Regions - time for a shakeup?

[SeanC]

I suppose these are the common fears with pooling control. The same fears I suspect inhibit club mergers where they should really happen.

There is the risk that a northern region would focus big events in its successful areas. Using Graeme's suggestion, a combined NE and Cumbria region might put all the big events in the "better" areas of Cumbria. But there is also the opportunity for the stronger Cumbria to help development in the North East (which has a bigger population therefore greater long term growth potential). For example the Lakes 5 day could be staged in the pennines one year to provide lots of new maps for the north east. A bigger region might also generate enough money for a regional development officer for the North East. It depends whether you an optimist or a pessimist?

Organising events that are a long way from home: Didn't this happen at this year's JK? I can see organisers from LEI and BOK + Welsh clubs, and controllers from HOC and CHIG. What's the view of those involved?

[SteveE]

Organising events that are a long way from home: Didn't this happen at this year's JK? I can see organisers from LEI and BOK + Welsh clubs, and controllers from HOC and CHIG. What's the view of those involved?

Being one of the planners from LEI for JK2014 Day 3, the distance involved meant a lot of time on the road when visiting the area. A five-six hour travel time for the return journey ensured any time spent on location had to be well organised and was weather dependent. There were many long tiring days.

One the plus side it was excellent development to plan in new terrain with different planning styles to test different orienteering techniques to those used in normal LEI areas.

[SeanC]

No-one said well done, so well done.

I guess another down side of the long distance volunteer is the high travel expenses.

Going back to Eddie's question about what regions do, SEOA's main roles seem to be:

- co-ordinate big events
- organise regional competitions.
- regional junior squads
- raise money (mainly for the regional squad).
- act as a communication point between members and BOF (less so now there are fewer
regional reps on fewer BOF committees).

Regional competitions could be organised by bigger or smaller regions probably. Regional junior squads is an interesting point. A bigger region = potentially more choice of coaches and potentially more choice of areas to train in. Probably a smaller higher quality squad and maybe better for elite development? Smaller regions = more accessible to families without the finance or motivation to travel long distances and easier to get in to. Many small clubs, and even some big clubs, have little or no junior coaching so the regional squads can provide the only opportunity for some juniors to get coaching, other than leaving their club (so maybe better for development/retention)?

I guess the large differences in region size (by membership) must make the Junior Inter-Regional Championships more predictable/less interesting.

Interesting to note that some of the larger clubs have more members (using my original measure) than Wales, and almost as big as NEOA. BOK = 180 ranked members, SO = 165.

[canol]

As with many of the clubs it is always the same people volunteering to do things. This is the same in Wales which has a large area but is populated by a small number of orienteers willing to be organisers, planners, controllers etc. Sometimes these people will want to run at one of their club events rather than always be putting them on.

I would be in favour of an amalgamation of regions even if this resulted in the break up of Wales as long as it did not result in another layer of administration.

I am certainly aware that there are many excellent areas especially in North Wales that due to lack of experienced orienteers are not being used, in fact there are a couple of great open areas that were mapped years ago that have never been used.We are all missing out on the chance to run on these areas.

From sunny Mid Wales!