Frustrated Volunteer Slams Sports Club's Poor Race Management

what happened

The RunNUS organising committee was honestly quite incompetent and gave very unclear instructions on what we were supposed to do when packing up after the race. The worst part was having to WALK from UTSH all the way to MPSH to transport their logistics, and we had to make multiple trips. Even after doing all of that, the instructions were still unclear on what was left to do. They even asked me to go back a third time, only for me to reach there and find out that there was nothing left to do.

The whole time, the organising committee was sitting in UTSH doing nothing and scrolling on their phones while we were walking back and forth carrying their logistics.

all that was in the job scope in the sign up form I did was marshalling…

exactly, they made us do all this saikang and said "we haven't sleep all night" like as if it's our fault their planning is so shit. release us late, make us walk and carry their stupid signs for them, and all without any clear instructions for where to go and what time we will get released. all that for one measly SEP point, definitely not worth it

all they know how to do is threaten us with ` we won’t give your your SEP point’ while they sit there and do absolutely nothing

the o comm was so rude, and they dgaf about volunteer welfare at all. they make us walk and carry their logistics from UTSH to MPSH back and forth, when all of them just sat down in UTSH doing nothing. finally, they made the volunteers wait at UTSH for a good 1h, and doesn’t want to take attendance.
they kept threatening us with sep points, and be like if yall leave early, you will not get any sep points!
please have some basic respect towards your volunteers and reflect on your own shitty planning!

ukw we have to fking report at 530am and do this kind of shit WALK from utown to our respective points (some are pgp terminal btw) 30mins walk from utown AND no volunteer welfare ITS OK we’re fking done at 10+ but they asked us to stay there and wait for 2FKING HOURS and threaten if we leave we don’t get any sep pts… like WTF WE CAME AT 530am do all these shit for u and U CAN THREATEN US LIDDAT and whats the best part, they boss us arnd ask us make multiple trips from utown to mpsh to put down logs when their comm members js sit down and use phone , do ntg… if yall are tired then the volunteers that report at fking 530am not tired???? and SEAN TAN still can be so fking guailan say if i let yall mark attendance now yall gonna leave like it’s fking 1pm alr since 10+ yall are giving us uncles instructions, ask us keep waiting, keep slaving, moving things back to mpsh from utown and the comm members are js fking rude and unappreciative…we are volunteers not ur worker or maid LOL and they even wanted us to stay there do ntg js to wait for ppl to come back for debrief, like what’s the to brief abt ur planning is so fking shit and js go fking brief ur comm members and let the volunteers go bruh

fking stupid that their comm members can take their bags and leave earlier while the volunteers still doing all the work for them and they don’t even need to stay for the useless briefing.
Useless briefing at the end was just the PD glossing over staying until so late with NO explanation on whatever they fked up and that ppl could take attendance.

Also, how tf could it be u arrange like 8 laptops for registration but ur queue to track volunteer attendance has only two laptops. ANY of your ocomm members could have taken out their phones to fasten the process. Zero critical thinking or any concerns for volunteers in the back of their mind. I would NVR sign up for volunteer for any of the sports event after this shitfest of a run

ya wtf is the pd doing, where were they the whole time whilst the volunteers were on the ground doing all the logs for them. i didnt even see the pd during the entire duration of the event wtf

As a marshaller i had no idea where my sector ic was, in fact I didnt have any idea where he was and did not see him for the entire process. The threatening of SEP points was absolutely unreasonable as well

same I had no idea who my sector IC was. Apparently sector ICs are supposed to be one of the ocomm members but some of them were missing. Credit where credit is due, I saw some sectors going as a group to their sectors led by the sector ICs but personally, my sector IC was missing and we were left to go to our respective spots on our own.

They also had a Volunteer IC? no clue who tf that is either. are they getting more SEP? Or they just throwing more saikang to people who were unlucky to be chosen.
We also left for our stations at 6.30am but the run started at 7.25am . like what…

absolutely horrendous management from the committee from what i see. the communication problem has been evident since the volunteers were first added to the group. all they do is send choppy messages and links with no context and expect volunteers to somehow understand or figure things out themselves. wdym some volunteers were just allocated to be ICs without any prior warning or announcement?? not even a pm to ask whether we would like to be ICs, and they just casually announce it during the ONLINE briefing, which some people couldn't even attend.

and during the actual event day, there was effectively no communication via telegram, which was supposed to be the main communication channel. no guide on where to report when you arrive at utown, who to approach for registration, or what you're supposed to do next. when i asked about my role, they literally said "i don't know" or "i'll get back to you later" (i asked 3 people btw). it seems like the comm doesn't even know what their own processes are.

since there was no dry run, how do you expect volunteers to know where their designated points are, even if you provide a pic? why are u expecting us to play geoguesser??? especially when most of the volunteers are freshies or people who don't even come to that part of nus regularly. what was the point of having sector ICs if they couldn't even guide their vols to their designated locations and were just offline all the time? they didn't even add all the members into the sector chat (which they said would be done during the briefing but just... didn't happen?). the whole thing was hella confusing and disorienting. by the end of the shift, vols had to privately message their ICs to ask for further instructions because literally nothing was going on. an update would have been great, but apparently no one cared enough to make sure everyone was in the sector group or just send a message in the big group chat.

if you think that was the end of it, then noooooo. once we were gathered in utsh, they suddenly announced that "with all the manpower here, we can move the logs into mph." whose manpower??? i do not recall seeing anything in the shared files or any role descriptions indicating that we were also signing up to become delivery people and logistics crew. then they started getting snappy with us and effectively forced the vols to move their logs from utown to mph. not once, but twice, thrice even for those who moved things early and completed their jobs. it's like they take our help for granted, and the way they spoke to us was so condescending. mind you, this wasn't even in our job desc. i understand that they might need more help with teardown, and i genuinely think it's fine to ask vols to help. but it wasn't indicated anywhere NOTICEABLE, nor was there even a message earlier in the day about additional ad hoc work, so ofc some vols were rightfully confused. but then the vols were threatened with having their sep points withdrawn for not doing things they didn't even sign up to do. and the people who finished their work faster were effectively punished with even more work. genuinely baffling to me.

i know some people even left in the middle of moving the logs. when a vol asked what would happen to those who didn't stay back to help, the comm said they wouldn't just give them any sep points. but in the end, everyone who was there in utsh was given the point anyway (even if they just hid somewhere during the moving). then i ask, is that fair to those who just happened to cross ur sight and got dictated by u to slave around moving stuff? to be clear, i don't care that those who didn't help with packing still got their points. they had already completed their assigned duties earlier and had to wait a gazillion years for yall to finally wrap things up. what i have a problem with is how u forcibly threatened those who actually listened to ur instructions into doing further work by holding their sep points over their heads as blackmail.

do u realise how fucked up that is?? even if u want to say that this is volunteering work and we shouldn't put a price (sep point) on it, YOU are the ones actively leveraging that point to get volunteers to do things outside their assigned roles, without proper communication, appreciation, or basic human decency. i understand that the comms were tired and had a lot on their plate, but that doesn't excuse treating us like ur underlings that u can just boss around. the vols are tired too. we've also been running around the entire day, trying to figure out what we're supposed to do because apparently no one could give us a proper answer.

and the thing is, everything could have been so much better if yall had just communicated properly and appreciated the vols' work. i'm sure the vols could see the effort the comm put into organising the event too, and most of us wouldn't have minded helping out with additional work if we had just been asked nicely and given a proper explanation. but instead, yall somehow made it seem like we were morally in the wrong for not wanting to slave away for u without any communication or consideration. in the end, i was so fed up and exhausted that i genuinely felt nauseated just being in that room.

The part about people finishing their work faster punished with more work is so true 😭.
I came early at 5.30am for them to tell me to move boxes out of UTSH to registration point and then when race ended and I got back to UTSH, I was sent to MPSH w the heavy sports club dividers and after I went on TWO trips and clocked like 13,000 steps already and was so TIRED, the PD started calling people out to go MPSH for the third time.
😭😭😭