The next scheduled inter-board pick 'em contest is Cincy AMS, which starts next Monday. We've been caught out a bit by the fact that it starts so early this year and unfortunately Bethan, who usually pastes the entries into the entry spreadsheet, is going to be away on holiday while all the entries are coming in.

Unfortunately, I can't process all the entries myself and do all the other stuff involved (there just aren't enough hours in the day or night), so we were wondering if somebody else here would be willing to help out for this tournament in order to avoid us having to cancel it, which would mean no more pick 'ems until the USO.

If you think you might be able to help after reading what follows, please pm me or email btpickem@hotmail.com. If you have any questions about what it's like to actually do it though, Bethan (imoen on here) is the best person to ask.

What's involved?

When someone fills in the entry form and sends it, it creates an email which contains all the entry details. Those emails would be set up to go to you. N.B. don't worry, your email address will not be in the entry form's html code and none of the entrants will be able to see what it is.

You then need to highlight everything in that email (i.e. drag your mouse down over it) and copy and paste it into the main entry Excel file which I will provide you with. After pasting each entry, you then do a Data/Sort on the range that will already be highlighted to get the fields into the right order, since this can't be done automatically when setting up the entry form.

Other than that, you just need to correct any entry errors that will upset the results system (usually very easy to do and happily the errors seem to be decreasing even though the entries are increasing!) or bring them to my attention, and save the file every once in a while before uploading an automatically generated webpage to the BT.net site.

How long will it take?

We expect about 200 entries for Cincy (AMS comps usually attract about half the number of entrants we had for the last slam pick 'em) - Bethan reckons that would take her a bit over 3 hours these days, but might take a first-timer 4-5 hours spread over Friday to Monday since they would need to get into the swing of it.

When do you need to be available?

The deadline for entries will be when play starts at 4 pm UK time on Monday, so you would need to be available for up to a couple of hours next Monday late afternoon or early Monday evening in order to deal with the entries that have come in close to the deadline in time for me to get the final entrants file by mid-evening. That should mean that I can get the first results up by the close of play in the early hours so that the US entrants can see them that night and the European entrants will see them first thing in the morning.

It's also good to be able to go online for 30-60 minutes a few times between Friday evening and Sunday evening so that you can get the early entries processed during the weekend, to make it less hassly on the Monday.

It probably best suits someone who will be online a fair bit during the entry period anyway, since they can then just do a few entries at a time and end up hardly noticing them, but that's not essential.

Do you need to be an Excel whiz?

No, it's really very simple if you follow the instructions, which Bethan had no trouble following (sheddie did, but that's because he's a shambles and reads what he thinks is there instead of what's actually there! ) and which she has kindly offered to bring up to date this week before she goes away.

If you have used Excel a bit and are used to copying/moving and pasting (you don't need to create any formulae or anything like that!) and you either have an FTP program or you don't get too frightened at the thought of downloading a free one that we can recommend as being very easy to use, then it'll be easy ... apart from the simple fact that doing 200 entries takes a fair bit of time.

Is it fun?

The task in itself is fairly routine (though you may indirectly learn a few Excel tricks by doing it), but you get to have the first look at who's picking whom (that picks analysis sheet updates itself in your Excel file as you paste entries in) and have a good laugh at some of the sillier entrants - all in good fun! You might even find people on other boards offering claiming to have slept with you - that's both optional and not guaranteed, I'm afraid.
 
Most of all, you get the satisfaction of of helping to make possible what I am pretty sure is the biggest (and best ) wholly non-commercial tennis prediction contest on the web (which massively adds to the number of hits on this site, some of which no doubt get through to other parts of it) and something that lots of fellow tennis fans seem to get a huge amount of fun out of.

Also, you have to believe that Bethan and I, gluttons for punishment though we are, wouldn't keep doing these contests if they weren't fun for those running them too.

Interested?

If you'd like to help, please pm me or email me at btpickem@hotmail.com, while if you have any questions before you decide, feel free to ask either me or Bethan.

Thanks for reading!

-- Edited by steven at 19:52, 2008-07-22