the end we had someone on every one of the 42 boats.
We have a new doctor working with us from the VA this year that has really helped tremendously in organizing things on their end. He will be following up with every one of the veterans that signed up and confirmed for the trip but did not show up. Dr K is committed to working with our team to try and make this event as good as it can possibly be for the veterans and for the volunteer boaters. Another improvement we will make next year is a phone call from them with a headcount when they leave SLC so that we can better manage dispersing the vets we know are coming with what we know we have for boats. Had we received that communication this year it would have been easy to have at least one veteran on every boat which is our number one priority each year. Next year I expect to achieve that goal. Dr K will also be working with us next year to try and get the veterans up earlier and closer to on time.
We will also be looking into the possibility of moving this event up possibly late June time frame when the fishing should be better.
Here are a few improvements we made this year:
We sectioned out he registration into 3 alphabetical groups. This greatly sped up the registration and licensing phase.
We assigned veterans to boats in the order of the boater's check in so that the first boaters to check in were the first to receive veterans and be off fishing.
We had more ground staff to escort veterans through the entire process and all the way to their assigned boats. This really sped up the process and ensured that the veterans got on the boat assigned.
We had 2 golf carts brought in by Johannes Berndt that shuttled the veterans that could not walk well down to the ramp.
We streamlined the rod, gift bag, coffee, donut lines to ensure these did not create delays.
Boaters did an AWESOME job of staying close enough to hear the PA announcements and stayed with their boats which helped eliminate confusion with veterans and boat assignment.
While we definitely see room for improvement we felt like our execution once the veterans arrived this year was the best yet at getting them out fishing as quickly as possible.
Thank you all for your support. Without you volunteer boaters we would not have an event!!! You all deserve our gratitude.
[signature]