Membership and levy proposal

[roadrunner]

From the comments here, one of the big issues seems to be that Scotland appears to manage things differently from the rest of the UK. Surely other sports must have similar issues; does anyone know how they manage them?

[Homer]

From the comments here, one of the big issues seems to be that Scotland appears to manage things differently from the rest of the UK. Surely other sports must have similar issues; does anyone know how they manage them?

Marge is a keen Table Tennis player and we were comparing the administration of TT and Orienteering. Table Tennis doesn't have a British governing body. Put British Table Tennis into Google and you end up at Table Tennis England. I don't know how this works when they have to select a GBR team for the Olympics?

[roadrunner]

I had a look at how athletics work, and it seems a bit unclear and perhaps not entirely unlike orienteering.

At the top there's British Athletics (or UKA), which gets a UK Sport grant that it spends on olympic and paralympic programmes. The other NGB functions - which aren't that different from BOF - are apparently mainly funded by income from its televised events.

Under that there are the home country bodies - England, Welsh and Scottish Athletics, and Athletics Northern Ireland. These are, I think, mainly funded by affiliation fees and race permit charges (though I don't know for sure - the information isn't as explicit as for UKA). England Athletics says it focuses on the "grass roots", while the other three claim to be the respective governing bodies for the home nations.

[LostAgain]

how many more proposals would there have to be before you think we should accept that members who vote to have a much less useful British Orienteering do, in fact, want a much less useful British Orienteering?

This is very much open for debate, whether members actually believe British Orienteering (Federation) is useful in it's current structure/format?

Scotland would appear to be happy to adopt a very different model given the option. English members may also like something different if the option were available. The funding vote just being a very blunt instrument to get a message through?

That's a separate debate though - however useful or not you think British Orienteering is at the moment, I don't see how reducing its funding is going to make it any more useful?[/quote]

But the options are to provide either:
1. Pay more money
OR 2. Pay more money

If you feel that BO are not worth the money they receive and that the spending of the current fees are inappropriate or just wrong then these do not seem very palatable options.

May be if we had an option, liquidate BO and start again with a voluntary structure of orienteer member committees and a small admin staff to manage the membership dbase we would get a very different cost base. It may actually leave quite a lot of money for things that orienteers really want rather than salaries for self-interested none orienteers.

[RJ]

The main function of the NGB, at the present time, must be to facilitate clubs to increase their membership. There is no point in making the sport more expensive as the membership declines and gets older. If we had twice the current membership, as we used to have not so many years ago, then the whole financial situation would be a great deal healthier. It really is just a question of numbers.

I would certainly vote for appropriate consultancy to evaluate where and how we should target advertising, and who we should target. Many clubs are doing a great job on this..... just not enough clubs are.

[frog]

I don't see BOF doing anything to encourage club membership in Scotland though. I see lots of initiatives coming from the SOA whose agenda is skewed by SportScotland but at least SportScotland want club members not just participants. Our SOA/ SportScotland club development officer was excellent and did increase our club membership, I'm hoping our regional development officer will do likewise. Both posts were filled by active orienteers which I think makes a difference for club committees believing they know what they are talking about and them understanding what we need, the difficulties we face and being able to liaise with other sporting bodies and promote orienteering.
I found the whole Explore thing promoted by BOF bizarre, I'm not sure how much it actually happened in Scotland though.

[smf]

British Orienteering proposal on increases to membership and levy fees: SOA advice to members

There is considerable uncertainty as to what impact these fee increases will have on orienteering clubs and orienteering itself.

So why did the SOA increase it's fees for next year if they are concerned about fee increases?

[Spookster]

I don't see BOF doing anything to encourage club membership in Scotland though. I see lots of initiatives coming from the SOA whose agenda is skewed by SportScotland but at least SportScotland want club members not just participants.

Encouraging club membership is best done at club and regional level, by volunteers and RDOs. BOF facilitates membership by providing the national membership database, secure payments process, website that helps to direct people to their local club, telephone help for people wanting to join, distribution of the membership money collected to associations & clubs, etc.

It is disappointing that SportEngland doesn't value club membership in the way the SportScotland does, because clearly club membership is important, both to participation but also to maintaining a strong volunteer resource base on which our sport so heavily depends.

Our SOA/ SportScotland club development officer was excellent and did increase our club membership, I'm hoping our regional development officer will do likewise. Both posts were filled by active orienteers which I think makes a difference for club committees believing they know what they are talking about and them understanding what we need, the difficulties we face and being able to liaise with other sporting bodies and promote orienteering.

Good to hear.

I found the whole Explore thing promoted by BOF bizarre, I'm not sure how much it actually happened in Scotland though.

It's called Xplorer, and it happened in Scotland not at all, because it was a wholly SportEngland funded project.

[SeanC]

Actually Xplorer was in Scotland and still is possibly . My son did an Xplorer course at Kirroughtree, Galloway last year. I can't find any information online so maybe they're not doing it anymore?

It was basically a permanent course aimed at junior school aged children with a simplified map. It was much better than a standard orienteering map for this age group IMHO, and the course was around the visitors centre which meant he could use the obvious features such as playgrounds and big tracks. There were other families doing it as well. He really enjoyed it apart from the last control which wasn't there.

[Spookster]

Actually Xplorer was in Scotland and still is possibly . My son did an Xplorer course at Kirroughtree, Galloway last year. I can't find any information online so maybe they're not doing it anymore?

There's nothing official in Scotland (here's a map of Xplorer within 150 miles of Glasgow), but if they've copied the concept and were doing something similar, then good for them!

[RJ]

Encouraging club membership is best done at club and regional level, by volunteers and RDOs. BOF facilitates membership by providing the national membership database, secure payments process, website that helps to direct people to their local club, telephone help for people wanting to join, distribution of the membership money collected to associations & clubs, etc.

Where we differ, Martin, is that I feel BOF could be instrumental in determining a model that club's could use. Some clubs have good models and are making headway with recruitment, but a lot of other clubs would be only too glad (I feel) to get some guidance rather than have to reinvent the wheel. Some money spent on consultancy to find out where, when and to whom we should advertise/promote would be a start.

A small 5-10% increase in membership (among the actively 'member seeking' clubs) is not enough. We need to aim much, much higher.

Existing members won't continue to pay more and more every year. After all, we are the people who put on ALL the events. We are the ones who run the junior regional squads and help with the development of the young talent. There is just so much that the volunteer base of the sport does, week in, week out. I hope that you fully appreciate the input of the membership..... it isn't just a £5 membership fee, and £1+ in levy every time we compete.

[Spookster]

Where we differ, Martin, is that I feel BOF could be instrumental in determining a model that club's could use. Some clubs have good models and are making headway with recruitment, but a lot of other clubs would be only too glad (I feel) to get some guidance rather than have to reinvent the wheel. Some money spent on consultancy to find out where, when and to whom we should advertise/promote would be a start.

A small 5-10% increase in membership (among the actively 'member seeking' clubs) is not enough. We need to aim much, much higher.

You're right, BOF could (and should) be better at facilitating knowledge transfer between clubs, such that those clubs which have worked out good models (in this case for member recruitment) can pass that information onto all other clubs keen to follow a similar model. We've had similar discussions at the club and association conference the last couple of years (about sharing of various best practice between clubs - not just about how to grow membership). That needs fixing.

Increasing membership and participation levels are both a significant element of the future funding challenge. We've included acknowledgement of the need to have participants become club members in the vision and strategy overview (bottom of page 5).

[maprun]

Increasing membership and participation levels are both a significant element of the future funding challenge. We've included acknowledgement of the need to have participants become club members in the vision and strategy overview (bottom of page 5).

I hope MH will be able to tweak the possible funding for development on offer from SE listed at the foot of page 4 of the September minutes, so it's targeted at building participation and retention within our mainstream sport via clubs. The minutes did not provide any details of where the Board wanted MH to target BO's submission. IMO, we can't afford to waste this opportunity!
https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/ ... 202016.pdf

[Spookster]

I hope MH will be able to tweak the possible funding for development on offer from SE listed at the foot of page 4 of the September minutes, so it's targeted at building participation and retention within our mainstream sport via clubs. The minutes did not provide any details of where the Board wanted MH to target BO's submission. IMO, we can't afford to waste this opportunity!
https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/ ... 202016.pdf

The items listed at the foot of page 4 (and the top of page 5), are what SportEngland wants BOF to do for it, and is prepared to fund. We (British Orienteering) have to decide whether those are all things we actually want to do, and whether they align sufficiently with our own vision and strategy for the sport (which will have a wider scope, including things SportEngland won't fund the development of).

Our SportEngland submission (to be developed over the coming months) will then articulate in more detail how we'll achieve the SE objectives, some of which will be via clubs, and some of which may not (e.g. partnerships with activity holiday providers).

[maprun]

Our SportEngland submission (to be developed over the coming months) will then articulate in more detail how we'll achieve the SE objectives, some of which will be via clubs, and some of which may not (e.g. partnerships with activity holiday providers).

I hope BO and SE aren't expecting the membership to pay for the additional overhead costs of carrying out partnerships with activity holiday providers, without a realistic expectation that BO will receive increased income to match or exceed these overheads.

SE state in their investment document that NGBs should be financially self-sustaining. In the case of BO, that implies the SE projects should create increased membership income and participation levies to cover the costs they incur in running these programmes.