increasing participation

[Mrs H]

BOF website

The first assignment to be undertaken by the new participation manager will be a pilot project focusing on 5 enthusiastic clubs willing to support regular community based orienteering activities. It is intended that the club will establish a satellite centre to operate as a permanent meeting point for newcomers to the sport and to support regular orienteering activities. The project will emphasise organising orienteering activities around population centres that will hopefully ensure easier access for people and provide a progression route into more traditional orienteering events.

Ha ha ha - now why didn't i think of that

[redkite]

The strategy of increasing participation is fine and the scheme has my full support...... However, a brief look at the criteria that participating clubs needs to meet, leads me to the conclusion that the clubs that need the most help do not meet those criteria: i.e. small clubs but with plenty of nearby people. I was going to use the term "underperforming" clubs but thought better of it.

Anyone ever looked at club membership as a % of catchment population. Even better perhaps looking at population densities as well?

[Oldman]

BOF website

The first assignment to be undertaken by the new participation manager will be a pilot project focusing on 5 enthusiastic clubs willing to support regular community based orienteering activities. It is intended that the club will establish a satellite centre to operate as a permanent meeting point for newcomers to the sport and to support regular orienteering activities. The project will emphasise organising orienteering activities around population centres that will hopefully ensure easier access for people and provide a progression route into more traditional orienteering events.

Ha ha ha - now why didn't i think of that

Perhaps this is actually recognition of the kind of work you've been doing and an attempt to try it elsewhere?

[Mrs H]

you mean recognition like in not getting a top 3 place in last year's club of the year?

[SeanC]

There's a few things that could be interpreted from the advertisement. As its described as a pilot scheme I would guess that the aim is to produce models of success that other clubs can copy and adapt. If this is the aim then maybe it's not unreasonable to prefer clubs which have the infrastructure to ensure a successful pilot and have got their clubmark accreditation out the way (which might otherwise be distracting). Secondly the post is funded by Sport England so maybe this affects the criteria? I wonder if there are other criteria too? The final paragraph talks about "potential ideas" - maybe a good plan and enthusiasm is as important as clubmark accreditation?

[awk]

Strategy seems fair enough to me: playing to one's strengths. There is no point in trying to do what Steve is trying if you haven't got some sort of infrastructure in place already. Another stage might be to help clubs put that infrastructure in place, but that is a different type of project altogether.

On the club of the year bit Mrs H - if it's still anything like the criteria we had to work to, it's not just about participation development, but about other things like results etc. Several times we weren't necessarily able to put forward the clubs we thought were doing the best development work on its own, but who had the strongest profile across the whole spectrum of activity. That maybe the thinking now - I don't know as a bit out of touch, but might offer a reason.