Hospitality for competitions

[hopskipjump]

If you sign up for a shift in the judge's/coach's hospitality, what do you do during that time?

[Clarice]

We have people sign up to bring different food/beverage items to stock those rooms, and have a few folks assigned to make sure things get restocked as necessary.  Nobody hangs out in the judge or coach hospitality rooms.  In the judge's room, especially, it should be an in-and-out kind of thing - do your business and leave.  They need a certain amount of privacy.

[sarahspins]

Yep, it's mostly making sure that there is enough of everything out, the trash isn't full, etc

[hopskipjump]

Thanks!  Here they are assigned 4-6 hour shifts.  It looks like they hospitality person does stay in the room.  We are trying out all of the jobs as the year goes on.    We decided to try this one next but wanted to be sure we knew what we were signing up for!

[AgnesNitt]

There's always set up and take down of the judges' room too. That was easy.

[blue111moon]

If it's judges/official hospitality you're talking about, the tasks mainly consist of setting out the food, making sure that there's coffee and beverages available and filling any (reasonable) requests the officials may have.  Judges may not have much down time between events so they need to be able to use that time efficiently. 

The main thing to remember about working in the judges' room is that you shouldn't repeat anything you may hear the judges discussing about the competition skating.  "What goes on in the judges' room, stays in the judges' room"  is gospel.  (Although if the competition I just worked over the week is any example, the major topics of discussion were knitting and the Russian metor  ) 

[Skittl1321]

Nobody hangs out in the judge or coach hospitality rooms.

Our club's competitions are very informal, but this isn't true for us.  Our club always has an assigned parent or two (but never more- don't want it to turn into a gossip room) in the judges/coaches room to make sure that the club can help them with anything they need.  It is very common for judges who have 30 minutes off, or coaches who need a break, to come in and sit for quite awhile.

Unassigned parents and skaters are not allowed in the room, but volunteers can come and go.  For lunch hour, all volunteers are fed in that room, minus kid runners.

If you have room, I suppose it would be idea to have a seperate room for judges and coaches/volunteers, but we don't have that.

[Clarice]

Yes, of course the judges hang out in the judges' room.  What I mean is that parent volunteers don't do so.  They check in every so often to make sure nothing is needed, but they don't sit in there.  Runners go in to deliver papers, but otherwise we pretty much stay out.  We like to give the judges their privacy.

We are lucky in that we have space to have a separate hospitality room for the coaches, and another for our volunteers.

[Skittl1321]

Yes, of course the judges hang out in the judges' room.  What I mean is that parent volunteers don't do so. 

Yes, I know this is what you meant. What I was saying is the opposite.  Our club stations parents in the room, and they stay there.  Coaches also take a bit of respite in the same room, and any adult volunteer can pop in for a bite to eat (they are asked not to stay except lunch).

Runners don't ever go into that room.  We do have a seperate room set up for accounting, so papers all go in that room.


However, your competition is a much larger affair than ours.

[FigureSpins]

We keep the judges, accounting and hospitality in separate rooms, but we have a big competition.  For test sessions, it's just one room.

During the competition, the hospitality volunteers stick around, but are usually discreet about stepping out when the discussion turns serious.
Coaches, volunteers and judges do stay long enough to have their meal, but the discussions are usually mundance.