FIOFAFI: The “Pooling” Effect

I’ve referred to having a sufficiently large pool of participants several times since I wrote about FIOFAFI as a platform in August 2008.

To illustrate:

• Say you have a group of 20 who play once a week on Mondays.  With other work, social or family commitments, or due to illness or injury, say they regularly get between 7 to 14 players each week.  If they only get 7 or 8, the game may have to be cancelled.  If they get 12 to 14, it will be a crowded game.  If they get 9 or 11, they play with one short, or one extra player.    Those who cannot play on a particular Monday don’t get a game at all that week.

• Alternatively, they have  a larger, group, say 25, and play with 12 to 15  players divided into three teams taking turns to play over 2 hours.    That’s a lot of time spent waiting for your turn, something most of us would rather avoid, especially when we have other commitments.

• Imagine you had four separate groups of 20, one that plays on Monday, one that plays on Tuesday, one that plays on Wednesday, and one that plays on Thursday, that combine to form one big group.   With a far larger pool, you’re less likely to fall short of players for any given session.  If you have more than 10 players for a session, the extra players can switch to another day, or if there are sufficient numbers, you can have two sessions that day.   Those who cannot play on any particular day due to other commitments can always play on another day.    That’s FIOFAFI for you.

The same pooling effect can be applied to other activities.  The only real issue is whether we have sufficient people interested in that other activity.

• We appear to have enough players for an 11-a-side game about once a month or so on a Saturday afternoon.

• I’m testing the waters to see if we have enough people interested in going to watch an S. League game once in a while.

• If there is sufficient interest, any other activity would be possible, such as Cage cricket.

If you’re interested in participating in any activity through FIOFAFI, but there currently aren’t sufficient numbers of people for it, one way to increase the chances of that activity becoming a reality is to introduce other people who might be interested in that activity.

Like I’ve said before, a simple way to introduce friends and acquaintances to the blog and its activities is to forward to them the regular updates and occasional extras. If you do so, you may wish to copy me on the e-mail, so that I know. Or simply provide them with the URL:  http://www.fiofafi.com/.

Anyone who participates in the right spirit is welcome.