British sprints and middle

[NeilC]

when every club I'm aware of (including the club involved in this year's British Middle and Sprints) has a policy of ploughing money back into the sport. So much for 'profit'.

Do you mean next year's AWK or do you have a mole in our club? And you are right of course, some of the surplus from this year's Sprint/Middle went on a new tent to keep our volunteer SI team comfortable at local events and subsidising our Juniors to travel to the YBT final. Incidently the BOF machine was very helpful in facilitating the putting on of what I hope you felt was a top quality event. Paying for Event Managers in my view was a good idea.

[Arnold]

I agree with Ian that the right question to ask is not so much, "how much surplus is there after the event" but "what is all the money being used for"

I don't see any clubs (or BOF) giving their surpluses to their members as cash bonuses at the end of the year. If anything in my view there should be more of that by rewarding volunteers more or at least offering free entries.

Whereas many road races are organised by professional companies so there is some of that happening.

[Paul Frost]

I'm just going to hide behind behind the rock I've been accused of crawling out from under in the past, as I might need protection from the various things thrown at me.

If clubs were required to publish their accounts I suspect that some clubs might have embarrassingly large "reserves", which might indicate that they have been setting higher entry fees than required for a "non-profit" club/organisation.

As has been mentioned, if a club wants to charge higher fees at large events to subsidise their local ones, or to support juniors, training etc. that's a perfectly valid reason. But if the bank balance just keeps growing you have to ask what is the money for?

[SeanC]

These are the real and expected costs per competitor for the Basingstoke 2012 urban event;

Cost per competitor: (assuming 200 competitors)

BOF Levy 2.15
SCOA levy 0.15
Map printing 0.58
Fabian 0.50
Map survey 5.00 paid
Emit 1.00
Centre hire 0.39 paid
Total £9.77

So what do you suggest an acceptable entry fee should be?

Just a thought - would you consider adding

Publicity "£1 per competitor"?

I figure a newcomers course at an urban event should generate some interest from local runners and active non-orienteers if the marketing was right. Easy to get to, less fear of getting lost, less fear of injury. You should get at least half the money back through extra entries. Long term if it generates more orienteers it keeps costs down.

£200 is enough for a stack of publicity cards to leave in running and outdoor shops or hand out at a road race, and maybe enough left over for a newspaper advert if someone's prepared to do the legwork. Saxons got a lot of runners to one of their trail challenges a few years ago. It might have been co-incidence but the organiser took the trouble to spend a morning giving out fliers at a big cross country event.

Does the (perceived or actual) pressure to keep fees down prevent organisers from spending money on publicity?

Posting event details on Runners World is free and easy and should get a handful.

[SJC]

As has been mentioned, if a club wants to charge higher fees at large events to subsidise their local ones, or to support juniors, training etc. that's a perfectly valid reason. But if the bank balance just keeps growing you have to ask what is the money for?

My understanding is that entry fees for the British Championships are set by BOF, not by the club. If so, then the question in this case is how much profit do BOF expect to make from these two events, and will they be putting it to good use?

[Tatty]

Not too sure about that. For the BNC the club had to suggest fees in the overall budget which was then approved by BOF. They had no input as to the actual figure.

[FRBlackSheep]

With correct publicity and sensible expenditure then it is possible to maintain a healthy club balance without charging the earth for events - in fact more numerous cheap events organised and publicised in the correct manner leads to overall increased revenue which can then be used to further subsidise entries for non members at the same events in the future. This also reduces the need to charge higher amounts from a larger one off event per year in order to make the books balance.

[andy]

Other arguments aside, is this really true? For anyone who's going to travel, either by train or by car, or going to stay a night in York it's not really going to be that cheap a day out, is it? Obviously this isn't going to bother me, as orienteering is my sport and I'll happily pay to go, but I don't think we can argue that doing the races is cheap. (and in fact, apart from the London Marathon at £38 every other road race - for those who use that argument - I've entered this year has been £15 or less)

The thing that's always a static cost is the travel, accommodation, food etc. If you have to travel to the same location for any event it's the same cost. I don't think £15 is much for a quality race, it's the same as I'd pay for a cheap meal out, cinema (in London anyway!), bowling or any other such activities. All the road races I've done have been more expensive, although I've only run the london marathon and the great edinburgh run, so don't have vast experiences of more barebones events which aren't so commercial, but then we shouldn't be comparing one of our premier weekends to barebones events... I did do a hill race recently that was £5 but that was high tech timing (stickers being put on a board at the end of the mass start race) and had minimal organisation. Don't get me started on the cost of adventure races...

[FRBlackSheep]

Don't get me started on the cost of adventure races...

It is true that adventure races are astronomical in comparison and you don't always get a lot for it - but they seem to all be organised by commercial companies.

In relation to other points about cross country and road races not being difficult to organise - if you've ever had to set up the tape on a course that weaves around an open space in order to get the distance in - it can be quite time consuming...

and the number of marshalls needed for some road races can far outway that of a small orienteering race. That said it is true that no time on planning/reccing the courses is required...

Bottom line for me is as was said at the start, prices need to be fair and a quality 'product' needs to be produced - if you're paying for it then what you receive should be of an equivalent quality.

[MIE]

FRBlacksheep has already alluded to some of the "problems" with road and cross-country races.

From personal experience, albeit a few years ago, in organising a road race traversing 4 local councils, 3 police forces and many other "interested parties" there is a lot of work to do.

You cannot just plot a road race route on a map and hope!!

You do need to recce the route a number of times to check traffic, pedestrians, where to put signs and tapes. You need to liase with the Councils and Police to get approval of the route and the signage, and most of the time they only work during weekdays. This is the same with repeat events on the same route -- things get changed on roads just as in the forest.

One Marathon I was involved in had 350 runners and 200 marshals, each marshal needed a map to get to site and detailed instructions on what to do (and not to do!!). On the other hand I was involved in a Half-Marathon that had 1000+ runners and only 80 marshals, but the marshals still needed maps and instructions and the runners got route maps so that they could do pre-race runs to become familiar with the course.

Properly organising a road race requres almost the same effort and attention to details as organising an orienteering race and as many volunteers/helpers.

In the same way that O clubs use the larger Level A and B events as the major income stream of the year so do Road Running Clubs with their 1 or 2 Road races in the year.

Those professional organisations doing Road Races, Adventure races etc. have to put in the same effort (if not more) in organising in order to make a living. They put a bit (lot?) more effort into publicity in order to get more people competing, as more people means more profit.
It may look as if the fees are exorbitant but a lot of people are willing (at the moment) to pay them. If you don't want to pay their fees go orienteering.

[andypat]

I based my figures on Didcot 2010 : 197 competitors, 26 children
and Guildford 2011 : 233 competitors, 18 children.
I would like to break even, though a loss is expected (because of the map), but I'm still interested to know what is an acceptable entry fee.

Well I flew down from Glasgow for the London race and paid £10 for my entry (inc £2 BOF discount).

I guess its a bit unlikely I'll make the trip, but a pound or two either way isnt likely to be the main financial implication for me!

[awk]

...in fact more numerous cheap events organised and publicised in the correct manner leads to overall increased revenue which can then be used to further subsidise entries for non members at the same events in the future. This also reduces the need to charge higher amounts from a larger one off event per year in order to make the books balance.

This is all assuming that this is club policy - and that is up to the club. I see, for instance, no reason why a club should be subsidising entries for non-members unless it wants to.

As for Paul's comments about the size of club reserves - again that is up to the club and their perception of risk. It does not behove anybody else to tell that club what is a safe margin for error or disaster.

And, yes, NeilC, 'this year's championships' really meant 'this coming year's championships'. I have no insight into SO's policies (other than you always seem to have been pretty strong on local development through events).

[Adrian]

I think any club is entitled to make £500-1000 profit on their larger races. By and large, clubs only organise a couple of large events each year and need to use them to generate funds to cover all the various costs that are incurred during the year. It would also be ridiculous to calculate the fees so "exactly" that a large event runs the risk of making a loss. Seniors also need to pay a bit extra to make up for the fact that we, correctly, charge Juniors and Students at a very modest rate.

At the same time, clubs have to weigh up the affordability of the event. £10 is about the limit for regional events. It sounds like Basingstoke will do okay, if the map production cost is accounted for more sensibly, i.e. split over two events. (I think Shrewsbury made the mistake last year of trying to pay off the mapping expenses all in one go.)

[SeanC]

How do you work out

As for Paul's comments about the size of club reserves - again that is up to the club and their perception of risk.

Present and past club treasurers - how do you work out the safe level of club reserves?

[seabird]

Never been a treasurer - but £4-5000 has kept us in good stead - maintaining 50 events per year - most at the £2 level.