New Levy proposals

[PorkyFatBoy]

So what is to stop a club organising two events on the same day. One event titled something like "Beginners" covers W, Y and O courses and the other event, called something like "hard runners" covers Lg, G, Bl and Br courses. The split could be changed to ensure that expected numbers keep below the top threshold. Presumabley you could also split off a Junior event as a separate one, especially if you used 1:5k maps as RJ is always advocating.

For the record, I agree with the comments that O entry fees are generally cheap (e.g. Middle/Sprint entry fee = £20, petrol to get there and back £30, accommodation?)
Having a more "professional" approach to the events (e.g. having a portaloo) can make a difference to newcomers.

Same argument applies to Focus, it is good and ensures that BOF members feel involved in the organisation. Helps to present a "professional" image to the sport (and presumably keeps Sport England happy too).

[Snail]

So what is to stop a club organising two events on the same day.

Not a lot. I recall a time when each day of the 6-day was registered as a C4 instead of a C3 purely because it attracted a lower levy.

But attempts to arbitrage the rules just to gain an advantage on levies will of course lead to the Treasurer / Finance Director closing the loopholes - quite rightly. Many years ago this resulted in the "levy = x% of entry fee" scale - which certainly had advantages of simplicity, and low or no levy for low-key events, but people eventually regarded it as a "tax" on large events rather than a levy. Nowadays it might lead to dropping the 75 / 250 threshholds entirely, and a flat £x per head levy irrespective of numbers - which I suspect most of us would regard as rather worse than the current proposal.

[greywolf]

It might be a bit easier to support (or even assess) the levy proposal if we could see the calculations by which it is projected to produce a 3% increase in income.
And are organisers really penalised for holding events of a certain status with low participation? I thought it was the punters who paid extra for Regional events...

[Tatty]

In the past my club had to put on 2 events at the nNvember Classic as the main event took us over the number limit for the forest. We therefore put a colour coded event in an adjacent forest. The number limit is imposed by the Forestry Commission. Due to the fall in numbers this no longer applies. It was never a problem though.

[Wayward-O]

RJ. Congrats on an excellent start to the Junior Schools' series, 258 kids is a fantastic turnout - and it would be an expensive one under the proposed levy arrangements. over £160?

[Wayward-O]

Brit-O obviously feel that they could lose the vote on the new Levy proposal, so have put some justification for the proposal on the website and also some further info regarding gaining levy-exemption for Junior-only events.

With regard to Junior-only events, it reads:

Junior levies

The Management Committee of British Orienteering fully supports junior participation and wishes to see an increase in the number of juniors that are participation in orienteering events. In discussing the proposal to be taken to the AGM about the changes to the levy scheme Management Committee sought to publicly reinforce this support for junior participation.

Management Committee tried to establish a list of the ‘junior participation only’ events but realised that the list was considerable and that events would inevitably be omitted. Consequently the proposal being put before the members at the AGM includes some examples of events in which juniors only participate, for example the Yvette Baker Trophy. Management Committee agreed that Junior Competitions Group should have the authority to recommend any ‘junior participation only events’ as being exempt from the levy. Through this mechanism the events in which juniors only participate in can be ratified and added to a list of exemptions to the levy.

If the proposal is adopted at the AGM the way forward for organisers of junior only events is to provide the Junior Competitions Group the name and date of the event (and whether it is part of a series or annual) along with a brief overview of the event stressing that it is for junior participation only.

I hope this statement will allay the fears of those people who have raised queries about the impact of the levy change proposal on junior only orienteering events.

So, hopefully, this means that the Schools' Leagues will be cheaper than at present as no levy will be payable no matter how many kids attend.

[awk]

System seems very messy - when is a junior only event a junior only? No adults, a couple of adults? How long in advance do you need to apply? Recipe for disgruntlement and disagreement.

Surely simpler to say that juniors count for, say, one quarter of an adult when totting numbers up, and leave it at that.

[Mrs H]

that's exatly what pisses me off. who at BOF is to say that a junior-only event is more developmental than my family-orientated events - I can't see that i can claim any grounds for exemption of my juniors and yet i bet i get more juniors in the sport (and the rest of their families!)

[IanD]

And what about events like SN's "schools league", at which adults are welcome? Parents, teachers, helpers, and just miscellaneous adult orienteers. Last Saturday's had around 70 adults and 110 juniors.

Clearly not a junior-only event, but still the sort of thing which should be encouraged, surely? But the new levy proposals pick out this kind of event to be absolutely hammered.

One of the great strengths of orienteering is the mixture of ages you get at one event. Trying to separate juniors and adults into separate events, which is what this proposal and it's junior-only exemptions would encourage, is madness.

All that is required is a recognition that juniors pay lower entry fees and should be taxed at a lower rate. My preference would be for juniors to be ignored altogether for levy purposes, but counting them as a quarter of an adult would work too. This would be simple, fair, and wouldn't need a committee to decide which events should be spared.

[greywolf]

Brit-O obviously feel that they could lose the vote on the new Levy proposal

Guess the proxy votes are all in (and counted??)

[Gross]

Hey............ not looked at most of this crap... but I'd go with Jenny P any time....

[RJ]

We have a perfectly good system at the moment.... with juniors paying 25p against £1.20(?) for adults. The first £50 of levy is waived. OK.... alter that to 35p and £1.50 with the first £75 of levy waived.....

I understand that there is a feeling that some clubs are not playing fair, and not returning their numbers correctly.

The answer.... put the returns on the website as a list.
12/02/08 NROC Big Wood 120J 250S levy £xxx.xx
It is not as if any of the information is sensitive..... you can work out all the figures from the results, and you need the results for insurance purposes. The information can be analysed to produce other useful stats. Are we somehow scared of a bit of transparency!

From a set of stats the Treasurer has a case to make when an increase is required, and that case is more easily understood with figures to study! We are all fumbling in the dark with the new proposal with this £2.50 at 250 entrants.

[Scott]

Looking at the projected figures on the website, the outcome of these proposals can be summarised as:

Event - Change in levy paid
Poorly-attended national (the Harvester?) - 63% less
Reasonably-attended national - 12% more
Well-attended regional - 3% more
Poorly-attended regional - 24% less
Local with slightly more juniors - 56% more
Local with slightly fewer juniors - 29% more

Why no figure for district events? And, more to the point, is cranking up the cost of successful, junior-friendly local events whilst benefiting under-attended regionals really the best development strategy?

[Snail]

I find this one difficult to decide...

Under the proposals the 'base' entry free for juniors would logically be identical to seniors. For events with a siginificant majority of seniors clubs could cross-subsidise, but this option is less- or un-available for events with a significant majoirty of juniors. So junior fees might increase significantly.

My local leisure centre has fees with junior discounts of between 5 and 20%. In orienteering discounts can be as high as 80%. Why do we think that cutting the discount to say 10-20% will have such a significant effect? If we could demonstate that high discounts had brought in substantial numbers of juniors then it might a stronger argument - but I don't think we can.

If this is the way we decide to go then I can live with it. But if so then where I disagree is with the concession proposed for "all junior" events, as this seems likely to just introduce distortions. Events like BSOA and county schools championships could easily end up with lower entry fees than local events aimed mainly (but not entirely) at juniors - which then makes it appear that clubs are overcharging. And clubs running such local events with a significant majority of juniors have quite a strong incentive to split it into "junior" only and "helpers" events, possibly even with both ending up levy-free!

[IanD]

Well, the proposal was carried at the AGM.

Various points were made from the floor, but by and large are just to be recorded in the minutes. Attempts to elicit a justification from the proposers for the disproportionate increase to the junior levy completely failed, the only response being that junior-only events will be exempt. The chairman refused to allow amendments on the grounds that this would mean that proxy voters would be disenfranchised.

My overall impression is that attending BOF AGM's is a complete waste of time, you can't change anything, and the motions are decided primarily on proxy votes.

The AGM was however given a categorical and unconditional assurance from the treasurer that Yvette Baker Trophy events will be exempt from the levy. It is interesting that these count as "junior only", since the District event at which last year's SE heat was staged attracted roughly 110 juniors and 280 adults.

This leads to a number of interesting possibilities:
1) the definition of "junior only" is not what you might expect from the dictionary - so what is it then?
2) the AGM was lied to.
3) it's OK to split a single event into two, one junior, one adult, for levy purposes.

I'm afraid that I found the AGM such a depressing experience that I expect number 2 to turn out to be correct - but perhaps I'm over-cynical.