Event Structure - four levels!!

[RJ]

and so we will travel to them if they are what 'we' want to do that weekend, sprint, middle, city, urban, relay, novelty, night.....

We do already.

When you say 'we' you mean 'you'. Just because you have a mental list of the events you consider good and the ones you are prepared to travel to doesn't mean that it matches with a load of other people. I am suggesting that there is a list of our top evetns that have been nominated by clubs and competitors alike.

Events can be nominated by 'competitors' and can be relegated by 'competitors' also. If an event attracts an extensive competitive field then it is obviously a 'good un'. Events have to earn a 'badge' before they can become L2. So, there's your branding..... 'Top Races', decided upon by the very people who are going to them.

You are joking, aren't you?

No. And as for spreading the news by word of mouth.... that just doesn't work for any newcomers to the sport. The only reason I knew about the Maize Maze was because I read about it here. It might make CompassSport but not all new innovations and formats will. A listing of the top events on the BOF website with comments attached sounds like a brilliant idea.

[Simple Soul]

I'm not sure about the concept of competitors nominating the class of Event. Why do fun orienteers have a say? I have never understood why the British Championships are open to anyone. Surely for a Championship there must be a qualifying performance. Similarly with National or Regional Events, One only gets to run in them if one is good enough. This will clear out all the fun/social orienteers and make it a competitive sport. It can be marketed as such and then refocus on quality. Event structures would then form to support this concept, the qualifications being by Regional Leagues / Badges times or whatever.The idea that a plodder like me can run in the British Championships is nonsense. ( Although I did run the London Marathon in about 1980 which was an Olympic qualification event . If only the 22,000 in front of me had been disqualified!)

[Scott]

Because we don't have the numbers to support that structure. I'd love to see orienteering as a sport where I'm told that I'm too rubbish to enter the British Championships because the course is full of competent, fit orienteers who do training and stuff <insert graeme's story about his first BOC here>, but at the moment it's a sport where I can go for a fun/social jog around the British Championships, make numerous punterish navigational errors, be over 50% slower than the winner, and still come 37th .

[awk]

Because we don't have the numbers to support that structure.

I disagree. If there weren't enough, we wouldn't need S and L classes at the British. It's more to do with ethos - and I agree with Simple Soul that it makes a bit of a nonsense of the concept.

When you say 'we' you mean 'you'. Just because you have a mental list of the events you consider good and the ones you are prepared to travel to doesn't mean that it matches with a load of other people.

No I mean "we" as in everybody. Of course my list is different to others, it might even be unique. We all will still go to the events that we each see as being worth it, some of which will be too small and/or too idosyncratic to get on to any mass voted list, whatever an official list tells us or not. All that bureaucracy too.

No. And as for spreading the news by word of mouth.... that just doesn't work for any newcomers to the sport.

Of course it does - after all that is how viral marketing works. Anyway, a list of events scattered all round the country isn't likely to be the most effective way of promoting to newcomers - a few will travel all over the place to start with, but not the vast majority. That's a later stage, by which time word of mouth will have kicked in. Better to make sure local events are up to scratch.

The only reason I knew about the Maize Maze was because I read about it here.

Well, the Maize Maze wouldn't have been on your list, and would be unlikely to make it in future without word of mouth kicking in first.

[Gross]

I have never understood why the British Championships are open to anyone.

Money, money, money.... nothing to do with orienteering

[Scott]

If there weren't enough, we wouldn't need S and L classes at the British.

I didn't realise that separate S and L courses at the British were necessitated by the volume of competitors - I always thought the S classes were there to cater for the "social/fun" runners that Simple Soul wants to kick out, rather than for people who can't get an entry on the L course because it's full of better people. How many BOC age-classes are currently over-subscribed with good orienteers wanting to run L?

[Simple Soul]

Because we don't have the numbers to support that structure and
Money, money, money.... nothing to do with orienteering

How about making the Championships simple by having a Junior - Intermediate - Senior - Veteran structure : understandable to the general public therefore able to be presented as such Nationally, and will provide some competition on each course?
Is the e.g. W35S British Champion (best of the few running) recognised as such outside the sport - does she make headlines in the local newspaper?

How about running the Championships on a Saturday and opening the courses to everyone else on a Sunday to generate the income?

[greywolf]

If you cleared out all the fun/social orienteers from the British Champs, you wouldn't need any of this age category nonsense or S & L courses, and you wouldn't need to bother with juniors either, you could just have Men's and Women's elite race....to keep the quality up you'd have to restrict entry to those likely to be within say 20 mins of the winner...and of course you'd want it on the best terrain so more often than not it will be at the far end of the country...

Sounds like BEOC with a bit of quality control to me Only problem is, there's only 100 eligible competitors, and half of them probably wouldn't make it....and 50 entry fees are unlikely to cover the cost of mapping a new area....

[Clive Coles]

I'm quite attracted to the idea of qualification for BOC ~ as a social Sunday morning orienteer my placement in the results was always a bit of a laugh. Quite meaningless as far as i was concerned ~ someone however had to set the standard for everyone else to better !

But I do like going to BOC and being able to have a run on good terrain with the help of a first rate championship map. It wouldn't worry me if I didn't run the actual championship course.

Looking back one of my most enjoyable events I attended was when the World Cup was staged on the Surrey Hills a few years back. The International classes ran in the morning; us adequate orienteers had our races on the same area in the afternoon.

The event was well organised, the sight of international orienteers finishing in amazing times was stimulating.

As technology improves it becomes possible to track what is happening out in the forest . Orienteering can evolve to sustain spectator interest.

So why not use this model for BOC ? I disagree however with the Saturday/Sunday idea ~ to achieve " a buzz" and high attendance the races need to be held on the same day.

From memory ~ the Beer tent was also well supported !

Clive

[Mrs H]

I disagree however with the Saturday/Sunday idea ~ to achieve " a buzz" and high attendance the races need to be held on the same day.
Clive

so why not leave it as it is - as Greywolf points out Simple souls' model exists in its ultimate form in BEOC and you may find that if you kick out all the social/fun orienteers like me - no one is actually prepared to do the work to put the event on - we don't just make up the numbers you know - we actually do a lot of the donkey work to

[awk]

So why not leave it as it is - as Greywolf points out Simple souls' model exists in its ultimate form in BEOC and you may find that if you kick out all the social/fun orienteers like me - no one is actually prepared to do the work to put the event on - we don't just make up the numbers you know - we actually do a lot of the donkey work to

I'm perfectly relaxed about keeping it as it is - most people seem content with it as such - but if one did follow up that idea, you would not be 'kicking' people out. Everybody would still have an opportunity to qualify. There are plenty of good reasons for slimming the British down: there are all sorts of compromises at present in terms of areas, course planning etc. which would be lessened if it was a leaner event.

Personally, I'd welcome a system where I had to qualify - getting to the British in itself would be an achievement worth aiming at for some of us. As it is, it's all too often simply a big version of the old badge events, often one of the less inspiring races of the year (although that couldn't be said of the Culbin weekend!), indeed a good example of the fact that so-called 'top level' races aren't always what they are cracked up to be.

[Nimby]

Looking at the official BOF fixture list, we have a SOC Colour-coded event on 13th Dec classed as "Regional", and a TVOC Local event on 11th April also classed as "Regional".

So have these been registered wrongly, has SCOA gone rogue, or have I misunderstood this whole Level thing?

[madmike]

If there weren't enough, we wouldn't need S and L classes at the British.

not why we have short courses at all - a complete kipper rouge imho.

In days of yore etc etc swing lantern, boy on hovis bike pushes past etc etc....

.....there were 2 x M21L courses at major events because there wern't enough start times available if you just had the one course. Last time I recall running M21L Cse B was at the snowy JK in Wales where day 2 was cancelled for the longer courses Cadr Idris way - Ithink - was it Bedgellert or something like that.

Of course in those halcyon days finishing 83rd on M21L at BOC was a good result whereas these days you'll make top 20 merely by entering

[awk]

not why we have short courses at all - a complete kipper rouge imho.

At the British, I'd agree with you.

[alanbrett]

Regarding the event feedback idea mentioned in the thread, this is something CHIG are trialling with a feedback form for yesterday's MITRE regional event.

http://chig.org.uk/2009/11/22/2009-michael-brandon-mitre-event-feedback/

We independently seem to have covered most of the suggested questions! I agree that a central location for such feedback would be great.