Is there a maximum limit to the total number of people they let in for drop-in play based on the number of courts they have available? Last Saturday mornings drop-in had more people sitting off than people playing on the courts! Made for really REALLY long waits! Not helping the matter anymore are those that "warm-up" for 10 minutes first before starting play. That pretty much hogs out that court for 25+ minutes. We were playing at Clear One drop-in the other week and the lady who works there seems to play a more active role in keeping their system running (at least she was when I was there that day). She was on the speaker calling out courts that were playing for more than 15 minutes and told them to "get off". She also went up to tell people to put up their rackets on the wall since that is their system of seeing who goes up next. Yumo uses the sign up method which I quite like and it works effectively well too if not better since it allows people to see who they'll be playing with. But all too often, this system is only as good as its users and it is up to the drop-in people to try to look out for whos playing next since all the newbies and others that don't pay attention end up just sitting around in the far corners and not coming up when its their turn to play. If you skip them, then thats not fair and they get mad. Pretty soon we should enlist onto their payroll too. Maybe Yumo management should consider hiring that lady over from Clear One to monitor the court rotations and those committing the 15+ minute crime ... On another note, wonder if the curtain in the men's room has been replaced yet? Otherwise the sign-in waiver at the front should have another liability exclusion on it for the underaged players as they may be entering rated-R territory.
Yes... you point out the thing I don't like about Yumo drop-in. Totally disorganized. I went to their drop-in few times... at once, nobody is even using the sign-up sheet on the side I was playing. The most annoying thing is that you get some newbies playing behind the court like they are doing it at the back of their home while they are waiting LOL.
Depending on which day you drop-in on, the organization and "flow" is a little different. Late night drop-in (eg. Friday nights) they seem to run two sign-up sheets ... one for either side of the courts. Saturday morning drop-in runs on one sign up sheet (covering courts on both sides). This is requested by the "regulars" who attend the Saturday morning session and is preferred over the two sheets as sometimes one side may end sooner than the other side yet it doesn't mean the 4 people that have waited longer gets to go next (if running on the 2 sign-up sheet system that is). So the one sheet works fine for Saturday. Sunday morning drop-in seems to have less courts available so they also run one sign-up sheet. However, when I went, even though people use the sign-up, sometimes they don't cross themselves off when they go up. This ends up being confusing as people don't know who's next and then you have groups leap-frogging over others that are still in waiting. So basically, it really comes down to the type of people playing there to monitor and enforce things themselves and to speak out loud if they want to see changes that will improve the system. Yes, I agree with you in regards to people hitting right behind your court. It's distracting to say the least. The other thing I notice is people walking around your court during the middle of a rally. Sometimes groups of people will cut across the back corners walking right through your court in the heat of an epic battle. We've had some near collisions at times with these "pedestrians". It's worth noting that a few of us have often fired some high velocity "warning" shots at these clueless people even if it meant losing that games point. But for the most part, people are courteous enough to wait till the rally is over before passing by or at least they stay to the outside edge which is fine. And to UPDATE on the more recent drop-in we were at, during the 3 hours of play, there were up to 5 courts to play on. At the height of congestion, only 4 courts were allocated to drop-in use due to the other 2 courts being booked. At this time, I did a head count. There were 16 drop-in players on the court playing and 18 sitting off waiting. These were just the people I could see and count at the time (maybe there were some more in the washroom or outside smoking too! Who knows). Either way, thats still 2 more people than one full rotation. Better than the previous week but still no cigar for them yet (only cigarette butts!).
Speaking of "pedestrians" cutting across courts... last week a short "heavier" kid who seems to be related to one of the coaches at Yumo was playing chase, tag or whatever. He ran at high speed through multiple courts and through the seating area and through the washroom hall area. That was very dangerous since the courts and waiting area was crowded. He is the same hotshot who disregards the signup list during drop-in
I went there last night. The girl there last night did a good job. She did not just sit at the reception counter. She walked around courts and tell people to get off when they occupy the court too long (more than 15 mins?). However, I didn't see people using the sign-up sheet on the wall... either I miss it or they are using some other system now? yeah, so... still some room for improvement, but it is nice to see it is improving
You don't say. I went there a day before and there was this "big" kid running around and throwing shuttles into my occupied court. I was annoyed because I was like "What in the world is he doing?" He giggled a bit and was off the court. But after that, everything was fine.
