Planning for juniors

[distracted]

Novice courses at C3s are usually colour coded, so are appropriately graded.

Yes, and the colour coded courses share the courses used by the juniors - so effectively you're saying that if a "novice" turns up to do yellow they get treated differently to a junior who's doing the JM/W2 course - when they are doing exactly the same course?? Don't think that works somehow...

And secondly - why should "novice" mean a youngster? What happens if someone/anyone turns up to the event because they've found it's particularly close by and wants to try orienteering? You're not going to say no because they don't have the necessary experience of colour-coded/district/local events....

[SeanC]

RJ wrote:

"What to do about my five year old daughter..... should I bring her along to the next regional C3?"

Well, why not, if there is a string course as their often is at regional events.

The way I see it from the south east viewpoint is that on many weekends a C3 event is the only event available. If we want families to go orienteering we need to accommodate as many members of the family as possible. If we dont, they'll do some other sport.

These comments maybe less applicable to your area as I understand there are lots of local events.

I just cant see the problem with letting a kid on a white course spend 1 minute discussing the course with his dad if that's going to make him happier, but I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

Enough for me too!

[jab]

RJ wrote:

What to do about my five year old daughter..... should I bring her along to the next regional C3?

Well, yes of course. When our children were young we went to any event within an hour's drive from home as that was the limit we found bearable. Informal local event or National event, if it was close we'd go to it. To have left a child behind would have meant leaving one of us behind too.

A TD1 course shouldn't be any more difficult at the British Champs than at the smallest Saturday morning event or is isn't TD1. The intention behind the rules seems clear - the map should be available before the start and, as a parent, I liked to be able to look at it to watch out for the unexpected or the badly planned. If I saw a decision point without a control I would flag that up to my children. If the start was at a junction I would make sure that they knew which way to start. Had I felt able to rely on an M10B being correctly planned I would have felt much less need to go through this procedure. But although I've seen (and gone round) lots of excellent white courses I've also seen some fairly appalling ones. And when I tried to make a polite comment about a control that was clearly TD2 on a M10B course I was made to feel like a complete fool.

And as for older beginners - I don't see how they're supposed to realise that "C3s should not be for the novice!" Surely they look at the fixture list, look at whether they can get to the event and then decide whether to go. Does our terminology of C1-C5 or Local, District, Regional indicate to novices that these events aren't for them? (I hope not and nor should it).

[SJC]

Yes, and the colour coded courses share the courses used by the juniors - so effectively you're saying that if a "novice" turns up to do yellow they get treated differently to a junior who's doing the JM/W2 course - when they are doing exactly the same course?? Don't think that works somehow...

Possibly there is a difference.

A child doing the JM2 course should be expected to do it by themselves. I agree that giving them the map in the start lane is a good idea if it means they don't run off from the start in the wrong direction. But they should work this out by themselves, and they do the course by themselves.

However, if a child enters the Yellow course at the same event, even though it is the same as JM2, then I see no problem in them getting as much help as they need, including help in the start boxes and even being shadowed round the course by a parent.

Just don't mix the two sets of results up as under the above circumstances the JM2 course will have been a much harder test of child's ability than the Yellow.

[jab]

No, I would treat adult beginners and JW/M2 competitors the same way and let them each have the same time to look at the map.

If I think my child needs help round a course then they enter a colour coded course and I shadow them or walk round with them. If I think they can do the course by themselves then they do a JW/M course.

When I stand in the start lane and look at the map I am really satisfying myself that the course is, indeed, TD2. If the start is at a junction and there is route choice then the course isn't TD2 and I feel justified in helping them to think through a problem that they shouldn't be expected to tackle. (It's even worse if the start kite is 50 metres away at a junction - if the area where you pick up your map isn't marked then you can't expect a TD2 orienteer to be able to work out where they've come from or where they need to go ). And I might need to alert them to a warning in the control descriptions (as one of my children could read a map well before he could read written control descriptions). If the course is well planned and the correct TD then I don't say anything.

What I think I'm doing is making up for mistakes that someone else has made. It certainly doesn't happen all the time but it happens more often than I think it should. I freely admit I am not a great orienteer but after 10 years accompanying children round whites and yellows the evidence suggests that I know more about what a TD1 or 2 course should be like than some planners do.

[awk]

I really can't see the problem at regional events of issuing the TD1 and TD2 course maps 3-4 minutes beforehand AND allowing discussion with an adult. However much discussion, the children still have to perform the skills out on the course without help. The biggest help you get by seeing a course beforehand is with route choice decisions and those shouldn't feature on these courses anyway.

I concure with all those parents who believe that they should see the courses beforehand: I've seen some absolute howlers including, RJ, a thoroughly notorious regional event in the Lake District where the JM/JW2 course had at least 2 Light Green legs, with even the winner finishing in tears and a controller completely insouciant over the distress they caused.

The intention on separating JM/W1 from White and JM/W2 from Yellow was purely to allow parents accompany/shadow children on the colour courses.

I think you will find that most clubs have a perfectly adequate junior training/coaching structure that allows the new and inexperienced juniors to gain all the skills they need before they have to attend a C3. We are probably argueing about a hypothetical situation that doesn't exist.

Very optimistic methinks!!

[John Morris]

I'm not a Controller - and I have done very little planning - but like everyone else I see flaws in the events I attend.

The Saxons Badge (sorry, Regional) at Hindleap was no exception. Although that wasn't entirely surprising; given the weather, it was a considerable achievement to stage it at all. Thank you, Saxons!

I sense that we're all being a little severe - and unrealistic - in our assessment of planner and controller . (And I'm excluding Gross's comments; sorry about the bilious attack, Gordon...)

Thirty-five years or so ago I attended an interview for a job. I was asked: "Tell us about some of the mistakes you've made." I replied - and I blush to this day - that none came to mind. I didn't get the job. Nor did I deserve to - I had clearly never tackled a serious challenge.

We ALL make mistakes, ALL the time. The most active, the most courageous, and the most responsible, make the most mistakes.

If we are continually pilloried in public, we will stop doing the things that cause us pain. This applies especially to the unwaged Stakhanovites of British Orienteering, the planners, controllers, organisers and mappers.

We have good ways, and bad ways, of identifying poor practice, and of making changes. This thread is, in my opinion, a bad way. The good way is to contribute ideas and energy to forward-looking technical forums within BOF.

Once again, my congratulations to Saxons for delivering a well-managed event on a challenging area in very difficult circumstances.

[awk]

I have to disagree on at least two counts John.

Firstly, this thread has gone well beyond the specifics of Hindleap which were raised in the first post, and progressed to a more general issue without any reference to that event until you raised it again. I for one was not for one second referring to the Hindleap event, but to that more general issue (I was too busy enjoying myself a couple of hundred miles away at Burbage to be qualified to comment about Hindleap). In any case, David Young's comments can hardly be described as being either severe or unrealistic - rather the opposite in fact as he also gives credit for good planning elsewhere.

Secondly, these issues have been almost always been debated at these technical forums before - but the same issues still keep coming up, indicating that they may not work on their own. These forums are also infrequently available, time consuming to get to, and are somewhat more inaccessible than a discussion board like this. Because of these points, a board like this can be just as, and in some ways more, useful, topical and effective. Yes, it has its dangers, as has been seen before, but then so do technical forums, just different ones.

As for being continually pilloried - there are loads of threads and posts on this board praising events and their officials.

[Red Adder]

Though not a guideline, when planning the white my co-planner and I try to ensure the first control is a visible from the start, and is the nearest, if not the only kite visible from the start. We also try to design the course so that as far as possible the only kites they see are ones on their course (some will be shared by yellow naturally). If we can achieve this it generally means that the novices don't share much of the forest with seniors and so get less trampled under foot.

[Gnitworp]

Secondly, these issues have been almost always been debated at these technical forums before - but the same issues still keep coming up, indicating that they may not work on their own. These forums are also infrequently available, time consuming to get to, and are somewhat more inaccessible than a discussion board like this. Because of these points, a board like this can be just as, and in some ways more, useful, topical and effective. Yes, it has its dangers, as has been seen before, but then so do technical forums, just different ones.

Totally agree.

Where else can nationwide, ongoing debates, accessible to all, on orienteering issues, be had other than on Nopesport's discussion forums?

[RJ]

We have good ways, and bad ways, of identifying poor practice, and of making changes. This thread is, in my opinion, a bad way. The good way is to contribute ideas and energy to forward-looking technical forums within BOF.

These forums are also infrequently available, time consuming to get to, and are somewhat more inaccessible than a discussion board like this. Because of these points, a board like this can be just as, and in some ways more, useful, topical and effective.

It is obvious from the 'Event Officials' Newsletter' in recent issues of FOCUS magazine that the technical committee members are reading these forums.

However, no harm in making a formal comment by letter or through your regional representative as well.

[RJ]

I think you will find that most clubs have a perfectly adequate junior training/coaching structure that allows the new and inexperienced juniors to gain all the skills they need before they have to attend a C3. We are probably argueing about a hypothetical situation that doesn't exist.

Very optimistic methinks!!

Then perhaps that should be another one of our 'number one' priorities.... after all it makes eminent sense to have a junior training/coaching structure within each club. Much better to prepare and teach youngsters in a 'learning environment' rather than to be thrown in at the deep end

I'm sure many clubs do just this... there will be a few that still have to catch up!

[jab]

My comments didn't refer to Hindleap either, (I was at Burbage and the W10B was absolutely fine). They are more the result of pent up frustation over the past 10 years. When I came across a well planned white course I always made a point of thanking the planner. When I came across a course that was manifestly not at the right TD then it was harder to know what to do. It's not as though I'm going to make a formal protest with a £5 deposit and convene a jury for a badly planned JM1 or JM2. When I tried making a poite suggestion I wasn't taken seriously. And I'm really only an expert on TD1 and 2 courses so I can't see that I'm much use to a BOF technical committee. And it's not that the TD1/2 guidelines need rewriting anyway - some people just need to be strongly encouraged to follow them.

If you're going to send a 6 year old round M10B or a 7 year old round M10A and you know that they are competent at TD1 and TD2 respectively, you should be able to feel confident that they won't suddenly be faced with controls of a TD at which they are not yet competent.

[johnloguk]

I think I'm with AWK on this one. Some Nopesport threads do get a bit out of hand occasionally, and some contributers aren't very subtle or sensitive in how they phrase their comments. Sometimes people even get hold of the wrong end or misinterpet other people's remarks, but I think this thread has been pretty constructive and responsible.

Yes there are other forums for technical debates, but if the same things are coming up year after year then maybe they aren't working and need to be looked at? I'm not saying that Nopesport is the best place to sort out problems either by the way. But I do think it is a legitimate place to air issues and concerns, accepting the usual common decencies etc.

Although the vast majority of courses are very well planned, especially given the constraints of many of our areas, there are common themes that keep coming up, and poor planning for juniors is one of them so it needs addressing.

Gross made a good simple point earlier in the thread, when was the last time a controller was down-graded for consistent poor performance? I know there are controllers out there who have excellent reputations, and others who don't ( ), but what mechanism is there for dealing with that?

If I go to another event where the start kite is on a junction I'm going to jump up and down, stamp my feet and throw my map on the floor , why do people still do it?

[seabird]

I am aware of at least one event in preparation, which has resulted in a minor adjustment to the planning as a consequence of reading this thread. Isn't that sufficient justification of it's value.