Recreational orienteering to become commercial?

[seabird]

The latvian stuff sounds interesting, Not sure how we'd manage to fit 400 people and their cars into our areas every week. It sounds fun though and makes going orienteering a "normal" activity not something exotic and weird.

Given the comparative lack of O terrain around most UK urban centres compared with Riga, (although if I recall acurately 25% of the area surrounding Riga is sea) perhaps there is scope for shared activity with your local fell running club(s) - if you're lucky enough to have them, eg alternate between orienteering and fell races (and possible hybrids) with combined leagues.

[roadrunner]

See these blogs from Limelight to see where they're coming from Brands and Recreational Sport, Brands Can Fill Olympic Legacy Gap in terms of identifying opportunities.

Looking at the second of these made me think. Which has brought the most people into running: the events mentioned there (Sport Relief Mile and Run London), organised by a commercial organisation, or Parkrun, organised by runners?

And to respond to Paul's point, I don't think it's quite fair to say that road running has been taken over by charity fund raising. Certainly that's the case with the big events like the London Marathon (and many city half-marathons), but local 10k races and the like don't tend to be like that, although admittedly it is quite normal for the profits to go to charity.

[SeanC]

I thought ParkRun was not for profit, but it had paid staff doing the central organisation (volunteers organising the events)? That wouldn't be a million miles from a group of people taking a salary for doing event organising and promoting events, and working with clubs (with club members volunteering to help on the day, do a bit of technical guidance and promoting "real orienteering").

I know this sort of thing is anathama to many long standing orienteers, but it doesn't seem philosophically different to the situation we have with mapping - sometimes maps are done by volunteers, sometimes by professionals. Over time we work out where the lines are drawn.

[roadrunner]

I thought ParkRun was not for profit, but it had paid staff doing the central organisation (volunteers organising the events)?

I believe that's correct - though I think it started out with just volunteers. I see nothing wrong with there being both paid staff and volunteers - isn't that the case with BOF?