Mole Valley plus others

[NickC]

The French Orienteering Federation has just dropped National events in 2007 (previously we had two, one in May and one in October). These have been replaced by 4 regional qualifying races (!!) for all classes for the French Championships (which is held in August). It will be interesting to see what impact this change has on the entry for the French Champs.

[johnloguk]

What do you do about insurance?

I think it just gets registered as an event and everyone is covered as normal, unless we're missing something somewhere

[SeanC]

The birthday party idea is quite interesting. I guess the question is, does it generate new members or just income?

[johnloguk]

To be honest so far the birthday parties haven't generated a single new long term member, although 1 family did join for a year. But they have certainly generated income and, perhaps more importantly in the long run, have shown a lot of people what real orienteering is about.

Most of the families that have taken part were extremely active and busy, with every member doing something from hockey, football, cricket, aerobics, gym and church choir! As people have said on other threads, some families just dont have time in their lives to orienteer regularly on top of everything else they do.

But we'll persevere with these parties because they take almost no setting up, and are great fun as well as the benefits mentioned above. The timing this year is perfect because the party will be immediately before our evening Summer Series starts, so fingers crossed.

[SeanC]

Did you consider doing a string course? I would have thought string courses would be more suitable for the younger kids, or would it be too much work?

I have a theory with families that you have to get them before the kids have their spare time sorted out. Either get the adults into orienteering before the kids come along so they have no choice but to go along or get the kids enthused before they have other sports. So I guess that means string courses.

This thread has drifted into the young uns thread

[johnloguk]

Continuing blindly off-topic in true Nope style

We haven't ever considered a string course because although some of the kids have been under 10 quite a few of their brothers and sisters have been teenagers, and we have been asked to put on something really adventurous rather than following a string.

The thing you will never really know from this sort of input is how many people might get tempted into orienteering further down the line. Little lad has his orienteering birthday party, tells his mates at school (who weren't at the part obviously ), one of them sees an event advertised and thinks "a-ha, that's what my mate said was brill" and off he toddles, or not as the case may be.

It's not going to change the future of orienteering, but it's better than the proverbial poke in the eye with a blunt stick

[SeanC]

I'm being a bit provocative about the string course.

I guess like permanent courses and schools orienteering its got to make some take up the sport properly, and like you say its nearer to a real event. The birthday party before the local event concept sounds like it has most potential. How did this start? Did you advertise or is this through personal contacts?

Have you considered writing an article in Compass Sport about the birthday parties and also the corporate events I think you said you put on as well? As far as I'm aware, its quite unusual for orienteering clubs to be involved in this kind of thing, and maybe a wider audience (than nopesport) would be interested in reading about it?

[johnloguk]

Yes I took the string course comment very much tongue in cheek Sean

I think the birthday party idea came from a family who approached us because they were trying to think of something different for their son. I think they'd seen a review of one of our ordinary events in the local paper. I remember I took the phone call and they were adamant that they didn't want to go down the route of a McDonalds party or something similar. When it turned out that their house almost backed onto one of our areas it all fell into place.

We're lucky that we've got more than half a dozen areas mapped in or very close to the City. A party in rural Lincs might be a bit more difficult

The Compass-sport article is a good idea, it has come up before but been prioritised away. I'll have a word and see if we can knock something together. The corporate days are another really simple thing that don't take much organising, they raise our profile as well as some cash, and again they are a lot of fun.

Didn't Oli and Jenny Johnson have an orienteering wedding event on Kinder Scout?

[SeanC]

Good stuff, looking forward to reading it.

The birthday party idea is great. As a new dad I fear the day that I have to organise a birthday party for a load of my sons classmates. There's only so many times you can go to a Wacky Warehouse.

Stretching your idea a bit further, how about birthday presents. Like this:

A club sells a voucher. This voucher entitles someone to free entry to orienteering event + coaching + drink (well orange squash) + debrief after the event. The voucher goes in the card with the present. £10 a time? Cheaper than flowers and less lardy than chocolate.

Completely off topic now, but who cares?

[EddieH]

Returning to the starting thread, there was NEVER any embargo on other events at the same time as National events - I know I was NE panel coordinator. Market forces ruled it all then and do so now. Every club and region is largely free to do what it wants regarding smaller events.

The NE often used to put on small events during the British Championships weekend many many years ago.

Regarding johnlogok's comments about "tired old areas" for C2s and C3s that is one of the reasons I like to travel to events. The problem with local events is that they become just too familiar, and that even applies to some extent in my fabulous local areas.
I dont expect everyone to agree, although footfall shows that many do, but I would prefer to run in a high status event on an okay area than a local run on the best area we have. I don't wish to impose my view on everone else, but equally I don't wish all events to lose their status. The Elite and FCC competitors have a hard schedule. Us bog standard oldies do not.

[drobin]

Having just learnt through this forum that a) National events are not necessarily 'longer/harder'* than regional events and b) there is no ranking weighting, I put the case for a return to the much missed Regional Championships. There is news value for saying one is a 'Northern Champion' in a sport rather than the winner of National event 3. Perhaps even nominate an event as The English Championships?
*Is that why all the remaining National events for 2007 are 'up north'?

On another anachronism, why do we still stick with the regional set up? I think the regions, based on county, were originally set up to suit funding from the CCPR. Is this still relevant? Surely it would make more sense for the regions to be geographically orientated. For example, WIM (SWOA) and SOC (SCOA) show the New Forest. SN is in both SEOA and SCOA. The Chilterns is shared by TVOC (SCOA), HH (SEOA/EAOA),and SMOC (EMOA).

Finally, I understand WIM has no member that actually lives in the town! Surely a case for clubs changing their name to a catchement area. eg Southdowns.

[ryeland of doom]

Finally, I understand WIM has no member that actually lives in the town! Surely a case for clubs changing their name to a catchement area. eg Southdowns.

I believe there are no longer any inhabitants of Octavia in OD. Whether or not there are any surviving Droobers is another point.

The English regions always were a bit strange - the huge SWOA against the tiny Western South East - sorry SCOA for instance.
And yes - I agree Northern Champion does sound good. Bring back the regionals.

[Marco Polo]

On another anachronism, why do we still stick with the regional set up? I think the regions, based on county, were originally set up to suit funding from the CCPR. Is this still relevant? Surely it would make more sense for the regions to be geographically orientated. For example, WIM (SWOA) and SOC (SCOA) show the New Forest. SN is in both SEOA and SCOA. The Chilterns is shared by TVOC (SCOA), HH (SEOA/EAOA),and SMOC (EMOA).

SMOC are in EAOA as well. It was the M in SMOC that had you fooled!
Yes, I really have nothing better to do with my time!

The example of a chilterns region works well, and could work well elsewhere- lakes perhaps. But presumably if you think regions are worth having, they need to contain several clubs and in some parts of the country, I suspect, the current system is as good as any.

[kedge]

drobin wrote:

Finally, I understand WIM has no member that actually lives in the town! Surely a case for clubs changing their name to a catchement area. eg Southdowns.

drobin
Someone has been feeding you duff information.

From a quick look at our membership list (admittedly last year's - I haven't seen the new one yet), just under 10% of our membership have Wimborne postal addresses.

[Tatty]

The Regions were originally done on the Sports Council Regions. I think it was something to do with BOF getting funding. However as a member of a SCOA club, we do far more events jointly with SWOA clubs as they are so much nearer than the other SCOA clubs. It would benefit us more to be in the same Region as them . We might be allowed to put on a joint Peter Palmer team then. It was rejected last time we asked.