O-job

[SeanC]

The economics of upping publicity budgets aren't necessarily that scary as Orienteering is such an underexploited sport.

Sticking my finger in the air - lets say a club agrees to spend £1000 a year on publicity somehow. Making some assumptions - let's assume that each newcomer can generate £3 in income after costs. The £1000 needs to generate 333 extra runs a year, which sounds like a lot, but if a club has 20 local events then that's 16 newcomers an event - I think that's quite achievable in many areas.

That's not including the extra long term income generated by increasing participation/membership, or any extra money that existing members might be willing to pay to ensure a good flow of newcomers.

If you're in a club where your publicity officer is working hard and generating lots of newcomers - perhaps some generosity is needed. For many clubs publicity is definately one of those jobs that people tend not to want to do - and many clubs seem to do little or no publicity. BOF initiatives to help new and struggling publicity officers seem like a good idea to me but I suspect the currently successful publicity officers will be the first to take advantage in any case.

Another possible way to view this is to think about publicity as a service that can be purchased - just like mapping. Even with more help from BOF I suspect clubs will always struggle to find someone willing to do publicity - but if a number of clubs were willing to pay a member of the orienteering community to do their publicity there could be a nice part time business for someone. Much publicity can be done remotely from a PC so it just needs someone with the skill and motivation. Similarly for websites - there could be a business for an orienteer making a "white label" orienteering club website and rebranding it for different clubs - then providing a service to maintain the website.

BOF's role in such services could be to just help with the communication and perhaps the start up costs?

This is not really such a giant leap in thinking IMHO. Most clubs pay for some or all of their mapping because maps are an immediate essential item. Decent publicity can be viewed as a long term essential. And just like maps, publicity can be viewed as something that can generate income to cover some or all of the initial costs.

[Paul Frost]

I think the best publicity is free, 'word of mouth' & 'bring a friend' are two things that always spring to mind.

If you are not interested or don't know anything about a sport, say like sailing, would you read any article or advert about a sailing race?
Orienteering is even worse, as people often don't have a clue what it is, so why would they read about it or identify it as something to try?

It really needs a friend to enthuse about it, explain it, show them pictures, take them to an event, and lead them through the process.

[mister blobs]

Orienteering is an unavoidably expensive sport. Most of us pay with our cheap labour, but paying in cash should be OK too.

Couldn't agree more

I agree that orienteering is unavoidably expensive. Just consider how much it really costs to travel to events, how much o-kit costs and then add in wear and tear on washing machines!

I think that a persons view on charging more for entry fees depends on their vision of where the sport should be. For me one of the strengths of orienteering is that families can all compete on the same area at the same time - even at the same time as the elite M21s. If you increase entry fees and pay for PR then you may attract the type of competitor who will run one or two events a year but will put off the families - a £5 increase in entry fee per person equates to £20 extra for a family of four. There are times when I am entering our family for an event on fabian 4 when I have to go past the total cost page very quickly or else I would be tempted to not enter at all. It is a huge attraction of our sport that families can all take part.

As a sport we do rely heavily on volunteers and there is an odd disparity between certain jobs being done to a professional standard for free (organisers, planners & controllers) while other jobs are paid for at varying rates (mapping) and other equipment is purcahsed at full commercial rates (electronic timing).

[SeanC]

Word of mouth is indeed a great form of publicity - but it doesn't seem sufficient on it's own to generate the numbers of newcomers the sport needs. Presumably this is the conclusion the Street Scramble has come to as well.

Many people who read publicity material may in any case have done some orienteering in the past, or know someone who has, and there are groups more likely to be interested than others - with good publicity. And the newcomers will help to bring more people in ... through word of mouth since established orienteers have by now told all their friends and family about Orienteering.

[andy]

other equipment is purcahsed at full commercial rates (electronic timing).

Not sure where your club buys their kit from, but I know Sportident have a 15% discount on most kit for non-profits

[Red Adder]

Is O really that expensive ? I agree that the travelling is and obviously if you compete as a family then costs will seem to mount up rapidly (but then it will for most days out). I can only compare it with golf and football.

Football (oK that was a few years ago) costs about the same or a bit more in match fees while club membership was certainly more. Kit is comparable to O.

Golf (apart from tiny 9 hole pay & play - ie CAT D equivalent) nowadays costs £ 20 - £ 40 for a greens fee (£ 100+ for St Andrews) and annual membership anything from £600 to £ 2000 - often with a joining fee of 1-2 years membership on top. Kit makes O seem very, very cheap. And neither of these are family orientated but can still take a very large chunk from the day.

[LostAgain]

Is O really that expensive ?

Yes it is expensive, particularly for a family to do regularly.

I would not consider golf or football to be family sports and therefore not comparing like with like.

Fell running, rambling/walking, judo, swimming are all less expensive and require little to no volunteer time.