Silly Ideas

[SeanC]

Its a difficult issue for clubs to address, especially as a club intent on expanding might be tempted to target families or older competitors as these are apparently easier targets. There was a discussion a while back where I suggested that the problem could be addressed BOF provide a "young person development officer" and various projects attached - if we were willing to pay BOF more.

http://www.nopesport.co.uk/forum/viewto ... &start=135

[openadventure]

To Quote Ifor "The bigest scores are for the easiest closest controlls and far away hard to get ones are worth bugger all. Personaly I hate it, but it flatters the back and middle of the field when you look at the results which I think is the main perpose"

Didn't realise it vexed you so much Ifor. Actually its not the main reason, the main reason is to get people to swap disciplines. Takes a bit of head scratching but if all the high values are on the periphery of the course then people would stay on one discipline and pop back to collect one control on the other. In effect a MTBer or RUNNER would win rather than a multisport athelete.

However the unintended side effects are great - it creates tight competition in both the series and the events and as you say people often come up to me and say hey I was only one checkpoint away from Ifor and John we could be there!

Anyway must sign off before I get accused of AR blasphemny on Nopesport. As previously mentioned if any O clubs want to see how we run our events, or have a chat to me about how market and work with sponsors. Please feel free to get in contact

NB no free lunch in marketing and sponsorship

[FatBoy]

I far prefer score events to have points relative to the difficulty of the control (difficulty as in how far away/how big a hill/ how rough etc, rather than navigation difficulty). For me having to work out which controls should or shouldn't be visited because of cost/benefit of the points is an unwanted distraction from the purity of navigation and physical, and gets further away from the basics of orienteering. Some would no doubt disagree, probably more AR people than orienteers.

I'm not sure I understand your logic though James - e.g. by placing all the high value run controls closer to the start/finish then surely this plays into the hands of a MTBer - get all the bike controls then the 4 high value run ones nearby? Also from the 2 Open 5's I've done, I think your planning is accurate enough that you would never do well without getting a large number of controls from both. i.e. simply doing a few of one and all from the other wouldn't be enough controls to win, no matter how you allocated scores.

[openadventure]

Alan - OK here goes my explanation. For those reading not getting this the Open5's are two stage score events MTB and running with one transition. It is weighted so that the total value obtainable on the MTB in higher than the run - the thinking behind this is that you have to be considerbly fitter to Run for 2.5 hrs than to MTB for 2.5 hours.

So to why we put lower scores on the periphery of each stage. Lets say I'm a MTBer and the high values are on the edge of the course then clearly I would spend 4 1/2hrs on my bike and 30 mins to find the one control on the run to be ranked. There is no incentive to return to the transition.

Whereas with the controls lower at the perphery there comes a point in the 5 hours where it makes sense to return to the transition to collect high points on the other stage.

Whilst I state this I'm not immuned to putting high controls on the edge - I did it at Sutton bank, one lone 40pt control it caused some real dilemmas for competitors.

The other alternative is that the controls are all the same value - not much fun in that and as I said in my previous post the aim is to reward the multisport athelete rather than provide a competition between runners and MTBers.

Anyway best go before someone gets upty about AR on Nopesport.

No worries
James

[Kitch]

All makes sens if its an Open Adventure with bike/run -

an orienteering score event would be running only.
So for the physical disciplines you substitute the technical difficulty - distant; easy to find, close; hard to find.
good runner/poor navigator gets lots of points,
poor runner, good navigator gets lots of points, good runner, good navigator gets lots and lots of points
(poor runner, poor navigator gets lost, slowly !)

[EddieH]

Surely Kitch of the poor navigators, the better the runner the more lost they get as they go further and need to get harder controls!

[jenkinstoby]

eeek. Haveing read almost all 4 pages of this string i'm a little worried that you 'hard core' orienteerers will have a field day 'ripping' my event apart.

I set up this race after competing in my first real O event a few months back. I realised that my regular running customers might like to try something different - so I put together the Orientator event.

I'm not pretending that it'll be the biggest sucess but only hoping that i can introduce more people to orienteering, gently. It'll have accurate but basic maps [no contours, symbols or crazy colours] and no need for a compass.

The orinetator will be a small event but with potential to grow. We do have insurnace, there is no red taped governing body to report to and, i beleive, everyone will have fun.

We also hope that you guys will come along to watch, if not join in? see you all on the day, toby

[jenkinstoby]

eeek. Haveing read almost all 4 pages of this string i'm a little worried that you 'hard core' orienteerers will have a field day 'ripping' my event apart.

I set up this race after competing in my first real O event a few months back. I realised that my regular running customers might like to try something different - so I put together the Orientator event.

I'm not pretending that it'll be the biggest sucess but only hoping that i can introduce more people to orienteering, gently. It'll have accurate but basic maps [no contours, symbols or crazy colours] and no need for a compass.

The orinetator will be a small event but with potential to grow. We do have insurnace, there is no red taped governing body to report to and, i beleive, everyone will have fun.

We also hope that you guys will come along to watch, if not join in? see you all on the day, toby
http://www.allabouttriathlons.co.uk

[DIDSCO]

jenkinstoby > good luck with your event, sounds like a good idea. Don't worry about people on here "ripping your event apart" most of them don't know how to orienteer anyway!

good surname by the way

[bendover]

is 'toby' a good surname?

[Jon Brooke]

Mike G is right, so far as it goes. The average level of fitness/hardness/technical ability in AR is V V low. What he (or in fact nobody here) mentions is that actually there aren't really that many people doing AR regularly either and of those who are it is actually an older age group that win all the time (if they bother to turn up). Even more so than with ortienteering there is a dearth of new (young) talent.

AR probably looks as though it is on the up because of a few high profile events that have had some media coverage, but in reality it is a very small sport in terms of numbers of regular competitors. On the other hand there are a hell of a lot of people who come along and have a go every now and again - unlike O

One of the reasons for that I suspect is that unlike O it is not a club based sport. Many of the participants are simply consumers. They don't have to join anything or commit to anything. They're never asked to help with car parking or wear a dorky club top. They pay their money turn up then clear off, and next weekend do something else.

On the other hand they wouldn't do O because it is too short to make a weekend of and because it is too hard for the vast majority. That is why there is little cross-over from AR to O - because most of the 'competitors' in AR aren't that competitive and would find O too much of a hurdle to climb.

That's why I think the Orientator will do well. No club to join (or even join in with) - just turn up and have a laugh.

Personally I think O just has to be prepared to put on a lot more come and have a go events for no immediate reward if it wants to attract more numbers. We just have to resign ourselves to the fact that a few of us will have to do even more organising/planning etc for lots of people that have no intention of contributing in order to draw in a few more that will help out.

[RJ]

Personally I think O just has to be prepared to put on a lot more come and have a go events for no immediate reward if it wants to attract more numbers. We just have to resign ourselves to the fact that a few of us will have to do even more organising/planning etc for lots of people that have no intention of contributing in order to draw in a few more that will help out.

Spot on Jon..... Loads of informal evening events; one every week of the year. Keep a high profile in the press and advertise locally on posters etc. Spread by word of mouth. The local informal events not only provide a vehicle for new people to come along and try the sport and get involved, they are also incredibly easy to put on (one person!) and provide social/orienteering for all your club members as well. The health and wellbeing of the sport will rely on this 'back to grassroots' philosophy.

[EddieH]

I am not so sure Roger. One of the things the Orientator has going for it is really contrary to all the other valid points that Jon mentioned and that is its rarity.
For people with low commitment having the opportunity to go every week just leads to procrastination. The thing the Orientator has for these casual punters is the fact that as far as they are aware it is unique.

Anyway I question the assumption that we want to have loads of one-off uncommitted participants.

[Jon Brooke]

But surely just about every club orienteer must have been an one-off uncommitted participant at least once?

I think these days you have to set the hurdle to entry very very low AND promote the hell out of something to get any take up. There are just so many things for people to do with their time nowadays.

I disagree about the rarity thing with regard to O. The point is that once you do get someone interested, then they need to be able to do another event as a follow up fairly quickly. If the next local event isn't for 6 months, then lethargy will have set in again.

Obviously there aren't going to be many people out there prepared to put on unlimited amounts of local events, so the answer would seem to me to put on short series - for example a 6 week summer series to coincide with the summer hols might draw some youths in?

[SeanC]

"Are you an o addict?" would make a great quiz for Compass Sport. Questions could include

"In a job interview, have you ever asked for wednesday afternoons off so you can attend army orienteering events?" (3 points)

and

"If you had twin boys, would you name them 'Spur' and 'Knoll' if your other half would let you?" (4 points)

IMHO though, the casual majority can help the addicted few. There are many orienteers in my club who orienteer only once or twice a year, but still organise local events and help. Also those casual orienteers can bring their friends along (who are more likely to be non orienteers). Amoungst those friends could be the next addict/club chairman/all round club hero. The casuals are still paying punters and helping to improve the sports economics. There are also those who like to be involved in multiple sports, but this can change with changing circumstances and orienteering (unlike many other sports) is a sport that suits families and older people.

The question is though how to keep the casual orienteers orienteering? I'd of thought RJ's local leagues or events with lots of extras (or extra value orienteering) like the orientator could both do the job.

Many of us might want these casuals to join a club and become more involved. Why should these casual orienteers join a club or BOF? Right now I dont see that there is sufficient financial incentive. I guess we could give big discounts to club and/or BOF members, but that would be a silly idea