Club Eligibility

[awk]

But how do you count the number of Juniors in a club ? Using the numbers shown on the BOF database will not give a true reflection of the real number of juniors in a club. It does not identify clubs where every member is also a BOF member. Neither does it take into account the number of schools working with the club as these children will not be on the BOF database either. Defining a 'small' club by the number of Juniors when there is no accurate way to measure them seems to be yet another bad rule.

In practice, the BOF membership method worked pretty well, mainly because most regular junior orienteers at this sort of competitive level are BOF members (including those from school clubs).

80-20 rule applies here. Every other method we looked at (including that suggested by distracted) involves far too much voluntary time for too little return. The BOF membership basis may not be perfect, but it's good enough.

[HOCOLITE]

Did the calculation just look at Bof juniors above a certain age. I know we often get families joining club and bof with babies and tots most of whom we never see. It's very difficult to judge a club on its juniors, we take our active juniors to the YBT and that number is far smaller than the other large clubs in our region, but we may have a number of juniors who are members due to parents signing them up. My eldest son is still a family member at M20 but has not orienteered at all for at least two years and competitively for a lot longer.

[awk]

Did the calculation just look at Bof juniors above a certain age.

Good point. Yes, it did. Because the calculations were being solely for the PPR, I took M/W12-18.

As for the fact that families etc. might carry non-orienteers - well, that's going to happen whatever method you use. That's true in virtually any sport/situation, that you're going to carry inactive members.

If using some sort of absolute method (e.g. clubs over 50 members), I'd have to just say 'tough'.

However, the system was to try and put clubs in some sort of order of size, and then take the top 25 (I initially said 20, but I've found a copy of the rules, and it says 25). The assumption was that the proportion of non-active members would be roughly the same. Obviously, just like team selections, it's only the marginal clubs where there is going to be any real discussion, but that's always going to happen. Equally, the number is fairly arbitrary - it could be tweaked.

Since raising this issue, I've dug amongst my backups and found the spreadsheet. The 'large' clubs for the PPR in 2003 were (in descending order):

Lakeland, Notts, South Ribble, Thames Valley, Bristol, Deeside, Manchester, Derwent Valley, Aire, Ebor, Harlequins, Cleveland, Octavian Droobers, Guildford, North Gloucs, Walton Chasers, Mar, Berkshire, Wimborne, West Anglia, Southdowns, Stragglers, East Pennine, Grampian, South Yorkshire. That's a couple of years ago now, and one or two at the lower end are likely to have slipped out (Sarum were bubbling up for instance).

[Pingu]

What happens if you move house from bounemouth to Fort william in the middle of a year?

What happens if you move to start Uni in the middle of a year?

What happens if a school changes its affiliation in the middle of a year?

Is there a line somewhere inbetween two of these options?

[HOCOLITE]

The Uni move probably wont affect the PP but will the YBT. Some rounds occur before the Unis start and some after.I think for YBT uni members should not be included, unless they run for their own club, then the problem doesn't exist. I also think they should represent their own club in FCC as well, and therefore going onwards I guess the same should apply to the CSC.

[Guest]

I think that anyone going to University has to make a decision.

They have the chioce of stopping with the open club they have belonged to since birth, or they can change open clubs and join the one with which the University is associated (if such a club link exists). However, this change has to be a positive move by the Junior concerned. They cannot just pick up membership of a second open club and then run for both.

[Rookie]

I've just gone to Warwick which is strongly affiliated to OD. I was asked to join OD but have now decided to stay with my original club (LOC) so I won't be running YBT final for OD. As the guest said - a decision needs to be made by the junior - I've made it - so has Pingu who chose OD.

Hocolite - some uni members are new orienteers so are just club members of the open club the uni is affiliated to (and I guess BOF members through uni BOF membership- same as school orienteers affliliated to a club who aren't yet individual members) - there would be no problem in them running in YBT (although it puts M/W20s on orange). At FCC you can represent both your open club (but it should be your real open club) and a closed university club.

At the moment I don't think UWOC is an official closed club - that's something I'm talking to the exec about (eg. for JK/BOC relay teams etc.)

[awk]

What happens if you move house from bounemouth to Fort william in the middle of a year?

What happens if you move to start Uni in the middle of a year?

What happens if a school changes its affiliation in the middle of a year?

Is there a line somewhere inbetween two of these options?

In relation to CSC/T and YBT, both of which take place later on in the year, they both have the same rules, although expressed differently. Both are BOF competitions, therefore Rule 3.2 applies. Both state that you can only run for one club in the competition.

So in all the cases above, if you haven't run for your old club in the relevant competition earlier in the year, then you could get permission to run for your new one in the later round. If you have, then whatever concessions are made, you can't run. (Bearing in mind that you can run for one open and one closed club in a year anyway - you don't need permission to run for a uni club if you've run for an open club earlier in the year, although the ban on not more than one club in a competition still applies!).