Sounds good that an automatic email system is being discussed that would send a message to participants who are canceling too frequently.

However, echoing Cheryl & David, as a leader I would really like to see a distinction between "Participant Canceled" and "Trip Canceled".

Concur with Cheryl & David that if possible, would be good to have finer distinctions such as "Canceled before Deadline", "Canceled after Deadline", "Canceled due to emergency", "No Show", "Needs improvement in skills", "Needs improvement in fitness", "Unsafe behavior", etc.

In my experience late cancellations and no-shows are a significant and growing problem across the Club, and I agree that it would be helpful to trip leaders (and course field trip leaders) if the website had more functionality to track and report information about those few members who do this chronically.

Three ideas on this:

1) Add more granularity to "CANCELLED" to reflect where in the lifecycle of an activity a member cancelled and whether the member was registered for the activity or just waitlisted. An example might be: CANCELLED_OFF_WAITLST, CANCELLED_BEFORE_DEADLINE, CANCELLED_AFTER_DEADLINE, TRIP_CANCELLED (i.e. trip itself cancelled by the leader due to weather or whatever), and NO_SHOW. There could be discussion about what the different cancellation types might be; this is just an initial suggestion. There also needs to be a way to allow "late cancellations with cause" due to illness, injury, car failure, etc.

2) Add the ability to aggregate and report a member's cancellation statues over some trailing periods, say 60-days and 120-days. We don't want the time periods to be too long because members should be able to "leave the past behind them" as they learn to be more reliable or work their way through temporary episodes in their lives.

3) Add the ability for trip leaders to disallow members who have too many recent cancellations of certain types, i.e. "No more then 1 NO_SHOW in last 30 days", "No more than 2 CANCELLED_AFTER_DEADLINE_ in last 60 days". This is similar to what eBay does to disallow bids from problem buyers.

Automating this process depersonalizes it and therefore unburdens trip leaders of the need to have awkward and stressful interactions with problem members, and also lets those members know that "It's not personal. This standard applies to all members."

I basically feel there should be TWO thresholds - a minor threshold (such as canceling on 20% of activities over a year) that would generate a "friendly reminder" email, and a more egregious threshold (such as canceling on 33% of activities) that would generate a "serious request" email.

Suggestion for the "friendly reminder" email:
Thank you for your participation in Mtnrs activities. This email was automatically generated based on the number of activities you signed up for and is a recognition of your enthusiasm that helps to make the Mtnrs a vibrant organization.
However, this email was also generated based on a relatively high number of activities that you canceled from after signing up. If these cancellations were due to events beyond your control, please disregard. However, as a friendly reminder, please take into consideration the volunteer efforts of our leaders, and the difficulty that late cancellations create for them in tasks such as creating emergency contact rosters, planning group gear, and planning of carpools, and please make an effort to verify you are available and willing to do activities before signing up. Thank you.

Suggestion for the "serious request" email:
Thank you for your participation in Mtnrs activities. This email was automatically generated based on the number of activities you signed up for and is a recognition of your enthusiasm that helps to make the Mtnrs a vibrant organization.
However, this email was also generated based on a very high percentage of activities that you canceled from after signing up. While it's recognized that some cancellations may be due to events beyond your control, please make some changes to refrain from cancelling so frequently. Take into consideration the volunteer efforts of our leaders, and the difficulty that late cancellations create for them in tasks such as creating emergency contact rosters, planning group gear, and planning of carpools. Always verify you are available and willing to do activities before signing up. Thank you.

That's a tough one, but I'll give it a shot. If you are looking to define the problem in terms of # of activities canceled over "x" amount of time, as a scrambling leader I would consider 6 participant cancellations over a 12-month period to be an appropriate threshold that would generate a "friendly reminder" email to "please only sign up for trips which you intend to complete". However, if possible I think I would prefer the threshold to be defined in terms of PERCENTAGE of activities - such as "canceled on more than 20% of activities". That way, a highly active member who has unpredictable hours on the job (such as someone who signs up for 32 activities in a year and cancels on 6 of them) wouldn't be unduly discouraged by such an email. And I think there needs to be an additional "threshold" that a member would need to participate in more than 10 activities in a year to be a candidate for getting such an email. (I wouldn't want such an email sent to someone who only canceled only 1 or 2 times in an entire year - that could be explained simply by bad luck.)

Jeff, sort of a side question: Is the concept discussed below -- being able to look at a member's Activity History and distinguish between "participant canceled" versus "leader canceled the trip" -- still in work? For example, in my posting of Del Campo Peak scramble of 12/31/15 (which was not actually a real trip; it was created as a Leadership presentation on how to post a trip to the website), one person (L.R.) canceled, and then after the presentation, as the leader, I canceled & closed the activity. If you look at each participant's Activity History, they all read the same - "canceled" - i.e. you can't decipher whether that indicates "participant canceled" or "leader canceled the trip". Thanks for any clarification.

Concur with Cheryl - would be very helpful to have a means to distinguish "participant canceled" versus "leader canceled". Seemingly the easiest way to incorporate that would be to keep the participant cancelation function the same, while adding one item in the trip result pull-down menu of "Activity Canceled". Members' Activity History would then display either "Canceled" or "Activity Canceled", to denote "participant canceled" or "leader canceled" respectively.

Chris, there are some simple and fairly non-threatening ideas in the comments below that would get us 95% of the way there without detailed notes inappropriately making their way outside a committee. Would you all possibly discuss and consider (1) expanding the list of participant results? Specifically - participant cancellation vs. leader cancellation is very important; would like to see some additional categories of participant ratings to replace the current 'Needs Improvement' and 'Failed/Unsafe'. For example, instead of 'Needs Improvement', offer something more specific like 'Struggled to Complete Activity' or 'Lacked Critical Gear'. Instead of 'Failed/Unsafe' offer 'Individual Couldn't Complete Itinerary' or 'Seriously Unsafe or Inappropriate Behavior'. These offer future leaders a few more clues which then need to be followed up on with a conversation with the past leader and the participant themselves.

Also, seems that many committee chairs aren't seeing any confidential notes. Are they just not being entered?

Staff had a short meeting about this and thought of some things to add to the debate. As background, the "confidential notes" section was designed from the user stories where COURSE instructors wanted to know how students had performed on the activities they needed to complete in order to graduate from a course. Because of the website’s “bones” require the same data structure for a hike as for an alpine climb, every activity has this “confidential notes” field. Because of the focus on helping course instructors review student performance to judge whether someone can graduate, the quickest way to view ALL the confidential notes for one person only exists on a COURSE roster (not a list of activities or elsewhere on the profile). However, “confidential notes” are visible to the leaders of any single activity and committee “admins” can go into any trip sponsored by their committee and see them as well. That’s the current functionality.

From a member services perspective, one huge factor that contributes to these different "pacing" issues (for lack of a better overall phrase) originates from a shortage of "introductory" or "beginning" activities. Some members just don't understand what mileage and elevation numbers really mean (until they hit the trail). A large number of them "squeeze" themselves into more aggressive trips because that tends to be all that's available to them. This would help with one aspect of these difficulties for leaders.

Secondly, Tess noted that there are fewer offerings for things like the "Beginning Hiker Seminar" and other introductory sessions. These have a similar affect to the first issue above - they teach novices what to expect on a given activity and what level of conditioning is required. Maybe with an increase in general membership, we just aren't keeping up (?). If so, one way to address this is to produce a VIDEO that accomplishes the same purpose. If that lived on the website, leaders could link to it over and over again as they run into new members (and we could put it in our marketing to them as well). If anyone is interested in project-managing a video like that, please reach out to Tess and I!

A third component to this is a little touchy, and I preface it by saying that I've seen everyone on this thread go out of their way for our members so it’s not directed at you. Are there some situations where a frustration with a participant strays outside of the definition of “volunteerism?” If someone is slower than expected on an activity, is the activity there to serve the volunteer or the participant? Maybe it’s not “volunteering” if someone just wants to run a trip at their own pace and not be bothered by the difficulties of the people that have signed up to join them. This is not an easy analysis and each situation is unique. I believe we would all agree that a group should accommodate the unexpected illness or injury. On the other hand, I see little reason to tolerate outright rudeness from a participant who simply wants to modify a trip for selfish needs. The “grey” areas in between may call for some reflection and soul-searching to identify whether the participant needs more support and whether the leader is truly “volunteering” to serve the mission of the organization. I see no technical solution to this except to support our culture of giving and service and reflect on how well we’re doing this (at the committee level especially, where so much “culture” is created). This does not address to problems created by participants who constantly cancel, but it might reframe the debate for a small portion of the difficulties we see and I don’t think we should overlook it.

Obviously, none of this addresses the people whose skills have declined and they are not ready to admit their new limitations. These people know what mileage and elevation mean (so an orientation/video won’t address this part of the issue). I have seen and been involved in some very difficult and touching discussions when that is the case – not something every volunteer is comfortable with. Option 1 above (more “slow” activities) might help with this a little.

I appreciate the thought going into this. We are monitoring threads like this and trying to glean any solution we can from the feedback system. Another way to address something like this is to work through your committee and branch chair and/or to bring things to the Managing Committee, which oversees the minimum standards and other organization-wide practices. If you have any great successes – let us know! Strategically, I believe that the summit-process carries the most weight with the Managing Committee and Board. Where consensus on an issue can be established among the activity experts, few Branch Chairs or Board Members are going to go against them (unless costs or risk make it prohibitive I imagine).

Thank you all. Keep seeding these discussions here and among your committees – it adds to a culture of constant improvement.

Leaders being able to collaborate about participants is often critically important to ensuring the safety and enjoyment of Mountaineers activities by everyone involved.

That being said, one question I have is in regards to how a trip leader can reconcile talking with a participant confidentially yet post concerns to the website for a broad leader audience to view. Are there any guidelines we want to provide to help leaders decide what to include and not include in feedback that goes on the website for this case? While I don't imagine it would be much of a problem in general, I'm wondering if we will get feedback that is not useful because it lacks detail and context such as "this person was too slow".

Also, I share your concern about trip participants being unreasonably denied the opportunity to go on appropriate trips based on changing dynamics in terms of their skills, abilities, temporary medical issues, or even perhaps due to a grumpy leader.

I am a strong proponent of leaders needing to be responsive to requests from other leaders for more information about trip participants when the new trip is particularly demanding or there are concerns about the participant's ability to safely enjoy the trip, and a strong proponent of giving guidance to leaders on how to give effective feedback (if a freeform comment is allowed).

Hey everyone, if it's a priority to you to have the website folks act on our ideas in this area, be sure to vote on this feedback item! You can give it up to 3 votes (you have a total of 3 to vote on all improvement ideas that you consider important).

Another useful item along these lines would be expanding on the "canceled" status. Currently if someone cancels 3 weeks before the trip, cancels when on the waitlist, cancels the night before, or the leader cancels the trip, it all gets the same status of just "canceled" One of the the above if a potential problem, the others are all regular behavior.

Although I am the Olympia Hiking Committee Chair, I have not received any confidential notes on participants that I know have them. If they are sent, how can I find them? Is there a website link for Committee Chairs to access confidential notes?

I would like to see some additional categories of participant ratings to replace the current 'Needs Improvement' and 'Failed/Unsafe'. For example, instead of 'Needs Improvement', I'd like to see something more specific like 'Struggled to Complete Activity' or 'Lacked Critical Gear'. Instead of 'Failed/Unsafe' I'd like to see 'Individual Couldn't Finish/Turned Around' (which addresses Nancy's concern below) and 'Seriously Unsafe or Inappropriate Behavior'.

I would also REALLY like the system to display the date on which a person cancels from an activity so that leaders can tell who is consistently cancelling late.

Thank you Cheryl, for providing this information and opportunity to make suggestions. I have couple of comments. The available categories are helpful, but are not enough because they are not all necessarily specific to a participant. Here's why:

As it is, if a participant's trip result says "Turned Around" or "Cancelled", there is no indication whether it was only the person who turned around or cancelled, or whether the entire group turned around or trip was cancelled. I have to search for the actual trip results, and that is not always available or is cumbersome to find. I can view Olympia Branch rosters, but have to contact the leader if the trip was with another branch. Am I missing something? Does anyone know another way to do this?

Also, confidential notes on the roster for a participant appear to go nowhere. I know of participants who have notes on them, but they do not appear for viewing by leaders if that person registers for another trip. And the notes are not sent to the Hiking Committee Chair. There appears to be no way to find out if confidential notes exist for someone. If leaders, or at least the Hiking Chair can't see them, they are pointless. Does anyone know more about this?

As for becoming "blacklisted," I like to believe most leaders do not purposely exclude someone without researching reasons for frequent turn arounds or cancellations. On two occasions I have contacted leaders from other Branches to ask about potential participants, and I received positive answers in both cases, took the people on the trip, and they were fine.