Interesting ideas?

[JimB]

Sounds interesting.

Some questions and thoughts:

- why no relay, if the event would be held on the Easter four day weekend? (relays are usually fun, social and exciting, and a good cap to a weekend)
- are people keen on regional championships, or is one big championship all people really want? maybe just a fun inter-club weekend with a club match and some games (vampire O? football O?) and diversions (canoe O? ride and stride?) and camping and barbeque would be more appropriate? maybe a couple of skill drills?

[Gross]

who the top ten left-handed Scottish W55

It might be a Quick filter then given the numbers:)

[johnloguk]

My gut reaction about losing a major orienteering weekend by merging the JK and BOC was negative, but then I can see the logic behind it. I'd like to think that clubs/regions could manage two major weekends, but clearly in recent years we have struggled.

It is possible to have festival type events alongside serious championships races, Highland'99 and WOC'99 being the best example I can think of. One of my greatest orienteering days ever was watching Yvette storming through the tapes to become World Champ, a real watery eye moment, then a couple of hours later being in the same forest taking on the same challenges. This sort of thing is almost unique to orienteering and we ought to make more of it. How many club footballers get to play at Wembley after the FA Cup Final, or club tennis players on Wimbledon Centre Court after Federer and Nadal?

National event/Regional Champs? Personally I don't care, quality is the issue for me, what's in a name. National events were/are meant to be on superior terrain, warranting higher ranking points, but neither happens any more. I suppose Regional Champs chimes with other sports and is widely understood as a concept.

I'm happy with one big ranking list, the orienteers obsession with age classes has always seemed a bit odd to me. I'm an M50 and I want to compare myself with everyone, not just other middle aged old beardies I know I'm faster than many M21s, but it would be embarrassing to see how many M70s are faster than me

The arguments over C3/4s have been worn to death. Again for me it's about quality no matter what they're called. Too many C3s have been mutton dressed as lamb, that isn't good enough.

As a few people have pointed out though, the biggest change needed for me is to eradicate mistakes on the planning/controlling side. It is a blight on British orienteering at the moment and makes us look daft, apart from spawning endless circular debates on Nope .

[Snail]

I don't really know whether problems with control sites occur at the same rate at level 1/2 events as at level 3/4/5, or whether they just attract more publicity. And of course one would hope that the rates would be lower at the quality events.

A possible contributory factor to the perceived high rate of error is the rule/guideline that the controller has to come from outside the host region. Given that the controller has to be approved for the event anyway, to my mind this is an unnecessary restriction.

The rule acts unevenly around the country: a JK/BOC in Cornwall or northern Scotland has to have a controller from several hundred miles away, whereas in say SCOA the maximum distance to the adjacent region is perhaps 25 miles. In the first examples the current rule must in many cases restrict the time that the controller can spend in the forest.

[J.Tullster]

I think combining the JK and BOC is a bad idea. The JK is a prestigous and successful event in it's own right. BOC is the British Championship and should remain.