abunickabhi
Member
WCA does not run on paid staff or trained staff. Experienced cubers pitch in and give their free time out of good will to help the competition run smoothly. For major championships, the reliance on the community to help in volunteering is avoided to prevent risk of mismanagement and failure. Dedicated teams are assigned and pre-defined cubers are selected for staffing making them responsible for their duties and prioritizing team work over personal solves.
There are a few guidelines to enable basic level of volunteering by giving the delegate right to DNF a competitor if they decide to not show up for pre-assigned volunteering duty without any valid reason. I feel the usage of this rule creates friction between a cuber who is a serious competitor and genuinely does not want to volunteer even if his/her requirement is absolutely essential to help run the competition and all the other cubers/parents are doing their part by helping out. Not all volunteers are equal in efficiency, having 10 disoriented volunteers who have lesser idea of how competition works spoils the workflow and team effort compared to 2 experienced cubers who communicate well and have knowledge of efficient plans at their disposal.
I have been attending competitions since 2013 and volunteering has never been an issue as cubers were not too serious about their results (even though more NRs used to be broken back then). Cubers also had easier workflow with scrambling signature not mandatory, less participation, relaxed schedule, less rounds and less usage of the mobile phone to record/post/communicate.
Giving my personal example, whenever I have organized or delegated, I have done lesser solves, not gotten PRs, experienced burnout and enjoy speedcubing less. Whenever I have volunteered with full commitment and passion, I have underperformed and gotten forgettable solves.
Nowadays, most of the cubers find lesser time to contribute. Especially the cubers who are serious about their results, who feel their solves matter too much that the competition volunteering and experience does not matter or are just too rich that volunteering feels hectic and beneath them (not an allegation, just my experience from requesting cubers to join the volunteering effort when we need manpower and the competition is failing). Such instances happening once is tolerable, but the power structure in the local community emerges that a few cubers would just not volunteer at any competitions just because they are faster and care about their solves more. They have invested money and cannot accept underperformed results. Volunteering would be the last activity that they would want to do at the venue. In the past, serious cubers used to scramble for earlier groups to get their hands warm and take it as a win-win for the competition flow and their personal performance. Nowadays, cubers hesitate even to scramble as they feel there is a risk to underperform. Post COVID cubers are also under the false pretence that since the registration fees are collected, there must be a mechanism to run competitions and they need not care to help even if the WCA reg says so and the organizers try to request assistance for a little while.
The local community dies if the proportion of such cubers increase to around 30% and I have seen that happen in multiple cities in India over the course of a decade by personally travelling and attending the competitions. Some cities which are more community focused and have a good rappo with experienced cubers can get proper volunteering done and not produce slacky mismanaged competitions. But inculcating community focused ideals into newer cubers and serious cubers is a very careful game and harder to implement if there is indifference from the other side on how the competition flow runs.
The easiest solution I propose is to have a buffer time of 15 minutes before every round, where every cuber can warm up. Yes, it does break the momentum of the competition and less rounds can be fitted in in a day's schedule, but the excuse that the cuber did not get a dedicated time to warm up is taken care of to some extent.
I have a lot more to say on this topic but I do not want to make it too negative so I would stop here. One more observation is that happier cubers contribute more, and nowadays the youth are less happy compared to a decade back. This statement might seen baseless if you do give a think about it. Serious cubers can also be happy, but their stance to not contribute to the competition is perplexing. There can exist many workarounds and they can give ant's help if they just wish to understand the spirit of WCA. I guess their mindset is that WCA model can die out, and they will wait for the world to pump money into this sport so that they never have to volunteer again. Or many serious cubers just pursue cubing for a few years, accomplish a goal and leave the scene without ever contributing to the community by doing simple help like judging for 10 minutes in a day's schedule.
There are a few guidelines to enable basic level of volunteering by giving the delegate right to DNF a competitor if they decide to not show up for pre-assigned volunteering duty without any valid reason. I feel the usage of this rule creates friction between a cuber who is a serious competitor and genuinely does not want to volunteer even if his/her requirement is absolutely essential to help run the competition and all the other cubers/parents are doing their part by helping out. Not all volunteers are equal in efficiency, having 10 disoriented volunteers who have lesser idea of how competition works spoils the workflow and team effort compared to 2 experienced cubers who communicate well and have knowledge of efficient plans at their disposal.
I have been attending competitions since 2013 and volunteering has never been an issue as cubers were not too serious about their results (even though more NRs used to be broken back then). Cubers also had easier workflow with scrambling signature not mandatory, less participation, relaxed schedule, less rounds and less usage of the mobile phone to record/post/communicate.
Giving my personal example, whenever I have organized or delegated, I have done lesser solves, not gotten PRs, experienced burnout and enjoy speedcubing less. Whenever I have volunteered with full commitment and passion, I have underperformed and gotten forgettable solves.
Nowadays, most of the cubers find lesser time to contribute. Especially the cubers who are serious about their results, who feel their solves matter too much that the competition volunteering and experience does not matter or are just too rich that volunteering feels hectic and beneath them (not an allegation, just my experience from requesting cubers to join the volunteering effort when we need manpower and the competition is failing). Such instances happening once is tolerable, but the power structure in the local community emerges that a few cubers would just not volunteer at any competitions just because they are faster and care about their solves more. They have invested money and cannot accept underperformed results. Volunteering would be the last activity that they would want to do at the venue. In the past, serious cubers used to scramble for earlier groups to get their hands warm and take it as a win-win for the competition flow and their personal performance. Nowadays, cubers hesitate even to scramble as they feel there is a risk to underperform. Post COVID cubers are also under the false pretence that since the registration fees are collected, there must be a mechanism to run competitions and they need not care to help even if the WCA reg says so and the organizers try to request assistance for a little while.
The local community dies if the proportion of such cubers increase to around 30% and I have seen that happen in multiple cities in India over the course of a decade by personally travelling and attending the competitions. Some cities which are more community focused and have a good rappo with experienced cubers can get proper volunteering done and not produce slacky mismanaged competitions. But inculcating community focused ideals into newer cubers and serious cubers is a very careful game and harder to implement if there is indifference from the other side on how the competition flow runs.
The easiest solution I propose is to have a buffer time of 15 minutes before every round, where every cuber can warm up. Yes, it does break the momentum of the competition and less rounds can be fitted in in a day's schedule, but the excuse that the cuber did not get a dedicated time to warm up is taken care of to some extent.
I have a lot more to say on this topic but I do not want to make it too negative so I would stop here. One more observation is that happier cubers contribute more, and nowadays the youth are less happy compared to a decade back. This statement might seen baseless if you do give a think about it. Serious cubers can also be happy, but their stance to not contribute to the competition is perplexing. There can exist many workarounds and they can give ant's help if they just wish to understand the spirit of WCA. I guess their mindset is that WCA model can die out, and they will wait for the world to pump money into this sport so that they never have to volunteer again. Or many serious cubers just pursue cubing for a few years, accomplish a goal and leave the scene without ever contributing to the community by doing simple help like judging for 10 minutes in a day's schedule.
