Orienteering and young families

[NeilC]

"Our new insurers require a record of the names of all participants at events including nonmembers and volunteers to be kept. Normal submission of the results will satisfy the insurance company’s requirements for a list of participant names. Therefore an extra requirement for clubs will be a list of volunteers. Any volunteers that are not also participating (and therefore will not appear on the results list) will need to be listed. This list will need to include any adults shadowing juniors or any multiple entrants e.g. pairs or threes running together, if their names do not appear on the results list. This list will ensure that cover extends to volunteers. Clubs will still be required to submit the numbers of competitors on the levy form."

http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/images/uploaded/downloads/events_insurance_faqs.pdf

[PhilJ]

So we could assume most/all string course kiddies will be part of the family membership, so as long as we publish string course results we will be covered. Should we be asking the 1 - 8 year olds to turn up at the string course with their BO membership card
Or if we do not publish string course results we have to complete the participant record sheet.

I like the form:
Name, Telephone Number, Email etc...then again in this day and age many 8 year olds probably have an email address and mobile phone.

[DIDSCO]

Big Jon > why are you putting on so many events? Why dont you just have 1-2 top class events per year using all your manpower to make the events a real attraction with plenty of razzmatazz. The rest of the time could be spent by individuals in the club planning mini training sessions to develop club members specific skills. Is it really that important to 'race' and get 'ranking points' (and for some people trophies)every weekend when you're 50? Isn't it better to race less often and get ranking points at a top class event on a challenging area and good map with controls in the right place,with the best runners in the country in attendance.

Personally I don't understand the British orienteer's need for competitions every weekend all year round, the majority of these runners never fully master the sport as they don't spend the necessary time developing the key skills through specific training sessions. If you want to be a good footballer you can't just go out and play matches every weekend, you have to break down the sport to the finer details and do specific training sessions/exercises, same applies to 'o'.

If child cares not allowed at British events why not organise an activity that kids can do together at major events. There could be a designated area of forest for these activities close to assembly where kids could be left by parents whilst running. Young enthusiastic volunteers could organise adventure/war games in the forest for these kids. A great way to make friends with other 'o' kids and train terrain running skills at an early age. Surely that can't be against the rules/law?

[AndyC]

So we could assume most/all string course kiddies will be part of the family membership, so as long as we publish string course results we will be covered. Should we be asking the 1 - 8 year olds to turn up at the string course with their BO membership card
.

Have you missed the removal of family membership in the future?

DIDSCO - I want to enjoy running/orienteering as often as possible -you may not but I think the majority will agree with me

[DIDSCO]

AndyC > the 'majority' might enjoy racing orienteering more if they had the skills to be able orienteer well ?

[SeanC]

Just ignoring the "are we doing too many events" debate for a sec (separate thread?), all this talk about the difficulties of providing something suitable for younger juniors (courses, child care etc) shows to me that mixing younger juniors and adults at local events might not be the way forward.

Time for a plug for the Kent Junior Championships on Sunday 17th June at Coombe Bank in Sevenoaks (see the Saxons website http://www.saxons-oc.org). The format is very similar to the successful British Schools Champs format and like the British Schools event it is an ideal event for younger juniors to do their first event without shadowing (being a private enclosed area with club helpers wondering through the grounds in case any juniors need help). Parents can gossip to other parents about the difficulties of combining orienteering with parenting. Residency of Kent not required.

Last year this event made a loss since it followed the usual model of charging low entry fees for juniors, and because we hired an outdoor centre with a kitchen/barbeque etc to make it a nice day out for everyone. I do think regular (eg monthly) very local orienteering targetting younger juniors in small safe areas could be a big success (with the emphasis on fun/team competitions/skills etc)... but you would need good publicity (often easy at the primary school level if local schools can be used for publicity or through local community links, parish newsletters etc) and you would need to charge more to make it economic. Few parents will blink twice about prices around the £5 mark unless they have a big family or intend to go very frequently.. in which case a subscription could be offered (eg £50 for a family pass for all the events in the series). Once you start charging larger sums the possibility of employing someone becomes available.

When they reach secondary school age they will most probably get bored with this easy local orienteering in outdoor centres and parks and they will be ready for "adult" orienteering on Orange courses and above, and ready to shake up the mainstream local leagues.

[mharky]

AndyC > the 'majority' might enjoy racing orienteering more if they had the skills to be able orienteer well ?

One of the biggest problems with the majority of punters in Britain. Nearly all the orienteering they do is in competition and they wonder why they don't improve.

[DIDSCO]

And Im sure Mharky, as one of Europes current best orienteers, would agree with me that orienteering is so much more fun and satisfying when you possess the ability to run o-races at speed without making mistakes

[madmike]

Don't think anyone should disagree with you on that Didsco!

Of course there is nothing to stop you using the weekly competition for training purposes if it is not a goal race.

[oo_wrong_way]

Don't think anyone should disagree with you on that Didsco!

You don't have to have ambitions for elite status to enjoy orienteering races. If given the choice to either train or race I would suspect that many would choose to race. I know that some will say it is a cop out but for me orienteering isn't about winning - because realistically I am never going to.

[frog]

I agree with mharky re our tendency to put on too many "events" and not enough training.
We intended to attach training activities to our local events, but it didn't happen because there just isn't the manpower at local events to put on the 4 courses required for our "league" and think about training.
I think in the future we do need to think about having more local training events to build up the skills of all our orienteers. This could have the advantage of meaning we could use the same area 2 or 3 times as well, and fewer controls to put out so more time can be spent planning the training.
One disadvantage is that the onus then falls on our few qualified coaches to do this for BOF regulations, unless the coach could be nominally in charge in a supervisory role and another member could organise it.
We discussed this sort of stuff at the SOA meeting last weekend.

[Kitch]

when I was still doing some orienteering a few years ago I did far more training than racing
It was fun, in great terrain, minimum hassle, and cost next to nothing.

[roadrunner]

Personally I don't understand the British orienteer's need for competitions every weekend all year round, the majority of these runners never fully master the sport as they don't spend the necessary time developing the key skills through specific training sessions.

Some years ago, my club used to put on training sessions (in forest terrain) every Wednesday in the spring and early summer, and they were very poorly attended. When they were changed to low-key events, the attendance seemed to increase.

No, I don't understand it either (I actually preferred the idea of training sessions), but it seems to be a fact that the average orienteer wants to compete rather than train.

[SeanC]

I can understand it. You've been orienteering for over 5 years (most participants at a typical event). You go to your local TD4 local/semi-local district event (most common type of event in the South). You rarely make more than 5 mins of errors, typically 2 mins. Some training or coaching (if available) might take a couple of minutes off your time but it doesn't have the buzz of competition and you enjoy charging around the forest/park/streets and talking to your mates. What's the problem?

From the club's viewpoint organising "coaching" is a pain as a qualified coach must be found. Anyone can organise an event. Then the numbers turning up are much less than for an event so the coaching makes a loss, unless regional event style fees are charged... and then you need a good coach + decent area to attract people paying the money. Hence my club typically offers maybe 1-3 Saturday morning coaching sessions a year, and we try to get experienced orienteers and coaches - Nick Barrable when he was around. Josh Jenner now.

Unfortunately the minority who really need and want regular frequent coaching are the newish orienteers who are getting frustrated by making 10 + minute errors on TD4 courses or cant get a decent general O speed up, or the ambitious types who might go on to be elite - or old elite - orienteers, or juniors of course.

So credit where credit's due - the club night program has delivered more coaching/training et than any other initiative in recent years. 40 evenings per year for my club and it's making a real difference for a small number of this critical minority.

[Sunlit Forres]

So true, at our most recent local event (which graeme was at I think) there were 7 entries on white/yellow out of the 60 or so at the event. We concluded afterwards it would have been better to have an 'easy' course that was somewhere between the two.

At out last event we had 52 entries on White and 38 on Yellow (out of about 250 entries); 25/21 were newcomers. Maybe the fact that we called the courses Boys/Girls U11 and U13 respectively might have had something to do with it.