SUMS Relay - How to Enter

Hey all,

This is a notice on how to enter the SUMS relay, which will happen next 
Wednesday, October 8. I apologise if the last notice sounded strict, I will 
be more lenient however obviously I am aiming for the organisation and 
running of the relay to be as convenient for both the participants and 
myself as possible.

There are a few ways to enter the SUMS relay. I will list them in decreasing 
order of convenience for me:
1. ENTERING A TEAM: Send me an email detailing the members of your team 
(remember, there are 3 to a team), as well as the team name. You don’t have 
to submit a team name, however if you don’t have one then I will provide you 
with one, and I will warn you now that my team names may not be entirely 
pleasant, so it is in your best interests to come up with your own name. 
Please do this by Tuesday October 7, or earlier.

2. ENTERING AS AN INDIVIDUAL: If you would like to enter the relay, but do 
not think that you will be able to find a team to participate in, then 
please send me an email NOTIFYING ME that you wish to enter the relay but 
are not in a team. In this case, I will put you in a team. This won’t be a 
problem. Relay teams consisting of strangers tend to do just as well as 
relay teams of friends, in fact the last SUMS relay winner was a team of 
strangers (one of whom is now our treasurer). If you enter the relay by this 
method, please inform me as soon as possible, as this will give me more time 
to organise the teams. I can not guarantee that I can tell you your 
teammates before the relay day (this all depends on how much time I have to 
organise), however you will definitely be put into a team.

3. TURNING UP ON THE DAY: This means that you simply turn up to the relay 
without notifying me. Obviously, this is the most inconvenient for me (as it 
will cause me to spend time organising the teams during the hour, giving me 
less time to run the relay), however if this happens (e.g. you only decide 
to participate in the relay about 15 minutes before it starts) I can 
accommodate you without problem. I will simply put you in a team, or if 
there are enough people turning up, form a new team.

EXTRA NOTES:
A. TEAMS OF TWO MEMBERS: If you are entering as a team of 2, that is fine, 
just email me as per method 1 (entering as a team). However, you also need 
to tell me if you are willing to field a 3rd member (in which case I might 
add to your team a person entering via method 2), or if you would prefer to 
remain as a team of 2.

B. TEAMS OF FOUR MEMBERS: Obviously, if the number of participants to the 
relay is not the right size, I may need to field a team of 4 people. 
However, this will only occur for teams formed from participants entering as 
individuals; I will not add a 4th member to a team that entered as per 
method 1.
On the other hand, if you have 3 friends and you cannot split yourselves up 
and you REALLY, REALLY want to enter as a team of 4, then please email me 
regarding this and I will consider allowing you to enter as a team of 4. I 
will probably allow it, however I will not allow teams of more than 4 (if 
you have 4 friends, enter as a team of 3 and a team of 2).

C. AMALGAMATION OF TEAMS: For people entering as individuals (or as teams of 
2 who are open to the addition of a 3rd member), whenever your team is 
updated by me (e.g. you get new team members, or a new team name when you 
haven’t provided me with one), I will send you an email informing you of the 
updates.

Of course, if you have any queries regarding this, or you wish to discuss 
anything regarding the relay, please don’t hesitate to contact me at 
garethw@maths.usyd.edu.au

Gareth