RBRR communications

[Jason]

Recent rumours have underlined the need for decent communications between organisers and entrants on the RBRR. 

I thought I’d set out a few facts about how we keep in touch;

In the past we’ve relied on the bulk mail tool on the website to contact entrants. This was starting to get a bit hit and miss as increasingly our legit emails were ending up in spam filters. The service has been suspended and will be recreated in the new website.

The message service we have used in the past during the event was a bit clunky but worked. However, recent use declined and costs increased so we have discontinued it.

New for 2021 is a WhatsApp announce group - a group for all participants that only allows the organising team to post. As you can imagine, a group with posts from a few hundred participants would soon be unmanageable. The intention is that we will use this for quick snippets of info we want to get out to entrants. As of today, I’ve managed to get 152 users onto this medium. It’s aimed at main entrants and crew, not friends and family. If you are an entrant and have not seen an email or a WhatsApp invite from me but want to join, send me a personal message here and I will send you instructions. This service will come into its own on the run, so in order to stay safe and legal, I encourage all crews to sign up. There is no cost to crew or club. NB I have had some issues adding people to WhatsApp mainly due to users not actually having current WhatsApp logins - for the avoidance of doubt, you will need to download and sign up for a free WhatsApp account before I can add you. If I send you the link and you aren't a WhatsApp member, you will be asked to download and register for the app. This service will work globally so overseas entrants can use too.

Of course we will continue to issue emails, post on the blog and in these threads.

From a rumour control perspective we’d really like it if issues and questions could be raised here on the Club Forum so the organising team can deal with them and a record can be kept.

Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc all have their place but there are a limit to how many of these we can keep up with so the ‘official’ places we use are CT Forum, WhatsApp, the RBRR Blog and the RBRR Banter Facebook page. This is monitored by Andy Pearce and I jump in when Andy kicks me.

As an organising team we do not all have access to all social media tools - not everyone has a Facebook account - we do all have smart phones and email though!

Anyone on the organising team are happy to help directly with any questions you don’t want to post in public forums - we are unpaid volunteers with day jobs and busy lives but we love the RBRR and will always find time to help.

If all else fails, a phone call will always be responded to 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2021 by Jason
Adding some WhatsApp info

[Jason]

UPDATE

The RBRR2021 Broadcast Group has been running for a few months now, I've had no complaints and only a little feedback so I'm still thinking it is a useful tool. We've got 167 users on the group so that means a few co-drivers are on there too which is great.

As we get ever closer to the run itself, this Broadcast Group will be invaluable to get in touch with you quickly so I would encourage at least one crew member to join. If you haven't signed up, please send me a personal message here and I will send you the link.

Once again, this is not a group for discussion or for telling friends and family anything, it's a straight RBRR entrant group where the only posts will be from the organising team. So far, we've averaged 1 post a week so, as promised, we're not spamming you with loads of traffic 🙂

To address a couple of points that have been made;

• If WhatsApp notifications annoy you, you can turn them off - click on the heading of the group and you'll see some settings including a "mute" option. Messages will still appear, you'll just have to remember to look at them because apart from a visual clue, your phone won't remind you. Full details here https://www.whatsapp.com/
• It's not compulsory, if you don't want WhatsApp you will just need to come here to the Forum for your updates. You will run the risk of missing out on breaking news on the run.

Finally, on the subject of this forum, have you tried it on a smartphone yet? Have a go, it's really rather impressive!

[thescrapman]

Managed to get connected to the push group, is there are way of getting to the historic messages?

[Jason]

No, that's one things I haven't been able to change on it but everything material has been backed up with emails or forum posts, so you should be OK.

[thescrapman]

That is the issue, a number of things were mentioned on Saturday that I don't remember receiving.

had no emails recently, Facebook hates me and only shows me occasional things because I won't share my entire life with it, and not seen much on forum.

So I assumed they were in the Whatsapp messages.

[Shynsy]

Wasn't able to go to the drivers meeting. I have down loaded the rally app and can see the triumph section but when I try and login with my phone number it says "invalid Login, try again". am I doing something wrong?

tim

[Jason]

2 hours ago, Shynsy said:

Wasn't able to go to the drivers meeting. I have down loaded the rally app and can see the triumph section but when I try and login with my phone number it says "invalid Login, try again". am I doing something wrong?

tim

It will only recognise the main entrants email as recorded when you entered. Ping me your entry number and phone number via PM or email and I’ll check

[Jason]

10 hours ago, thescrapman said:

That is the issue, a number of things were mentioned on Saturday that I don't remember receiving.

had no emails recently, Facebook hates me and only shows me occasional things because I won't share my entire life with it, and not seen much on forum.

So I assumed they were in the Whatsapp messages.

If you email Tim he can send you previous emails. I’m away for the week and only have my phone so not so easy to do. 

[PeteStupps]

On the rally app, can anyone confirm what was said at the briefing - I thought we were told it needs to be active on your phone all the time, or is it just that it has to be active approaching and leaving checkpoints?

I got the bit about it not working in the background, so must be live on screen to work. And consequently you can't use the same phone for anything else (eg. Google maps) while it's doing its thing.

Just want to be clear, whether it might be best to bring a 2nd phone just for that. In which case i'll try and get a new sim card.

[ferny]

It looks for gps sections in specific areas, outside of those it's doing nothing. You can turn it on a few miles either side if the control and it will work as intended. 

[PaulB]

My understanding was that the rally app needs to on for the whole event but can be on in the background except when approaching the control stops when it needs to be active on screen.

But you may be able to turn it off between controls as Ferny suggested.  I’m not sure on that, so maybe just keep it on in the background until you get near control stops.  
Unless someone can clarify?

Edited September 21, 2021 by PaulB

[Tim Hunt]

I inadvertently left the RallyApplive app open last night and by the morning my phone battery was completely discharged. This emphasises the advice to keep the phone permannetly connecetd to a charger when in the car.

Tim

[Shynsy]

13 hours ago, Jason said:

It will only recognise the main entrants email as recorded when you entered. Ping me your entry number and phone number via PM or email and I’ll check

Ok will contact Tim.. have a great holiday

[Rubce]

On 20/09/2021 at 22:51, PeteStupps said:

On the rally app, can anyone confirm what was said at the briefing - I thought we were told it needs to be active on your phone all the time, or is it just that it has to be active approaching and leaving checkpoints?

I got the bit about it not working in the background, so must be live on screen to work. And consequently you can't use the same phone for anything else (eg. Google maps) while it's doing its thing.

Just want to be clear, whether it might be best to bring a 2nd phone just for that. In which case i'll try and get a new sim card.

That is a complete bugger if that is the case!

[PeteStupps]

21 hours ago, ferny said:

You can turn it on a few miles either side if the control and it will work as intended. 

This was the general consensus where I was sat at the driver's briefing but wasn't sure if it was correct.

Problem then it's another thing to remember, when one person is busy driving and the other is half asleep!

I'll be careful to use it for Carter Bar anyway. 

[thescrapman]

You have to remember what the original application is for the Rally App.

MSUK does not allow smartphones in the cabin during navigational rallies, but if the phone is set so that if the app is removed from front screen it stops recording and the entrant is excluded. This prevents use of any other function on the smartphone. This use of the phone can be allowed under the regs of the event.

It also means events can run with a lot less marshalls, which may make the difference to it not running at all.

[Jason]

Also, we are trialling this technology. We know it won't work for every use case BUT we can make it work for most when we know where it falls down - if we can get it fine tuned for our purposes it could be a great benefit to the club. We could conceivably administer and run our events the same platform cutting down the considerable manual overheard of the current process whilst also giving us the assurance that if a marshal doesn't make it to a control, the event integrity is preserved. 

Of course RallyAppLive was made for small competitive events and we are trying to use it for a large non-competitive event, so we are pushing the envelope a bit 😉 

As long as we know what you did to break it, the learning will be worth it!