Having been the organiser for a prem/selection race for the last 3 years I have noticed a steady increase in the number of emails requesting confirmation of receipt of entry which is what led me to publish the list. Quite frankly there are many more important communications that need dealt with when organising a race and this really does clog the "in box".
However, I am also a Mum, and have been known in the past to send off a block of entries, then a few weeks later forget how far into the calendar I got prompting a very apologetic email to the very busy organiser to give me peace of mind
![Embarassed :oops:](./images/smilies/icon_redface.gif)
Last year I tried sending a SAE postcard with each entry that all the organiser had to do was pop into a postbox when convenient, and I would know the entry had been received. This worked for some races but not others, probably because like me, many organisers won't even open an entry envelope until such time as they are about to do something with them and for most that will be 2 weeks before the race otherwise you end up spending so much time tinkering with the entries.
I was amazed how many late entries I received for the Tully prem. If paddlers want a start list published 2 weeks before a race then they will need to get their entries in on time. I always allow entries up to the week before and because we live in a rural location will give a couple of days grace for post but even so.
Producing the list wasn't anymore work. I don't use simply slalom as my excel start list is given to the fabulous timing team who use their programme so all I did was to copy and paste the list of names from my start list onto the forum (I couldn't work out how to put the start list on as a file without it being published on a website first and we don't do that on our club site). Compared to the effort of dealing with loads of unnecessary emails this was little extra work.
I will plan to do the same next year but the list won't be published until the 2 week deadline, entries are coming in too thick and fast for that to be practical, so if you want confirmation before then please send a SAE!
Hopefully an online entry system will solve these issues by pinging a receipt of entry email back... when it comes
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)