British

[Vidalos]

We already do pay extra for major events, so is this extra extra money?

Personally I think the major events do demand this attention, but if I paid it (which I probably would) I also want it back if there were problems. Would the sport be prepared to 'guarentee' such events for the extra money

[SeanC]

I'm suggesting extra extra money. I dont think you can expect your money back if things go wrong though. Even the most talented and experienced organisers and planners will make mistakes. But you would be reasonably entitled to complain and ultimately if a paid official doesnt do an adequate job they could pay by loosing their job.

[RJ]

How might professional involvement work...

OK. Region decides on area, and location of race site. They negotiate permissions.

An experienced and capable person (professional) then, in say a four working week timeframe (split over 'x' months) would plan the courses, work out the fine details of the race site etc. Design all aspects of the event from when the cars leave the road, to when they leave the site at the end of the day. Checking of control sites might be needed, but not essential. Oversee the printing of the maps and ensure they are at the start.

Volunteers would follow the event plan as laid out, providing on-the-day labour. Folk are much happier to do jobs when they know exactly what is required of them.

A price tag... say, £1500-£2000. Now, considering BOF plan to make ten times that as income from their major event, it wouldn't extend the entry fees by much to meet this extra 'professional' input.

Waiting to be shot down in flames...... I reckon 160 hours by an experienced and capable individual could have produced a detailed event plan for BOC2007, with quality courses on that area..... head now below the parapet!

[SeanC]

Or BOF doesnt use the major events to raise money, it raises money through some other means (increased levy, membership fees) and we pay for a full time organiser/project manager for all our major events.

I wonder if anyone would want the job

Probably RJ's model is more realistic though.

[HOCOLITE]

Three points - Do you envisage a different individual(professional) for every event? Because if not would we not be subjected to the same planning style all the time. I believe planners are creative therefore they have their own style (within the rules).
- We already have a professional results service at most major events, this is not always perfect (problems can happen even for the pros), I think it may be tendered for I don't know.
- I'd guess few people unless they are retired or very affluent would want to take on a job for the number of weeks in a year required for majoe events. I could be wrong here as obviously the time is given up voluntarily at present.

[Mrs H]

Yes, I think RJ idea sounds reasonable........but the problem as i see it is the repercussions of this arrangement on other areas of high input in the event.. There has been a lot of talk about professional mapping and the amount of money (reflected in the quality of the map) which does/should be put into it. also the planners - I'm not sure how they are going to feel about not being paid when someone else is - if you know what I mean.

One thing's sure - volunteers are not going to continue sticking their necks out to put on these events when all it seems to result in is a lot of nopegrief.

[SeanC]

This is the dilemma for all organisations that rely on volunteers.

However if the paid official is talented, commands respect and makes everyones life easier then I think people would accept it.

Also nopegrief could be directed at paid officials, reducing the number of grey hairs on volunteers.

[T5]

If you look at the range of people available for the role RJ proposes:

a) Students - want the money, potentially have the time, but would people trust them, do they have the experience, etc
b) Retired - more likely to have the time, experience and respect
c) Worker - would need time off work, could bring business skills to the role

If you look for option (c) (the majority of our membership??) BO would need to assist in putting a business case to the individuals company for having the time off (you don't want to do it in your holiday). Something along the lines of practising leadership skills, man-management, logistics, deadlines, etc. Companies may like it as it shows their committment to work/life balance (a myth some of you may have heard of!).

Looking at timescales, you'd probably need a couple of single weeks in the preceeding months, followed by a solid fortnight immediately preceeding the event (and the day after to recover). The mapper, planner, etc would have to commit to delivering certain elements within/before these windows

Most people in orienteering are pretty concientious, so would aim to do the best job they could, if they got the role. However, should there be some element of "performance related pay" so people strive for excellence?

To pick up on Hocolites point of planning styles - maybe it should be a role of this organiser/coordinator to select a suitable planner, mapper, etc for the event. And yes, if this person and the mapper are getting paid, then why not the planner? It may provide an incentive for volunteer planners of smaller events to show their ability, so they have the chance of being selected and paid for their services at a latter event

[tendon]

I'm not convinced the appointment of a professional coordinator is going to help get controls in the right place - that comes down to planner, controller and forest team. Part of the problem is simply the scale of the BOC/JK ... more courses, more controls, more expectation. Couple of recent SEOA majors have split the planning role so that Individual A does elite, individual B the other courses, which seems to make things manageable, with priority given to the elites. It's also good to get a forest team that knows what it is doing - so they are properly checking the sites as the controls go out, as a valid backup. Use prerunners on the elites if possible, and make sure every site is visited more than once prior to the race (e.g. stake goes out, Controller check, SI box goes out, pre-runner wakes elite box. SI 4, Emit 2? ).

Getting controls in the right place, and making sure they stay there, comes down to resource. The more (experienced)people willing to give up their run to help in the forest before and during the competition, the less likely an error will slip through.

As an aside - anyone got an ocad file of the BOC area - finally got my copy back yesterday and would now be very interested to see what it looks like with all the form lines removed!

[SeanC]

To an extent you illustrate the potential value of a professional co-ordinator Tendon. Maybe someone organising their first BOC wouldnt have the benefit of this wisdom? A professional co-ordinator who has some experience of the job might.

However another idea given the limited cash available is a single major events co-ordinator. Someone to support the major events organisers. A sort of uncle/aunty figure who will give advise, step in and help when things get sticky, document best practice, help recruit the best volunteer organisers, lobby for any long term changes etc etc. It probably could be a full time job since it would be funded by several major events.

A thick skin may be required

[tendon]

... a single major events co-ordinator. Someone to support the major events organisers. A sort of uncle/aunty figure who will give advice, step in and help when things get sticky, document best practice, help recruit the best volunteer organisers, lobby for any long term changes etc etc. It probably could be a full time job since it would be funded by several major events.

Now who does that remind me of?

A thick skin may be required

QED

[EddieH]

Whilst the likes of Mike Forrest coordinating the JK deserves a medal, the UK are pretty good at organising. No amount of paying people in that role is going to correct control siting errors. If you consider it necessary to pay to get that right then the payed official has to plan or control. Maybe the right controller could become a paid controller/ coordinator.

[FromTheGrassyKnoll]

I'm not sure how they are going to feel about not being paid when someone else is

Personally I think people will do easy short term tasks as long as they get a run. I doubt people will feel motivated to do the big jobs when the person standing next to them is getting paid.

But in the end won't the free market sort it out?

If major events get too professional/expensive then people just won't bother; they will go to the cheap volunteer based local and regional events instead.

I can't see that major events differ that much, in terms of end-user experience, from local ones now that the average local event has a OCAD LASER printed pre-marked map and electronic results.

What exactly are the problems these professionals are meant to solve?

"GO ORIENTEERING NOW!"... wasn't that the result of a professional?

[RJ]

What exactly are the problems these professionals are meant to solve?

What I originally said was.....

An experienced and capable person (professional) then, in say a four working week timeframe (split over 'x' months) would plan the courses, work out the fine details of the race site etc. Design all aspects of the event from when the cars leave the road, to when they leave the site at the end of the day. Checking of control sites might be needed, but not essential. Oversee the printing of the maps and ensure they are at the start.

The essential part is that all the work can be done within tight timeframes. Often with the planner/controller/organiser they fit their efforts into 'free' moments of their lives. The "volunteer's" extended timeframe required leads to thoughts becoming disjointed, and that is where the mistakes creep in. 'Our professional' can in the space of a week, have run over the area, assessed likely routes, planned courses, test run legs and tagged sites. There is no need for a second person to be involved.... the courses are planned according to guidelines.

Our professional draws up a plan for the race site, with a detailed list of tasks that the helpers can follow in the days leading up to, and on the day of, the event.

It is so much easier to do something like this if you have nothing else to bother about at the same time, and can concentrate 100% on the task.

[johnloguk]

The issue for me about having professional teams to ensure major events run smoothly is who decides the criteria they will work to? Who decides what constitutes a well run event? It is clear from nopeposts that even when we already have extensive rules and guidelines there is a wide range of opinion of how to interpret them.

Its been said before many times, that one person's great event is another's debacle. One person's great course is boring to someone else, and a map that is perfectly clear to many can be unreadable to others etc. We are very fickle. The sorts of things that we can all agree about, eg controls in the wrong place or disappearing during the event, can happen to the most professional teams as EddieH says. Mistakes will happen, all we can do it learn from them and try our best to reduce them.

Personally I'm far most interested in the structures that are there to de-brief after events, and whether or not we use them effectively? At the start of this thread I assumed that they were all in place and used effectively, but now I'm not so sure.