Focus

[Simon]

And just to add to the confusion: There are three of us with the same address and we received two copies. (Though, one difference to the others here is that we have never all been in one family membership.)

[Spookster]

Ours came to the person listed as member number 1 among our family.

Perhaps it's time for an on-line version?

It has been published online for a long time. You can download any edition back to Spring 2007. Log on to the website, then click Focus in the left menu bar.

[RS]

Thought it was on line but couldn't find it. That's cos I wasn't logged in

[NFKleanne]

My seven year old got one, but her dad gave it to her and she has chopped it up! Will have to get the rest of us to look at it on line!

[PhilJ]

After finally prizing the household copy of Focus away from everyone I have started to read it, Pages 8 and 9 Funded Work Programmes was one I thought worthy of comment:
It talks about the "exit strategy" (why newcomers stop O) and one response was down to Financial concerns, entry fees, memberships ship fees etc. In response the article counters this by saying that membership fees have been reduced and the levy scheme spreads the cost more evenly across participants.
With the new levy all seniors pay the £1.00 levy and last year many Level D events would have paid no levy, turning to page 30 shows the largest number of events held were at Level D (excl Activies that do not attract a levy), some grand totals by category would have been useful in the chart.
This year I have seen Level D events entry fee increase by £1.00. So last year you could run a Green course, pay a fee, and this year run the same course but it now costs £1.00 more. What extra do you get for your £1.00, nothing. So the net effect is entry fees have increased and a potential consequence is participation will decrease (participation figures for 2013 this time next year will make interesting reading).

So the levy is simply a pass through tax on your run. How can this help participation?

Has anyone else experienced this, where the levy has simply been added to the entry fee?

If BO are really committed to increasing participation then Level D courses, where newcomers start and are the mainstay for many club members, needs to be re-thought. I am not saying to remove the levy as each competitor should pay for insurance/governance etc but a flat £1.00 fee will be detrimental to participation, I'd suggest Level D attracts a 50p levy, but BO are not dull in that they see that Level D events bring in the largest amount of levy (an assumption on my part).

[frog]

Ours came to my son who promptly lost it, I've been waiting for mine and only just realised on reading this that I'll have a long wait. It's a shame they couldn't have just addressed it to "BOF members, 33 Bloggs St" instead of putting my son's name on it.
I'm member number one in our family, my son is number 2 of 3. He's in the middle alphabet wise as well so there seems no logic in sending it to him. Maybe they're worried children won't see it otherwise but this way adults don't see it as it gets lost in the teenage bedroom mess.

[PhilJ]

Page 5 this time:
Having slept on more village halls and shadowed more children around training exercises than Mr Hamilton, I think he is somewhat out of touch as to what regional coaches deliver on weekend and single day training days. He seems to be totally at odds as to what coaching regional squads provide and what he wants delivered. What he does not say is how he is going to bridge the gap and have all the regional coaches deliver what he wants them to deliver.
A suggestion might be for him and talent manager to get back to the floor and attend a weekend (that means cooking for 20 - 40 kids, sleeping on a drafty village hall, shadowing children, picking up clothes/bags/hats left behind, driving the children from home and back again, getting them up in the morning, and off to sleep in the previous night, keeping them entertained and just as importantly making sure that they enjoy themselves, hopefully have leant something and want to come to the next session).

So I challenge Mike and Sarah to pack their bags, bring a sleeping bag and carrymat and join each squad for a weekend away, and that does mean turn up and stand on the sideline watching, it means helping to run the exercises and peeling potatoes!
Now there are 12 regions in BO so that is 1 weekend training session per month. After they have attended a coaching weekend at every regional area then he will be in a better postion to comment. Matlock is not the centre of junior training, it is happening everywhere. Is he up for the challenge?

[Tatty]

Fantastic post Phil. Now we need Mike and Sarah to take it up!

[Sunlit Forres]

So the net effect is entry fees have increased and a potential consequence is participation will decrease (participation figures for 2013 this time next year will make interesting reading).

Participation at Moravian's Level Ds is up this year. Local parents don't seem to mind paying £3 for a morning's exercise for their child. Same applies to adults (£4).You can almost spend that much for a kid to have a go on a bouncy castle. We charge non-member juniors £4 and that doesn't put them off coming (but it does encourage them to join).

[PhilJ]

that's really great and hopefully many of them will join the club, only time will tell how the new levy will impact participation at smaller events, probably little impact at the level a and b events.

[graeme]

Pretty much every other regular child-activity in Edinburgh involves a hefty sign-up fee (£50 or so per year) and is then "free at the point of use" apart from special events. It do tend to make us think "we've already paid for it, so we'll do it", sometimes in preference to entering an O-event.

I've often wondered why orienteering isn't like that (for "special" read "put on by other clubs") .

[Sunlit Forres]

I've often wondered why orienteering isn't like that

Nice idea Graeme. Let's call is a club joining fee and all club events and activities are free.

Only snag I can see with that is that we rely on increasing membership for Sport Scotland funding. One big up-front fee might put off the occasionals and reduce membership..

[SeanC]

I think there is a big problem with the price and accessibility of junior orienteering, but it isn't something entry fees or the regional squads can really help with. Apologies if I annoy a few with this argument but here goes.

1) For newcomer familes, entry fees are often too cheap. Newcomers seeing an event priced at the free to £3 range for juniors are likely to assume it isn't that good, whatever we say. £10 but first run free might be different. Of course there is a price which starts to deter the less well off. I asked the (former) schools sports co-ordinator for Bexley and he thought this was around the £5 mark. Bexley is reasonably well off, so I asked my wife who teaches in one of the most deprived wards in the country. Even in this hard up area for the poorest groups, she thinks the deterrant price is around £3.

2) For local junior series a yearly pass (along the lines of Graeme's suggestion) would be a good idea if we were to charge £5 a run otherwise. It encourages parents to make use of the investment and would reduce the cost for less well off families. At this level orienteering is at its most healthy for juniors, and with short travel distances reasonably accessible for most parents.

3) At the regional/national level the current model is broken for 90% of the country.

Regular travel to regional or bigger events starts to get too expensive for many families, whatever the entry fees are. Irrespective of that, parents who aren't orienteers are unlikely to be willing to travel big distances. In many parts of England, local events don't give inspiring or high quality technical orienteering (which is quite reasonable.. these are level D events). And junior attendance at many regional events is very low, many juniors will prefer to compete with juniors rather than the over 50's.

Of course we have the junior regional squads to give regular technical orienteering to the older juniors and for many clubs these are absolutely vital in retaining juniors and we should do everything we can to retain them in the absence of what I'm suggesting below. But they are only accessible to a small number of juniors, and still a great deal of expense and time needed, even before the cost of travelling to inter-regionals, YBT etc is pencilled in. Unfortunately these squads are not particularly accessible to lower income families and/or familes where the parents aren't active orienteers.

In an ideal world junior regional squads (in their current form) shouldn't be needed. Each club should have its own such squad, or if the club is small, a squad for two or three clubs. And it should be open to more, ideally all who are keen. Have a look at what's going on in North East Scotland for a good example of what could be done. Of course they have lots of technical areas local to them, but even in England, most clubs can find small patches of technical orienteering areas not covered by embargos and ideal for coaching (Addington Hills in Croydon is a good example... and there is no land use fee).

If this seems unachievable with current volunteers then I believe clubs should pay junior coaches. This could be subsidised by clubs, but even if parents had to pay £10 a session, this would be cheaper than long drives across regions for big events, and the quality and fun level would be much better.

This makes technical orienteering accessible for the less well off, and the juniors without O addict parents. Junior regional squads might then become smaller squads for the very best and possibly older juniors, with clubs subsidising the travel costs. They might not need to meet so often.

Finally there is still the problem of getting juniors to the small number of really important events for juniors, YBT, inter-regionals, major championships etc. The answer here is for clubs to hire a minibus to drive their thriving junior squads.. as some of the bigger clubs do.

It does mean some extra subsidy from adults, but I know that many clubs have reserves that could fund this for a few years, and adult orienteers could/should pay more to give the sport a future. Some of this money could come from higher junior fees charged to the families competing in events as a one off experience.

[andypat]

1) For newcomer familes, entry fees are often too cheap. Newcomers seeing an event priced at the free to £3 range for juniors are likely to assume it isn't that good, whatever we say. £10 but first run free might be different. Of course there is a price which starts to deter the less well off. I asked the (former) schools sports co-ordinator for Bexley and he thought this was around the £5 mark. Bexley is reasonably well off, so I asked my wife who teaches in one of the most deprived wards in the country. Even in this hard up area for the poorest groups, she thinks the deterrant price is around £3.

This is a tricky one. It also depends I think on the level of motivation (which is variable) of families to take part. My club took part in a gala day at a park and put on a sprint type course with a maze with a long and a short option priced at £2. 2000 people visited the gala and we got around 20 people who turned up to us. The problem? Almost everything else was free. If we do it again this year - we'll need to put it on as an activity rather than an event (to avoid levy turning it into a loss) and make it free.

So point is - £2 can also be a deterrant

[graeme]

So point is - £2 can also be a deterrant

That's the point. Pretty much any activity that costs £2 is a bit rubbish or a rip off.
The best things in life are free, £10 promises quality (so you better deliver), £2 just implies cheap rubbish (lottery ticket anyone?).