Membership and levy proposal

[maprun]

BO are now paying for some other person to produce an Xplorer map, at the same time
as we are surveying for a new POC on the same area. Obviously a really good use of
resources and money by BO

Love it Worth at least another £5 on membership & 10% on levy

Keep these 'best practices' coming

An example of a club not supporting Xplorer, outrageous!

Copyright, acknowledgments, tut, tut. Clubs will be expecting their website address on the front next for supplying their ocad file.

[RJ]

Here's a thought...... Our local parkrun was set up by, and is basically run by our local running club. Run number 142 today, with 85 participants. There are other volunteers who help at times, but the bulk of the helpers are Athletic Club members. What do they get out of it?

Well, you would be surprised. The club is now at least four times as active as it was ten years ago when I joined their Tuesday evening runs. They have an incredible mix of ability and a large female contingent. For them, the investment in parkrun has been phenomenal, with 113 attendees (highest number for the parkrun) in early January following a bit of leafleting around the area.

So, folks, how about a serious consideration over Xplorer. How much of an investment (volunteer time) would it take to run a weekly session on Saturday morning/afternoon in your local park? Exercise a little bit of intellectual energy over that one!!!

[DaveK]

Nice idea RJ. There were nearly 400 people at my older daughter's local park run event this morning in Surrey . Must be scope to build on that type of success in some way with 'orienteering' surely?

[greywolf]

http://www.xplorer.org.uk

Hadn't really taken any notice of Xplorer - partly because the nearest ones are 300 miles away and partly because everytime i see that written i think "ffs" - but thought i should check it out - hmm, sh1te name, sh1te website (wtf is "Bury"? where are the results - or event reports and numbers?)
More to the point, it appears to be free, or 50p/£1, so presumably the events are being put on at a loss, there's no levy being paid, and there's no bollocks about joining BOF or you won't be insured after your first 3 events. The Annual Report alleges >48,000 Xplorer participants in 2015 - if they were paying levy this would cover a large chunk of BOF's apparent funding gap. Maybe MH might like to explain why they aren't?

@RJ: Instead of mucking about with Xplorer, why not invest in developing orienteering on a saturday morning? no apologies for repeating earlier stats: in 8 years MOR have increased membership from 60 to 260 built almost entirely on working with schools and an accessible 2 course saturday league: unlike Xplorer participants these newcomers pay membership and levy, some now plan and organise, and even represent their country.
@canol: if your level C events (I assume you mean "normal" Sunday 7 or 8 course colour codeds) regularly fail to get 100 competitors then that's a waste of planners/controllers time and clubs really need to put some effort into recruitment and put on events that newcomers want.

[mykind]

Here's a thought...... Our local parkrun was set up by, and is basically run by our local running club. Run number 142 today, with 85 participants. There are other volunteers who help at times, but the bulk of the helpers are Athletic Club members. What do they get out of it?

Well, you would be surprised. The club is now at least four times as active as it was ten years ago when I joined their Tuesday evening runs. They have an incredible mix of ability and a large female contingent. For them, the investment in parkrun has been phenomenal, with 113 attendees (highest number for the parkrun) in early January following a bit of leafleting around the area.

So, folks, how about a serious consideration over Xplorer. How much of an investment (volunteer time) would it take to run a weekly session on Saturday morning/afternoon in your local park? Exercise a little bit of intellectual energy over that one!!!

Agreed Parkrun is great and is an excellent model for many sports. BUT perhaps not orienteering as I reckon anyone would quickly get bored by navigating around the same old park every week. So you would need a range of parks to use so you might as well just do standard orienteering at the same range of venues and try to recruit members that way.

[Roger]

BUT perhaps not orienteering as I reckon anyone would quickly get bored by navigating around the same old park every week.

Here's how one orienteer (the current Men's Open champion in the UK Urban League) does parkrun.

[Copepod]

Here's a thought...... Our local parkrun was set up by, and is basically run by our local running club. Run number 142 today, with 85 participants. There are other volunteers who help at times, but the bulk of the helpers are Athletic Club members. What do they get out of it?

Well, you would be surprised. The club is now at least four times as active as it was ten years ago when I joined their Tuesday evening runs. They have an incredible mix of ability and a large female contingent. For them, the investment in parkrun has been phenomenal, with 113 attendees (highest number for the parkrun) in early January following a bit of leafleting around the area.

So, folks, how about a serious consideration over Xplorer. How much of an investment (volunteer time) would it take to run a weekly session on Saturday morning/afternoon in your local park? Exercise a little bit of intellectual energy over that one!!!

Agreed Parkrun is great and is an excellent model for many sports. BUT perhaps not orienteering as I reckon anyone would quickly get bored by navigating around the same old park every week. So you would need a range of parks to use so you might as well just do standard orienteering at the same range of venues and try to recruit members that way.

Occasional orienteering in the same place that a parkrun takes place
can work well. WAOC has organised races after parkrun at Wimpole Estate, south of Cambridge, nearer Royston. Admittedly Wimpole is a hilly landscaped complex National Trust estate rather than a small urban park, but many urban parks can and do support at least a couple of local orienteering races each year. AIRE organised orienteering at Roundhay Park (large and complex, most visited park in Leeds) just after parkrun a few months ago. Although many runners didn't stay to take part, they seemed interested in future events when I handed them notes of next races in autumn O-lite series.
Perhaps there's scope to use the other parks in WAOC area eg Milton Country Park and Hitchinbrooke Country Park, both mapped for orienteering. There are 4 other parks in Leeds and 2 in Bradford used for parkruns, so plenty of scope in AIRE land, too. Although in Leeds, Woodhouse Moor and Bramley Park are perhaps less interesting than Roundhay or Temple Newsam (already mapped) or Cross Flatts; in Bradford, Lister Park has a permanent course map available online, while Horton Park has potential.

[SeanC]

There's loads of new ParkRun's down near us and quite a few are in orienteering areas, so worth checking what's new local to you IMHO.

Linking back to the membership and levy proposal, many of these park run types wouldn't necessarily give up park runs for orienteering, but could be persuaded to add orienteering to their mix of running events, especially at local events that offer TD3 orienteering, after a few years maybe, moving onto TD4/5. Maybe 5 orienteering events per year is a realistic expectation.

My observation is that organisers can become demoralised when lots of newcomers turn up to local events, but few come back and fewer become members, and even fewer become active members. It's a complex issue and perhaps expectations are often too high, but one things for sure, increasing membership fees will not make it easier to persuade these casual independant runners to join an orienteering club.

The board want to plug the funding gap by membership fees rather than levy rises because they fear the impact on participation at level D events. But exactly the opposite could happen, clubs might be demotivated from putting on cheap level D events aimed at newcomers because they are less likely to see their work translated into a growing club.

To me the solution is a combination of devolving most of the funding problem down to the clubs (which can be done through levy or capitation), and creating a program that helps develop level D events (separate from Xplorer and the other things in the SportEngland development program). Such a program could aim to get what clubs want (new members) and what' british orienteering need in the medium term to hit the SportEngland targets (increased participation).

[maprun]

SeanC very much agree. A lot of people like sporting variety, fitted around other activities, only interested in local events. For a few quid it's worth joining, enjoying the sense of belonging and the social side and possibly buying a club O top a year down the line. Almost two levels of members, we all want both, with tripled fees, it's doubtful. Why put them off when there are other solutions?

[SeanC]

Part 5 of Mike Hamilton's pitch for a yes vote is on the BO website.

If you feel strongly about this subject, It sounds like it's worth emailing British Orienteering, even if it's just repeating a view posted here.

Mike's final comment is

We now need to know your views so that we can take them into consideration whatever the outcome of the vote on Friday.

info@britishorienteering.org.uk I assume?

[graeme]

Who do you think sets the targets

Well, that's a question for the board members who might be reading

Answer came there none, which typically tells you more than if there is an answer. Google knows that orienteering is the only sport assessed by Number of participant runs. It's no good pretending that we're constrained by evil SportEngland - we chose our own targets.

What could we do with the money?

Take a look at what other sports did here. I didn't read them all, but in a random sample every other sport bid for funds to support its clubs and events. BO are rather unique in putting all their SportEngland money (£2,300,000) into initiatives separate from the existing clubs. If £300k pa had gone into enhancing events, would clubs be quite so grumpy about sending £60k pa back in extra fees and levies?

The bottom line is that BO have chosen to put themselves in this position. The question is, why?

[maprun]

It's no good pretending that we're constrained by evil SportEngland - we chose our own targets.

If as we are told, Sport England want us to be more self reliant, then future funding from SE should be delivered through clubs and regions, generating new members and increasing participation that we both want, with the aim of providing a legacy that exists after the funding ends. There are plenty of examples of best practice, or good models for growth that work in the 2010's.

The bottom line is that BO have chosen to put themselves in this position. The question is, why?

I'm sure people will have their views. We desperately need a Development Committee back, guiding the Board, connecting initiatives from the clubs and regions up to the Board and back down.

NGBs should be both outward looking and be engaged with their grass roots.

[SeanC]

In some ways Xplorer and RunChallenge are a bit of a distraction. The proposed membership increase is for items such as Focus, elite support and smaller development initiatives (I assume such as the junior development meeting held in Birmingham a few weeks ago), not to fund Xplorer.

I think if you want Focus, elite support and these other smaller items to continue (in their current form), and you are happy that we should pay for it mainly through membership fees, then I think you should vote yes, whatever you think of Xplorer and other development initiatives run outside of clubs.

This approach was developed in the previous whole sport plan by the professional BO development staff, Mike and the board back in 2013 I think. The now disbanded development committee, of which I was a member, reviewed it and made comments.

The previous experience with club nights must have been a factor in shifting to an outside club approach. I think the development staff found it difficult to get clubs involved quick enough (to hit targets) which might be because clubs have a longer term view than SportEngland/move with more caution, or that the scheme wasn't appropriate for many clubs.

But many of the club nights have continued, more than I expected so give long term benefits. In comparison, if/when the Xplorer funding ends, the various 'partners' may not see any economic benefit in continuing with Xplorer. We'll see though, maybe they will?

I agree with MapRun - the sport can/should look outwards and inwards - projects for 'partners' like local authorities and projects for clubs. I don't think we've got enough projects for clubs.

On MapRun's point about reforming the development committee, BO has listed on its website a "Development Steering Group" which in theory replaced the development commitee in 2013. However it has never met, or at least never published minutes.

https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/ ... evelopment

[daffdy]

Edit: SeanC posted while I was writing this!

Who do you think sets the targets

Well, that's a question for the board members who might be reading

Answer came there none, which typically tells you more than if there is an answer. Google knows that orienteering is the only sport assessed by Number of participant runs. It's no good pretending that we're constrained by evil SportEngland - we chose our own targets.

Well if you want an answer, try asking someone rather than posting on some web forum. This is what makes me hesitate about engaging with Nopesport. It's useful and I like it, but at the end of the day it's a bunch of mostly anonymous, mostly angry people who may or may not be members. It's not a substitute for actually engaging with your elected and appointed Board, if you want to engage with us.

Anyway, choice of targets was more or less sorted before I joined the Board so I;m a bit rusty. But it's' daft to say we're the only sport to do it this way. Most sports are large enough to be surveyed by the Active People Survey, orienteering is never statistically significant in this survey so it's not really an option open to us. But it's a measure of people doing the sport. You'll note that most of the rest of the sports who don't use APS are some measure of number of people doing the sport. There are a few membership based ones, I would guess there are good reasons for them being exceptions. But it's not something British Orienteering has a lot of control over - SportEngland's brief is to increase participation, so it generally sets its sports targets to increase participation.

If as we are told, Sport England want us to be more self reliant, then future funding from SE should be delivered through clubs and regions, generating new members and increasing participation that we both want, with the aim of providing a legacy that exists after the funding ends. There are plenty of examples of best practice, or good models for growth that work in the 2010's.

I can see why you might think that, but it seems pretty unlikely to me.
Clubs delivered one of the initiatives from previous round of funding, Club Nights. It had some successes (I really enjoyed them!), but in general clubs were not good at doing what they were asked and turned them into great training nights for their members that were less good for attracting and retaining new members. I know there are exceptions, so don't throw them at me Plus, club volunteers tend to be pretty busy and not want to add delivering SE initiatives to SE's exacting standards to their volunteer workload.

Self reliance means money for things that are only about meeting the objectives SportEngland set. I don't think we can assume clubs can or want to provide large initiatives that will not meet the needs of their members and prove a distraction from organising their events.

[Gross]

try asking someone rather than posting on some web forum. This is what makes me hesitate about engaging with Nopesport. It's useful and I like it, but at the end of the day it's a bunch of mostly anonymous, mostly angry people who may or may not be members. It's not a substitute for actually engaging with your elected and appointed Board, if you want to engage with us.

Just looked at the BOF website & I can't see any mention of a director called 'daffdy'

How do we know 'daffdy'is a director or even a member of BOF. Possible he is an anonymous angry person?????

jajajaja