changes to the 2009 fixture list

[NeilC]

Rules group are tasked with writing rules/guidelines for the event structure that was presented to them. If any rehashing was done it was done elsewhere.

An old C4 could also have been four poorly planned courses on a bramble-infested block of forest. The C4 label gave little or no indication of quality, I'm sure all of us have travelled significant distances to an event (C4 or even C3) only to be very disappointed.

Where we appear to be at now is that regional associations will attempt to ensure that only true quality events are labelled Level 2. For all other events clubs/regions will have to convince us that their event is worth going to and provide the information that we need to make an informed decision. If that information is is plain English eg "a range of courses from easy (suitable for beginners) to fiendishly long and difficult" then surely that is easier for a beginner to understand than "C4 Bramble wood district event Yellow to Blue courses".

[EddieH]

Absolutely agree about the brand. For example the Deeside night legue, (starting tonight) is clearly level 3 with no controlling etc. but is consistently high quality and its record of wrongly placed controls is very small.

However our club is now putting on monthly (and popular) local events consisting of a yellow course and a sprint/orange type course. These are very definitely level 3 even though they provide locals with a competitive spice. To lump them in with either of our Culbin/Forres weekend events with no warning and before we have a chance to sort it out seems crazy to me.

[BandD]

I calculate that the Ayr local event in March - a South of Scotland League competition - will see us making a round trip of close to 300 miles.
Not my idea of local - ie somewhere round about the town, if not where I live at least where the club is centred.
The four other "local" events I'm likely to go to in March will total up another 700 or so miles.
As far as I'm concerned, I can see only one real local area event on the current 2009 calendar.
I can see that every competition is "local" for someone but - and no doubt it has already been said- surely local should mean local for the majority of the expected turnout i.e. a small competition or training event in their local area. If you want to travel 40 miles to it you can but you know what to expect.

[SeanC]

Well, a really good search facility on the new events website could solve a lot of these problems.

In a dreamworld we could go to the BOF site, type in a postcode, optionally select further criteria (give me only events with string courses, or brown courses, or within X miles, or just street events etc etc) and the relevant events will appear (searching all events, including the local local ones that are currently ignored).

Does anyone know anything about the new site? Will it have a postcode search like Ollie O Brien's? Will it be like my dream postcode search? What will clubs have to do in order for them to display effectively?

[Clive Coles]

Interesting discussion to date ~ not unexpected !

I think the good news ( if any) is what we now see is going to change, possibly as soon as next February. When the new BO on-line registration system gets introduced fixture lists as we currently recognise them will probably disappear. So I would not waste any time trying to enhance existing registrations. Just accept they may look daft on the web! If clubs do anything at all I suggest they develop the information stored on their own fixtures web sites.

I wish I knew what we are going to get in their place ~ only BOF, and the software development testing team can answer that. Just accept ~ what we have now is short term. We need to let things happen and sit back and enjoy Christmas ! Spare a thought for those who are charged on our behalf to sort out the anomolies during the next few weeks. They are volunteers like you and me.

The event restructuring has not done us any favours in East Anglia. Next year all but 3 of our fixtures have been classified as local events. All our eggs are in one basket !

Our clubs however are waiting for the Rules group to publish their final recommendations before considering moving any old District events to Regional status. We also want to know what will be decided in regard to the ranking system. Will ranking just apply to regional and national events or will some large local events be ranked ? I don't expect the ranking review group to report until early next year. There is little point though in changing anything until these rules and guidelines are finally published.

So ... it now seems that most of our events are likely to look the same on the BOF fixture lists for some weeks to come.

Nobody in this forum had picked up yet on the question of the event entry fees that are now displayed on the fixture lists. We were encouraged only a year ago to remove the discounting rules from the individual event registrations. Now, with the loss of the District event, we are well in the fog, as some local event entry fees will be discounted but the larger local events (previously C4's) will attact a BOF members discount.

We appear to have thrown the baby out with the bath water. Instead of introducing clarity with these changes we have introduced confusions and anomolies.

But .. as I said before, " what we see now is short term". There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I hope the "New World" it is worth waiting for.

Clive Coles

[Clive Coles]

Quite agree with the comment in regard to Oliver O'Brien's web facilities.

I use his O event search on the EAOA Fixtures web page ~ a map showing the location of fixtures for the next 10 weeks is a much better tool for planning your O diary than an old style Fixture list. I notice many individual clubs are also using this search on their web pages.

A fear I have is that with the move to the new BO fixtures data base early next year the source that he curently uses to populate his data may disappear.

Oliver ( if you see this ) ~ " Are you up to speed with what BOF are doing ?"

Please don't go off air ~ your facilities are great. May even still be better than anything BOF can provide in their next release of the BOF web based facilities.

On subject of Post code searching ~ has anyone identified any freeware which translates a OS grid reference into a post code ?

The question is prompted by the realisation that some of our orienteering friends rely on their Satnav to locate an event car park.

I thought post codes were only allocated to roads that contained houses. Do we have a problem if we park cars along a fire route in the depths of a forest ? Can Tomtom help ?

Clive C

[Angry Haggis]

Quite agree with the comment in regard to Oliver O'Brien's web facilities.

I use his O event search on the EAOA Fixtures web page ~ a map showing the location of fixtures for the next 10 weeks is a much better tool for planning your O diary than an old style Fixture list. I notice many individual clubs are also using this search on their web pages.

A fear I have is that with the move to the new BO fixtures data base early next year the source that he curently uses to populate his data may disappear.

Oliver ( if you see this ) ~ " Are you up to speed with what BOF are doing ?"

I haven't heard anything about the new system, except on this forum. I gather it's coming in the New Year?

Please don't go off air ~ your facilities are great. May even still be better than anything BOF can provide in their next release of the BOF web based facilities.

If the new system doesn't have a map of fixtures then I will certainly try to build my own, if the data is accessible.

On subject of Post code searching ~ has anyone identified any freeware which translates a OS grid reference into a post code ?

This is known as "reverse geocoding".
Programatically, it's generally a two step process - first obtain the lat/lon for the grid reference, and then obtain the nearest postcode for the lat/lon.

A useful webpage that will do this for you is www.nearby.org.uk.

The question is prompted by the realisation that some of our orienteering friends rely on their Satnav to locate an event car park.

I thought post codes were only allocated to roads that contained houses. Do we have a problem if we park cars along a fire route in the depths of a forest ? Can Tomtom help ?

Clive C

As you say, postcodes are linked to houses, so the "postcode" for an extremely rural area may actually refer to a house quite far away. Most satnavs should allow entry of a lat/lon or a grid reference, rather than a postcode - otherwise it would indeed be impossible for the satnav to accurately direct you to any location that does not have a house near it. So using postcodes is certainly a flawed method for locating event sites.

[Red Adder]

What a shambles.

10 years ago there was a real difference between a badge and a club event - new, over-printed maps, well attended 5 year age classes, toilets and traders etc. Now there is generally very little (apart from the price !) so a group was tasked to look to a way forward and came up with a three tier system, which seemed to do the logical thing and join regional and district events together.

The implementation however shows that there are some powerful forces about who really don't want to go this way and have effectively split regional events off as T2, maintaining its separacy from (and supremacy over) district events which have been dumped in T3 . Despite all the sniping at district events I don't think I've gone to a single regional event this century that for me as a competitor has offered better facilities or courses than any of the district events offering 7/8 courses I've gone to. The district events are far closer in nature to a regional event than the informal T3 events they have been associated. It seems that this has been very neatly engineered by definition of the appropriate level of controller.

Perhaps there hasn't been a conspiracy and I am maligning a lot of people who give their time for free - but a lot of other people who put in the hours will not enjoy seeing their events mis-classified, and I definitely detect a whiff of cordite from behind that grassy knoll.

We should either stop the changes right now, review the recommendations and come up with a 4 tier structure which allows the high fee regional events to be at a discrete layer or put district events in the correct default level of T2.

I doubt whether it will happen though as it seems unlikely that BOF ( or some of the clubs) will be prepared to forgo the extra revenue and kudos that a regional can bring - or to back-track on the current proposals and thereby admit they have got it wrong.

RA

[graeme]

Rules group are tasked with writing rules/guidelines for the event structure that was presented to them.

The proposals from our committee were pretty explicit and are still on the BOF website...

Standard level events (L2) replace what were previously known variously as regional, district, badge, ranking and colour coded events.

Quite the opposite of colour coded events becoming L3 by default.

If any rehashing was done it was done elsewhere.

So where do you think it happened?

[Mrs H]

Well the answer's somewhere in this reply I got from BOF

> 2 Who made the changes?
Event Committee and its constituent groups have been responsible for the practicalities of implementation. The bulk of the work has fallen to Rules Group and Fixtures Group with discussion at Event Committee. It was always recognised that as so many events were already registered, the first year would be a transitional year. The original report from Event Structure Review Group acknowledged this. Fixtures Group had to devise a way of dealing with events already registered. Rules Group has drafted the new Guidelines needed. There was much discussion at Event Committee on nomenclature and the colour-coded structure, just as there was within the Event Structure Review Group and amongst orienteers at large following publication of the consultation document in September 2007.

[SJC]

Despite all the sniping at district events I don't think I've gone to a single regional event this century that for me as a competitor has offered better facilities or courses than any of the district events offering 7/8 courses I've gone to.

Then you obviously haven't been to the Scottish Six Day, the Twin Peaks weekend, or any other of a number of large events that provide faciities and atmosphere far greater than anything that the average District event provides.

Red Adder is right in that the changes should stop right now, and a four tier structure put in place which recognises the differences between true Local events, the regular Sunday morning colour coded events, and the real high class competition provided by the type of events listed above.

[RJ]

........and a four tier structure put in place which recognises the differences between true Local events....

Exactly....

The new system has conveniently put, at a guess, 95% of all events into the L3 category. Quite unsatisfactory.

The four level structure is intuitive.... Local, District, Regional and National.

What a shambles.

Agreed.... Months ago I asked awk and graeme if they were sure they knew what they were doing to the event structure. If the answer is still yes, then.........

[distracted]

Agreed.... Months ago I asked awk and graeme if they were sure they knew what they were doing to the event structure. If the answer is still yes, then.........

Haven't you been reading anything? The whole point is that awk and graeme don't have any say in what is being done now to the event structure. They themselves have said many a time this is not what they intended, as Graeme has quite explicitly stated from the original review...

SJC - picking out the Scottish 6-day as an example is completely irrelevant in this argument - it is pretty unique in the British Orienteering calendar and would never be compared to a bog-standard colour-coded. As for the Twin Peaks however - this year there were around 400 age-class runners each day, with only 12 competitors on M21L and 4 on W21L - and this is meant to be a large event? Not from where I'm standing - it might well once have been... but changes like this are the whole point behind changing an increasingly dated structure.

[awk]

Rules group are tasked with writing rules/guidelines for the event structure that was presented to them.

Agreed.

If any rehashing was done it was done elsewhere.

Totally and completely disagree: they have done all the rehashing, to the extent that I cannot recognise what they produced as being anything like what I agreed to.

On a slightly different note, on the grade 2 controller rule: it has already been demonstrably unworkable for C3s, it will be even more so until/unless the requirements change. The embargo rule is trivial - how many current C4s see orienteering on the area in the previous 12 months anyway? A few perhaps, but not many (and if they are, then it's equally trivial for those people to be non-comped for the subsequent event). I see quite a few clubs putting the bulk of their C4s into L2 - and so they should. For many clubs, the real break point in quality of competition and presentation is between C4 and C5, not between C3 and C4.
[/quote]

[SJC]

As for the Twin Peaks however

OK, maybe a bad example. But what about the Lakes 5 Day, Welsh 6 Day, Springtime in Shropshire , November Classic, all still attracting large fields. The aim of the review should have been to push more events up to this standard, not lower them. Putting all the existing Level 3 & 4 events together leaves just as much of a lack of clarity as what is now being proposed.
And despite reading the report I still can't figure out just what the problem was that the review was trying to fix.