Event Structure - four levels!!

[RJ]

What a muddle!!!

The thread is really about having FOUR levels for the event structure. L4 is for club only events, summer evening events. L3 is for the district event where colour courses are the measure of 'competition', ability and progression. They are a perfect vehicle for this level of involvement in the sport.

Regional events, historically, had an 'image problem', they ceased to provide useful competition in quite a number of age classes.... for various reasons. These L2 events are the ones that need to be addressed and changed. Having colour coded courses, or at least 'colour' names for the courses is a good idea. And if you look at the planning of some of the regional events this year..... they have had the same number of courses as the old regional event (C3) used to have.... they are just being called short brown, orange etc, rather than 2, 3, 4 etc. Age classes map onto these fine.

Age class competition is there if you want it. The club organising the event just needs to publish 'what's what' in the event details.

The real strength of the L2 event should be the maintenance of QUALITY. The event is worth travelling for! Quality assurance can be controlled for any prospective L2 event by examining the club's proposal. The regional fixtures secretary knows what the various areas are like, and whether it will support a good 'competition', knows whether the club is capable of finding a good planner who will produce good courses, and knows whether the club is capable of meeting the 'standard'.

With a little experience and a couple of years bedding in, an L2 series of events nationally can be created where the competitors know it is worth travelling. These can include all manner of competition from the Harvester, Urban league, City sprints and a nine colour cross country event.

[Snail]

RJ, not sure what you are trying to get at by suggesting that the distinction between your 'regional' and 'district' events should be one of quality? The reason they have come together is that it had got to the stage where most (old) colour coded and regional events offered very similar 'quality': in my area both typically offered pre-printed waterproof maps, electronic punching / results display / EOD / satisfactory facilities / well -planned courses and efficient organisation.

The more significant difference was between these and the old L5 events, now recognised in the difference between the new L2 and L3.

What do you look for / expect in your suggested 'regional' that you don't look for in your 'district' event?

[RJ]

Attracting a higher quality competitive field by having an event that is perceived to be good..... and will be. So district events are good. They should be. We just need to make the regional event even better. Embargo on area use, up to date map, good quality mapping, good planner and good courses, add ons to the event that will entice families to make the journey, a linked second event on the Staurday, assembly area, traders.

Up the game a bit! For example the Harvester doesn't go to any club. It has to be staged so that the 'ethos' of the event is maintained. Let's just set the bar a little higher for the regional.

[Red Adder]

To me the most sensible comments come from SJC and RJ- We needed and still need 4 levels and the L2 should be aiming at a lift in quality from the District (to be L3) events. Just calling an event on a moderate area a L2 to attract entrants is simply not good enough. If that means that my only region (EA) has only a couple of areas having the terrain quality to stage L2 then so be it, it doesn't stop the region from continuing to put on a good program of value for money district events.

I also think that if courses, up to L2 at least, are all designed within a colour coded frame-work then it gives the competitor a clear, and hopefully consistent, indication of the length and technical difficulty to expect. It is then a simple matter to overlay an age structure if the organising club so desires.

[Clive Coles]

This thread demonstrates there is still a diversity of opinions over the event restructuring. There are bits of many of these opinions I could agree with but what we now have to work with is still a muddle.

We still don't have a final set of rules and it is unclear where we are heading in regard to the ranking view. I suspect though it will not be long before BOF publish the final documents.

Where I think we went off the rails was when the implementation group assumed there had to be conformity across the event structure. They assumed because the old District events were generally of good quality, there would be little resistance to them being upgraded to L2 status.

The old district events often combined to support regional league/gallopen programmes. These are supported by club orienteers who would not necessarily travel out of the region. These were the backbone of our orienteering programme. What is to be gained by upgrading these events to L2. We get increased hastle, we should embargo more areas, we need more L2 controllers.

As a carrot to encourage clubs to upgrade their 2010 events to L2, BOF have suggested we don't need to engage a L2 controller. An experience L3 will suffice. A pragmatic short term approach as in our region at least L2 controllers are in short supply.

When I suggested at a recent club AGM some L3 controllers might like to consider becoming L2 controllers the idea fell on very deaf ears. So we have a problem moving forward ~ our solution frankly is to ignore BOF and run the events that our members want with the volunteers and resources that we have.

It's daft having over 90% of our events categorised as Local events but if that is what BOF decree so be it.

Clive

[graeme]

After an unpromising start, this thread is getting more interesting. Indeed it follows very closely the discussions we had in the Event Structure group, so maybe you'll be interested in how the 3 - level system came about. We didn't have any fixation about how many levels, but it quickly became obvious that there are two well defined levels: Lets call them

Level A : Championships, including some kind of revamped National Event. (former C1&2)
Level Z : Informal events, where if the planning, area or map is a bit iffy
you shouldn't complain because its all just fun. (former C5)

Dangerous to say, but nothing in this thread seems to disagree with this

We also agreed that the point of defining levels was:
a) To tell clubs what was important in a good event
b) To tell participants whether it was worth travelling

Then the problem of levels B-Y. It's very easy to take an event at the top of level B
(e.g. the upcoming SOLs on Coull/Forvie) and say its different from something at the bottom of Y (e.g. RJ's Ling Fell Cumbriangalloppen). What proved insuperably difficult was to define a clean line in between, because it turns out that most events in the
B-Y section are close to the middle.

If you make rules about levels you have to write down what is required, so participants know what they're getting. We tried to split levels B-Y, but it soon became clear that one size doesn't fit all and we couldn't agree what should be required before an event could be in the upper level. (Try it, and I'll find you a counterexample ).

And so we settled on three levels, trusting clubs to define what was on offer in L2 so that individuals could decide what was important to them.

Then BOF botched the implementation with impractical rules about controllers and embargoes dumping good events well worth travelling to into L3.

[roadrunner]

Age class competitions are still here in the south east. Here's two regionals coming up soon:

Chig Mitre:
...
Short Brown 7.0 – 10.0km M18L, M20L, M45L, M50L, M21S, W21L
Blue 5.5 – 7.5km M16, M55L, M60L, M35S, M40S, W35L, W40L
...

SLOW Ok Nuts Trophy
...
Short Brown M55, M20, M18, M21S, W21
Blue M16, M60, M35S, M40S, W35, W40
...

But doesn't this show up part of the problem? One of the advantages of the new scheme was supposed to be that you raced against your peers (in terms of ability rather than age). Well, as an M55, who are my peers? M21S and W21(L) in the SLOW event, but M35S and M40S in the CHIG one - not the same people at all. I'm not criticising either club here, but under the old system the age class combinations were pretty much standardised, which meant that the people doing the same course (but different classes) were the same.

[SeanC]

Roadrunner, I think we are talking about different problems. In the old and new system your peers can be the same if that's what you want, M55. It's just that club websites don't always display the results by class and by course. Forcing the display by course only creates the problem you describe, but it doesn't have to be this way.

The advantage of course is that age classes with small entry sizes will have a reasonable amount of peers to compare against if the "display by course" option is chosen.

It's interesting that the OK nuts trophy has more age classes on the longer courses. Having only just got fit enough to finish a brown I see that SLOW say M40A should do black , but I don't mind at all because with the new structure I can choose to do Brown or Short Brown, rather than the too short for me M40B (Blue) course. Someone from SLOW might want to comment, but this flexibility helps the event branding and reputation amoungst orienteers. The OK nuts - a good tough hard race

[RJ]

......trusting clubs to define what was on offer in L2.....

Well why not trust clubs to put their event into L2 or L3 in a four tier structure?

[Red Adder]

I'm rather cynically starting to wonder if part of the problem is down to money. District events raised their game with extras ( over-printed bagged, up-to-date maps) basically the key differential that marked out Regionals. We put these on to modest audiences at £ 4- £5 a pop. Whilst a reasonably comfortable survival is possible no club is going to make great surpluses for development on these figures. The bigger bucks (and I know after 10 years as a club treasurer) come from the premium fees charged on Regionals. The extras used to just about justify the premiums. Now they don't. Whilst as awk says they had identified that B-Y events really only had small differences they missed out that income potential was a key feature of Regional events.

Trouble is now we have only 3 levels its going to be difficult to go back to 4 without some really killer advantages at the "top" L2 events. What these are though I don't know - certainly not commentaries or prezzies for the courses winners - the only obvious thing is better terrain / star officials (and after 40 + years of the sport in the UK we know where that is / who they are) can attract a premium. Any other ideas frm people ?

[Mrs H]

Reading this thread makes me think that the whole debate has actually moved on from the original starting point and what we should actually be looking at is the definition of a L1 event.

National and regional championships basically need no explanation so are obviously included, but it seems to me what we are now debating is the classification of events "worth traveling for" which is not covered in the botched reworking of the original 3 tier system.

Most former regional events (many of which were definitely not worth traveling for) have simply bolted a colour coded course onto the existing age classes which is fine if people need that kind of guidance but allows everyone to be competitive on their course but i do agree that some former regional events are more equal than others.

I'd like to throw into the mix the reclassification of L1 events as those "Worth traveling for" these include various multi days, some urban races and a fair number of established old style regionals like the November Classic as well as the championship events.

Of course these events will have to justify their inclusion in L1 and in return get a protected date etc - I think this could result in a series of top class events which could be used for a number of different purposes (selection UK cup FCC etc) as well as a great framework for keen orienteers to build their year round

[RJ]

Any other ideas frm people ?

It simply isn't a problem. There are many formats of event that any particular club can get involved with. A city sprint can still be a L2, if the map is right and the planning is good. Short and middle distance races. Urban.

Some lateral thinking! The Lake District will offer traditional 'regional' events because we have the terrain. We have some great middle distance areas, but few towns are large enough to give quality urban races. Horses for courses. If an event is judged to be of L2 quality then it doesn't matter where it is or what format it is, people may be encouraged by the label to travel.

[awk]

......trusting clubs to define what was on offer in L2.....

Well why not trust clubs to put their event into L2 or L3 in a four tier structure?

We did, except it is a three tier structure.

Problem is RJ, all that you've said so far that should apply to your level 2 in a four tier scheme, is achieved by a lot of what you would classify as L3.

Once upon a time, the national event structure was brought in to replace area championships with a series of events that would be of a uniformly high quality that would attract people from far and hear. Some years down the line, and this concept really wasn't working, not least because quite a few top end regional events were seen actually being better quality, and the numbers of national events started to drop.

Quality events sell themselves because they are individually seen as quality, not because of the level they've been put at. Try to more tightly define quality through legislation, and mediocre events will slip through whilst great events will miss out. Rather than trying to do that, let the events sell themselves. If you've got a brand new map of a great area with a top notch planner, or a particular brand name (e.g. November Classic, Twin Peaks) it'll sell in a way that the level definition won't (gosh - it's got a C2 controller; so what? That's no guarantee of anything. Equally embargoes are pretty meaningless in terms of quality.) So, better to have broad criteria, and let the events sell themselves through what they have to actually offer.

[SJC]

So, better to have broad criteria, and let the events sell themselves through what they have to actually offer.

But what are the broad criteria ?
Nearly all events, even at Level 3, now have overprinted maps and electronic punching so it can't just be the facilities that define the level.
Local events can take place on areas that are more than good enough for a British Championships, so it can't be just the terrain that matters.

So what are we left with other than the level of competition, and it is this that should define the level of the event. The criteria such as good terrain, well planned courses, electronic punching, etc. may be pre-requisistes for an event to be at a certain level, but it should be the competition that actually defines it.

The current mess will not be sorted until a proper competition structure is put in place, and it is this structure that should decide how many event levels are required in order to reflect where each event fits in the competition hierarchy.

[distracted]

So essentially awk, it comes down to something that's been mentioned several times on this board - and it's something orienteers are absolutely useless at:

Marketing

If you've a decent quality event that should attract a particular audience, it shouldn't matter what level it is or isn't, what rules or embargoes apply or don't, whether it's in the Lakes or the South-East. It should sell itself on that quality. But still, you won't get the level of punters you could do unless you sell it to them! We need to tell people that we have a quality event, rather than expecting them to turn up.

And where are our brands? - then people will know what to expect. I don't think orienteering really has anything that an outsider would consider a marketable brand - where are our Tough Mans, Rat Races, TrailQuests, Great Runs etc? "Cumbrian Galoppen" and "Local Mini-league," amongst others, don't really have the same ring to them. So how is your club trying to sell your events to people outside of the sport?

To be honest, I don't really care what level an event is. I orienteer because I enjoy doing so. I wouldn't be surprised if the latest "Level 3" event I did - the Maize Maze - outranks several "Level 1" events next year in terms of technicality and enjoyment... And do I feel that's a problem? No, not at all. That just shows what's attractive to me...