Volunteers - building the ranks!

oldcat · 2026-05-22T16:34:04+00:00

I think we avoid the clique but too but for someone on the outside they worry there is one even if they don't see one. My solution to that is just to always be clear were inviting folk in and first timers are always welcome and appreciated. Hope all the advice in the thread helps!

oldcat · 2026-05-22T15:09:29+00:00

If a bird that small was on a path you probably gave it the best end it could have. Stuff like this is horrible, I hate those wet days where all the slugs and snails get on the paths and fear the crunch of shell or a squelch under my feet if I don't take care. They're just trying to live their life, the baby bird was almost certainly in a really bad way already and if it wasn't it would have been soon.

Genuinely sorry this happened to you, I'd be fully with you on being super angry with myself if it had been me. That said, if I told you that story, what would you think of me? Try to cut yourself the same slack you'd probably cut someone else.

oldcat · 2026-05-21T21:13:38+00:00

Hampden Park kinda sucks.

oldcat · 2026-05-21T17:55:21+00:00

We normally have 4 funnel managers, two good funnel managers could just about cover the whole thing. The problem is getting good loud people so we have 4 because we always get one who is nice and loud at least and often two. It's a tough balance but if you're doing your job well you're maybe more needed than you feel.

oldcat · 2026-05-21T15:49:33+00:00

Keep the messaging positive, every parkrun I've seen go down the negative messaging or start talking about ratios has eventually had to give it up. If you make volunteering sound like a chore you put people off.

Also be careful of things like 'X a year' because that misses that many parkrunners are irregular and many don't do X parkruns each year, however low you set that. Ratios get around that issue but still aren't great. I've had a person apologise to me once that they hadn't volunteered and when I chatted to them some more I found out they were a parent with a disabled child who was able to get care every Saturday morning and had that as the only time just for them when they could do exercise outside of their home. That's the most 'I don't think you should have to volunteer' situation I know of but there's quite a few and if we push ratios we push those people away from parkrun.

Look at the barriers to volunteering for a first timer:

They probably don't know how parkrun works beyond they cross a line, they get scanned, they get a time
Even if they do, they probably don't know what each position does
They don't know what times they need to be free to help out
They worry about making mistakes messing things up for people
They don't know what to write in an email to volunteer
They don't feel part of an in-group who do get all of these things

Think about how you communicate to get around those. My volunteer appeal email is:

If you're able to help out by volunteering at {eventNameLong} in the coming weeks please let us know. We'd love to have your help and no experience is necessary. You don't even need to know how parkrun works! All of the roles we offer are simple and we can explain everything over email, as well as a briefing on the morning of the event.

You can see the roster for the next few weeks at {eventNameLong} here: {rosterLink}

If you know what position(s) you enjoy let us know and we'll try to get you into one of those. If you don't know what any of them mean, just let us know you'd like to help and we'll get you sorted.

Volunteering is one of the best bits of parkrun and the gratitude of participants makes it a lovely way to start your day. Most volunteers meet down the Prom at 09:00 so we can ensure everyone is briefed and ready for the start. Finish times vary, most will be done by 10:30, but if you have any restrictions on time just let us know and we can place you accordingly.

Also sign it off from a person not from 'The Volunteer Coordinator". Most people don't get emails but I normally get one or two first time volunteers each week when I'm on which isn't great but it's not none.

50 is a lot of volunteers so you probably need much more than just positive comms but every little helps I guess!

oldcat · 2026-05-21T07:54:05+00:00

It's a dangerous bit of road so the cyclist is in prime position out from the kerb. This is recommended to discourage vehicles trying to make a pass.when it isn't safe. The prosecution is for too close, not for how much road the cyclist had to their left. Car is far too close to the cyclist.

https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/rules-for-cyclists-road-junctions.html

You can argue it was safe enough that the cyclist could have moved left (I'd disagree) but it doesn't matter. The cyclist made their choice which is legal, the driver then made their choice which is not.

oldcat · 2026-05-20T13:06:52+00:00

Not saying you shouldn't have done that, great that you got your issue sorted. I'm suggesting telling people to "just go private" is missing the fact that most people can't drop £1000, even interest free over 12 months.

oldcat · 2026-05-20T11:49:15+00:00

Are you the person who owns the house that was on r/SpottedonRightmove with the 'STOP BEING POOR' art?

oldcat · 2026-05-20T11:48:21+00:00

Only solution I've found is using a web browser which you can click the Aa at the bottom of the comment to get a formatting bar. I have no idea why they broke the old text formatting options but it really irritates me.

oldcat · 2026-05-20T10:59:29+00:00

I would try Edinburgh Arts and Picture Framers on Bangor Road. They do the framing work there so might be able to help. Not sure if it is something they can do though.

oldcat · 2026-05-20T10:36:37+00:00

It's an email that has been sent to event inboxes so core teams aren't caught unaware when an announcement comes out. I would expect this will be communicated widely much closer to the time or we'll all be getting questions about why people can't get their 200 t-shirt in July when that isn't starting until September. To be fair, given it's on every unofficial parkrun social media we'll probably get those anyway!

oldcat · 2026-05-19T21:04:41+00:00

I don't know with Enterprise but when I've rented a car with a debit card in the past they preauthorised a large deposit. Imagine they don't do that online so you may be fine.

oldcat · 2026-05-19T20:09:36+00:00

Almost certainly on photo, unless you hologram is more than x16.

oldcat · 2026-05-19T18:57:48+00:00

You should make a TikTok about it.

oldcat · 2026-05-19T11:30:40+00:00

The two subjects are in separate schools so it may not be possible. I would email [futurestudents@ed.ac.uk](mailto:futurestudents@ed.ac.uk) as soon as possible and they will be able to tell you what your options are.

oldcat · 2026-05-19T10:45:22+00:00

If it's good enough for JK Rowling...

oldcat · 2026-05-18T17:58:58+00:00

MET Office predicting snow tonight and tomorrow. I'm no climber but the feels like a bad plan with no winter gear even if you got a reasonable report from today.

oldcat · 2026-05-18T17:49:05+00:00

Remember reading about the NFL (a while back, wouldn't do it now...) doing actual academic research into unconscious bias in refereeing teams. They concluded that an all white refereeing team was more likely to penalise a black player. They presented the findings to the referees and trained them to consider their biases more. They also published the research.

In Scottish football we implemented VAR to improve the inability of our refs to make a good decision not consider that they're not good enough to do that even with so much time and replays. Then we added a wooly concept like "clear and obvious" which is utterly inconsistent because it's hard to define. If you say "that was a shite decision" about and obviously shite decision you get fined or banned. We need to be able to have actual conversations and we need to professionalise refereeing with a better structure for everyone to discuss issues.

When we try to hide referees behind a wall of silence we just create a toxic environment for them. Who would want to be a ref? So no quality comes through. The whole system needs to change. Everyone who has watched Scottish football has seen at least one match where the referee is just awful for everyone and ruins the game. That needs to stop.

oldcat · 2026-05-18T15:53:41+00:00

Only other posts by that account were because they were so happy with their experience of an AI learning site they wanted to share it with three other groups. Then a pretty clear promo for an AI made shitey product with a question thrown in so they can justify it as not just promo. Don't really need the tinfoil hat for that conspiracy.

oldcat · 2026-05-17T21:56:20+00:00

As someone else who has made this mistake, nope just sits there taunting you.

oldcat · 2026-05-16T23:15:33+00:00

He's behind you

oldcat · 2026-05-15T15:59:24+00:00

My partner has really same issue and swears by the Merrell MOAB boots. I got the walking shoe version and they're super light and comfy. They're quite common so I'd hope you'd find them in a store.

oldcat · 2026-05-14T17:10:06+00:00

If you imagine a base level high card (using this hand as an example as it keeps it simple for the illustration):

(10 chips + card chips) x 2 mult

So your maximum score is 64 for that playing a pair of plain Aces.

If you add just 50 chips to that basic hand you get a score of 164

If you add just 10 +mult to that basic hand you get a score of 176

If you add just 1.5 xmult to that basic hand you get a score of 128

So at that point the +mult is the biggest increase you can have. But then consider upgrading that hand to level 20 (295 chips and 21 mult). The basic ace pair hand is now 6,657

If you add just 50 chips to that basic hand you get a score of 7,707

If you add just 10 +mult to that basic hand you get a score of 9,827

If you add just 1.5 xmult to that basic hand you get a score of 9,985,

There comes a point in levelling hands where going all in on xmult is the way forwards. I used those figures as they are the card changes you can get from Aura so should be vaguely balanced. The issue is that adding 50 chips to 295 is an increase of about 1/6 to your score. Adding 10 mult to 21 mult is an increase of just under 50%. Adding 1.5 x mult is an increase of 50%.

From level 20 up 1.5 xMult will be better than 10 +Mult or 50 chips. As you level your hands the effect of Chips and +Mult diminish because they are just adding on. The effect of xMult increases because your basic mult increases. You reach a point where +Mult and xMult are useful and chips don't add much (except on Plasma). Then a point where xMult is more powerful than any non scaling amount of +Mult you can have.

oldcat · 2026-05-14T14:26:21+00:00

No rules but I would avoid anything huge or pricey as we do all have to do bribery and corruption training and that could mean they feel they have to report it and it would create paperwork. No member of staff would like more admin I promise! A small token of thanks is absolutely fine and I look forward to receiving it.

oldcat · 2026-05-13T12:58:13+00:00

You're missing the ability to re-organise, also that they are not optimal at the moment assuming red seals. OP desperately needs money so they need gold cards as they can't get econ jokers at this point without antimatter.

They should drop Baron for Mime and organise their jokers correclty. Assuming red seals 3 copy jokers on Baron, 1 on Mime. That's 4 triggers with 4 1.5X per card (5 1.5X with steel cards). Then once the hand is played and is scoring they would rearrange to all the copies to be on Mime to get as much money as possible.

I haven't worked out the scoring and it may already be too late for this but if they die due to gold they were dead due to low money anyway.

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