June 4

GMR Captains & Volunteers,

This email is going to all the Captains and to the volunteers and their email addresses entered in the database (I noticed that some volunteers have the captain's email address, so it is your responsibility to forward this information). For those of you who selected the "Non-Profit Volunteers" option, you do not need to do anything, you are all set. You are receiving this just so you know what is going on. You can double check your volunteer option by logging in to the database or by looking here.

The success of the relay greatly depends on the Volunteers - so thank you very much for working with your team. Many volunteers have told me how much fun they had being involved with the relay. As you are so important for the success of the relay, it is critical that you follow through with your commitment to volunteer and to show up on time. Failure to do this will cause your team to receive time penalties, be disqualified, or be prevented from even starting.

The information you will need to carry out your responsibilities is available on the GMR website under the Volunteers menu tab on the left. Here you'll find basic Volunteer information, information about each exchange, and a link to download the Volunteers Handbook. Please review this material before the relay.

To prevent problems with the online selection process of the volunteers assignments, I have set up the process so that you may TEST it now until mid-day on Monday. If there are no problems, I will open the selection process for real on Tuesday afternoon (time to be announced) so check for an email Monday afternoon/evening.

All selections made during the testing time will be cleared before reopening it for real on Tuesday.

I strongly recommend that you review what exchanges are available for the team supplied volunteers. You can do so here. Sixty-eight percent of the teams selected the non-profit volunteer option, raising $10,710 to go towards 86 non-profit volunteers. They were assigned locations in advance since they aren't as flexible. As you can see, the are taking a large majority of the middle of the night exchanges. I saved some near Burlington and quite a few in Southern Vermont for the teams supplied volunteers since most of the teams live closer to Bennington.

Online Selection Instructions:

1. To log in, go to http://www.timberlineevents.com/registration/volunteers/slot_login.php You will need the database password - your team captain should have this.
2. Select "Green Mountain Relay" from the "Choose An Event" drop down box
3. Select your team name from the "Team Name" drop down box and then enter your database password into the "Password" box.
4. This will take you to the Assignment page. YOU MUST HAVE VOLUNTEERS listed in the database to be able to proceed. If your team does not completely fill the volunteer option you committed to, your team will not be able to start. At this time, there are no additional non-profit volunteers available.
5. You can make volunteer additions or changes by clicking the Edit Volunteer Information link
6. You can review the Exchange information by clicking the GMR Exchange Information link
7. In order to have coverage at all exchanges, only two volunteers are assigned to many of the exchanges
8. There are two ways to assign your volunteers to an exchange:
   • Individually - click the Assign link next to the volunteer's name - a drop down box will appear - select the desired exchange and then you MUST click the Assign button for it to be confirmed. You will then see the location listed in the Assignment column next to the volunteers name. Repeat for each of your volunteers.
   • The Click here to assign volunteers to same assignment at once link will ONLY assign the top volunteers to the spots available at the same exchange. Again, a drop down box will appear - select the desired exchange and then you MUST click the Assign button for it to be confirmed. You will then see the location listed in the Assignment column next to the volunteers name. You then need to follow the previous step for your third volunteer's assignment.
9. Each line of the Exchange information includes the location, the reporting time, the estimated exchange closing time, and the number of volunteer spots available. If the exchange is NOT LISTED, then the exchange is either being staffed by a non-profit group, or the volunteers slots have been filled.
10. VERY IMPORTANT - when this process goes live, it is based on FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED so if someone selects the same assignment as you but clicks Assign first, you will have to repeat the process for a different exchange. Your volunteer's assignment is only confirmed if it is listed in the Assignment column. So please have a couple of exchanges in mind.
11. Feel free to play with the process so you are completely familiar with it before Tuesday. Please let me know if you have any questions BEFORE the process goes live.

Thanks very much,

Paul
Race Director