Dave, good suggestion - definitely a good idea worth considering.
It's interesting, because I was actually thinking of almost the opposite idea (but I do like your idea also).
I was thinking the issue was because we didn't have a defined timeline or other objectives to allow participants to plan ahead... and also to help motivate people to get GZ to a certain location by a certain date.
For instance. It's easy for me to take off work a few days (or even the week) if I know about in advanced. So if I new GZ was going to be at the xyz pub in Lancaster Pa on July19th for a hand-off, a month or more in advance, I could easily plan to be there. Not knowing when GZ will be passing through means I don't plan any days off from work (or family) and my ability to participate drops significantly. Also, I think if we mapped out dates/locations ahead of time it would also help motivate members to participate (i.e. GZ must make it to XYZ in 3 days!)
We could try to cordinate the route with events (i.e. GZ must make it to Mid-Ohio).
Of course, all this takes planning, and it requires more of us to step up and help organize.
I think Dave's suggestion could also work. Basically change the relay from a "how many states in a year" to "how many members can be included" - I think this would basically mean it would no longer be an annual event, but rather a never ending relay that zig-zagged where ever - which is kind of a cool idea.
But, what we have now is somewhere in-between the two concepts and it doesn't seem to work. GZ doesn't "has to be" anywhere specific in the near future, so most transitions are when someone gets the time. Which is OK if we're just trying to hand it to the next closest guy, but causing to much of a delay if we're still trying to hit all the states in one year.
