Yvette Baker Trophy

[DM]

Very simply, the club couldn't get a reasonably representative team together. None of our schools were available because of the distance, most of our better older juniors were away, ill or simply unwilling to make the journey down to Newbury again such a short space of time after the CSCup Final (especially with a string of squad weekends, selection races etc. in between), whilst younger juniors families were on the whole not prepared to go that far.

It was disappointing, but not unexpected - we're finding less and less people are willing to travel the big distances so often, there are simply too many competitions on the calendar now, and this autumn has been very busy for quite a number of families. For us as a family it was a welcome break - the first time in months without an orienteering commitment at the weekend.

If it was not unexpected that you were not going to get a team out, why qualify at all? This deprived another club of the chance of putting a team out, BARRO in this case, who are a new club, enthusiastic to get more experience.

A couple of specific points here, first as others have said, 0/10 to BOF for clashing dates and I agree it is not correct to expect juniors to choose between squad training and YBT.

Second, if a club who qualifies knows they are not going to go (for whatever reason) can the place be given to the next qualifier in the round? At least in this way the numbers are maintained and more juniors get the chance to run in a top event.

[distracted]

One problem that arose this year was Qualifying heats being organised on inappropriate dates... It was unfair to ask these children to make the decision to leave one of their main training/social weekends for the YBT. This needs to be addressed for future years. How can we do this?

Perhaps have all of the Yvette Baker Qualifying heats on the same weekend, like is done for the Compass Sport Cup/Trophy? Surely that can't be that difficult to organise - it should be possible to put 6 or so district events on around the country on the same day...

[Tessa]

i cant believe there are so many negative posts about a great day! i had a great time and so did the guys from uni. They thought it was typically crazy but the whole run in, commentary and general atmosphere was great. Thanks very much to the organisers - it was well worth the trip, however much travelling i ended up doing that weekend!

about the adults running - i dont see any problem, money and effort-wise it makes sense for everyone to be allowed to run, but the seperate start block worked well. If it hadn't been like that, it could have been a much smaller event and the atmosphere wouldnt have been so good. maybe they didnt all stay and watch till the end, but its hardly surprising, people do have lives outside orienteering! more to the point...where were the actual teams at prize giving!!

lastly - back to the issue of the squad weekend. its not a fault of anyone, there are just not enough weekends in a year. i dont think anyone was put in a bad position, everyone did what they wanted to do. i had an awesome days training on saturday and a good fun run on sunday - no problem, and not complaining one bit. i dont think there is a simple solution, every time there is a squad weekend there is a clash or a problem, and its clearly not bof's fault.

[DM]

I have no doubt that it was a great day and also that the juniors took the event seriously. Many clearly made a long round trip (WCOC team among others), Lakes to Berkshire twice in a weekend is a long way, again demonstrating their support for the event. Hopefuly next year the MDOC juniors will be there (wherever it is).

Can anyone more familiar with the event rules comment on whether a place in the final can be passed to another team if a qualifier chooses not to go to the final?

Is it me or have some posts have disappeared from this topic during this afternoon? Sure there was one more when I looked earlier.

[DM]

I have no doubt that it was a great day and also that the juniors took the event seriously. Many clearly made a long round trip (WCOC team among others), Lakes to Berkshire twice in a weekend is a long way, again demonstrating their support for the event. Hopefuly next year the MDOC juniors will be there (wherever it is).

Can anyone more familiar with the event rules comment on whether a place in the final can be passed to another team if a qualifier chooses not to go to the final?

Is it me or have some posts have disappeared from this topic during this afternoon? Sure there was one more when I looked earlier.

[seabird]

Can anyone more familiar with the event rules comment on whether a place in the final can be passed to another team if a qualifier chooses not to go to the final?

If only the situation was so simple. awk is quite right in identifying that at the Compass Sport Final the omens were poor for getting out the quality of team Aire would like. Consideration was given at that time to whether we should cede our place.

Some of us in the club felt confident that we could produce a team - even if it was to be over-represented with comparative newcomers to the sport. We have been having brilliant junior turnouts at our local events.

And indeed we did have a team until 9 days before the competition when one significant group withdrew. We immediately informed Hilary Palmer and the event organiser.

Believe me we are very disappointed that we failed to get a team out. Aire have been ever-presents since the competitions inception.

I personally gave up a run in the Calderdale Way relay, one of our best local races in order to be able to transport the team. I was not alone in putting a lot of effort into trying to get a team together.

[HOCOLITE]

I know the distance is vastly different but TVOC competed with an incomplete team, and most of the teams take inexperienced runners so they can get a flavour of junior orienteering. This event is about more than winning, it's like the Peter Palmer Relays it is an event that the juniors want to be at and want to come back to. We had runners who had only done one course before but they came and enjoyed it. This is part of being in the club. Juniors can be pretty excited about being 20th or 30th if they feel they have achieved.

[seabird]

Couldn't agree more Hocolite.

I'm dissappointed that despite loads of encouragement to the inexperienced plus free travel and free entry; etc, Aire were unable even to achieve this objective.

[awk]

If it was not unexpected that you were not going to get a team out, why qualify at all?

Seabird has explained what happened, but sorry, the word 'unexpected' wasn't quite the appropriate one. At the time of the qualifiers, Aire did expect to go if qualified (otherwise, as has been intimated, what was the point of qualifying?). After all, the club has one of the strongest track records in partcipation, being one of only 2 clubs* that has competed in the competition every year since its inception (long before it even became the YBT), with a continuous record of final appearances since the YBT started, proving, to take up a point by Hocolite, that winning is not all important, as we've won just once in all that time!

My use of the word 'unexpected' was more to do with my personal and general perception of issues surrounding the fixtures list, travel for overloaded juniors, scheduling two major club finals in the same place in the same season etc. etc. rather than of Aire's attendance specifically.

My biggest regret in all of this, aside from not seeing Aire managing to raise a team, is also that another club effectively missed out as well: it would have been good to see BARRO at the final. BTW it's not in the rules, but then there's nothing ruling against it either. It would have to be a co-ordinator decison.

*The other one is Ebor.

[DM]

AWK. Clear now from the comments you and Seabird have made that you tried hard and it was a last minute decision and in this case probably too little time another team to get organised even if the coordinator allowed them to take the place.

If one thing comes out of this I think it should be for the YBT rules to make it clear that if a club drops out with enough notice in future years the possibility of another club going at shortish notice is made more obvious, to maximise the numbers and give more juniors the experience of a national competition.

[Nottinghamshire outlaw]

DM - the Junior Competition Group will be meeting in January. I don't think that NW has a rep on JCG - perhaps someone would like to volunteer. For information on JCG see:
http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/a ... p?PID=JCSG

[Nottinghamshire outlaw]

DM - the Junior Competition Group will be meeting in January. I don't think that NW has a rep on JCG - perhaps someone would like to volunteer. For information on JCG see:
http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/a ... p?PID=JCSG