CompassSport Cup/Trophy

[Clive Coles]

I am not convinced that by adjusting the scoring system you will achieve the objective of increasing club member participation.

I guess it shows I have been around too long but I am trying to think how the qualifying used to work because back in those days it seemed to be more club-centric.

I seem to remember each club was drawn against another club in the region. Each year the pairings seemed to change. These clubs mutually agreed to score their round at another more local Sunday morning event usually before Christmas. The winner moved one step up the ladder to the next stage in the competition.

Somehow this seemed more inclusive for your average club runner ~ the concept that by having folk to travel miles to a big level B event in mid-February has resulted in the less committed just dropping out. It's only once every two years that the qualifier is even held in your own region.

We are finding it more difficult to stage events on the same date in February. How have we got ourselves in this silly position ? I don't think having to stage an event on the same Sunday has made any difference to the enjoyment of the competition.

1) We have the school half term problem ~ different education authorities select different weeks so some clubs are more disadvantaged than others.

2) Big events have parking problems in mid winter especially in months wher snow is to be expected. The bigger the event the more likely we are to have to use bussing as hard standing carparking cannot be found near to our event areas.

3) We have an increasing problem with access permission as the conservation lobby seem to think there will be ground nesting bird problems in February. I believe this was one reason for the late switch of venue for the SE qualifyer this time ~ it was to be staged at Hankley Common. Different landowners have different rules ~ with the Forestry Commission (and I believe the National Trust) in the Eastern Region the ground nesters currently arrive after 1st March. But in areas where Natural England have influence these birds are now apparently arriving earler than March. We are therefore being squeezed out from our more open heathlands in February.

I think CSC was more fun in those early days ~ the inter club competition seemed to attract all club members. Big is not always better.

[RanaldMacdonald]

DVO made it through to the final, not just by having enough scoring runners but also by having eleven who beat scoring SYO runners. This has raised club morale a lot in that it proves just turning up can make a difference. Dave Nevell (who else?) has provided an interesting analysis of this on the DVO website. Just focusing on how many score doesn't take account of how many people can make a contribution to the overall result - in DVO's case 36.

And, yes, we had key runners who couldn't make it either because of half term, work commitments, etc. and we scored very few points on the Junior courses. Our club captain, Liz Godfree, managed to persuade, badger and cajole people to hop on the coach to Fineshades and for some of them to run up. Hopefully, our result will convince more to travel to the Forest of Dean.

[Whitesheep]

some clubs would just field their strongest x runners

It says a lot about orienteering that this would be seen as a weakness in a competition.

One thing to point out is that if there were no caps, clubs with skewed demographics could still be "punished" for that by clubs with balanced demographics. If Club 1 has no-one to enter on Light Green, say, Club 2 can pack Light Green with as many eligible runners as it wants, all scoring maximum points.

[Clive Coles]

Interesting post Ranald ~ it just shows where clubs have sufficient members enthusiasm, tactics and selection can pay dividends. Well done for getting 36 runners to feel they contributed to the overall result.

SUFFOC are a small club ~ we currently find it difficult to field a complete set of runners even for the CST, we rarely have any spares so selection and tactics over who may run up is not a real issue. But we travel hopefully.

My old club, Mole Valley, once made the CSC final whilst I was a member and we hired a coach to the event and arranged a YHA stop-over. this added to the cost but I agree travelling as a group really creates a buzz in the club.

In my current club there has been talk of hiring a mini-bus to get to the qualifying rounds when they are held out of our association area. We have always had doubts however over the economics of this option, especially as our club membership is disbursed across a wide area.

What did DVO offer in regard to pick-up points ? Just wonder to what extent this would have extended the journey times for your team. I guess some of your team preferred to drive themselves to the event as it was more convenient.

If we did hire a mini-bus it would benefit all if everyone used this as it would spread the cost. Perhaps though DVO either picked the tab or made a subsidy.

I wonder what other clubs do ?

[SeanC]

I do agree with what you're saying about the need for more "local" cup competitions Clive, particularly for the more peripheral regions.

But regions and clubs don't have to wait for the CompassSport Cup to ride to the rescue. They could organise their own knock out competition.

The key thing about the CompassSport Cup IMHO is that it is (generally) an active competition. Teams do well when there is a club captain encouraging people to go, and with results on the day it feels like a real competition. Lots of orienteering competitions are virtual... someone or increasingly some computer does the calculations, the individual or club doesn't need to be involved, and often competitiors are unaware they are involved in a competition (or don't really care).

A regional mini CSC for EAOA or elsewhere with the principles of active involvement by club captains and immediate results on the day (with competitors staying around to find out who won) could be a winner and just what clubs need for club spirit. But

- some clubs don't have particularly active captains, or ones who would want the extra work and
- bog standard colour codeds with 2 hour start windows and no assembly/event centre etc are a poor format for a team event.

Maybe EAOA could take out one of the SWELL/EAOA etc league events and replace with a "flatlanders club championship". Compress the start times to 30 mins, have some seeding (so the fast ones go off first so there is less following), rig the rules to give most teams a good chance of winning, and maybe use the SportIdent software?

With more team competitions you'd get more people interested in being captains and being active captains as it would be a more rewarding hobby....

[RJ]

some clubs would just field their strongest x runners

It says a lot about orienteering that this would be seen as a weakness in a competition.

Yes Whitesheep, that doesn't read well when quoted out of context. However, as recent posts have illustrated very neatly...... a club fielding its x strongest runners on a particular course is in fact a really good idea because they all score positional points thus restricting other clubs from scoring well. Having a limited number of 'team scorers' on a particular course restricts JUST THOSE X RUNNERS from dominating the overall score. The competition is stronger if the team scorers come from a wider range of age and gender groupings.

I feel the last batch of posts have illustrated that the competition rules are in fact fit for purpose, and awk's request for a divisional structure is well worth consideration. Why can't clubs compete more than once in a league structure and then get promotion or relegation to another 'division'?

[King Penguin]

HOC have looked at the coach / minbus option on a few occasions.
Were we a club with the majority of members in a small area (e.g. OD ?) it may work. In practice, we are spread from Birmingam to Ledbury with outliers beyond Tamworth, Shrewsbury and Cheltenham. This means multiple pick-ups would be required. Factor in people who are visiting friends / relatives before or after the event and therefore cannot share, the lower mpg of a minibus vs most cars, and the result is that it becomes impractical and/or uneconomic, and more flexible / cheaper to simply arrange car-shares.
Take the example of the Fineshade final a couple of years ago.
I gave early starts to those from Birmingham and late starts to those from Worcester/Malvern/Ledbury and beyond. Were we travelling by coach it would have had to leave Malvern in time to pick up in Birningham and get to the event in time for first starts, meaning a very early departure and long day for those from the south of our area.

This years final would have been easy, almost on home turf, but thanks to OD not making the top 3 last year and them beating us on Sunday we won't be there.

[RanaldMacdonald]

[quote="Clive Coles"]What did DVO offer in regard to pick-up points ? Just wonder to what extent this would have extended the journey times for your team. I guess some of your team preferred to drive themselves to the event as it was more convenient.[quote]

Details can still be found on the DVO website, Clive - http://www.derwentvalleyorienteers.org. ... etails.pdf

There were pick-ups at Ambergate (8.00), Belper (8.05), Allestree (8.15) and Kegworth (8.40). The cost was £6.00 (£3.00 for juniors) and the club subsidises entry by 50% as we do for all Club-based competitions such as BRC and JK Relays. Yes, some did make their own way - Viv and I were in our campervan at Greetham near Rutland Water for the weekend (I was on the jury so needed to hang around a bit longer) but perhaps some went on the coach who might otherwise have been driving themselves without a complicated car share.

The Club Captain has at least four competitions to recruit for (if we put a team in for the Harvester) - this year five as we're in the CSC Final! That makes it more of a worthwhile 'job' and Liz is regularly seen at events with a clipboard and pink hat so people can spot her.

A number of us obviously spent quite a lot of time watching LEI's excellent scrolling results on Sunday as it got really tight - the sense of being in a competition was really there.

[graeme]

Sorry if everyone lost interest already, but perhaps THE central issue about CSC didn't get mentioned yet...

It's not supported by BOF.

When I was trying to sort out dates for Race the Castles 2014, I was told that BOF had no view on whether there was a clash as it wasn't "their" event. Eventually I got it resolved with the nice people at SN, but I suspect not everyone is going to have the energy renegotiating dates.

Given that most of us are in BOF (and some, godhelpus, on committees), should CSC be brought back into BOFs Event Programme and scheduling?

[seabird]

The old system of one against one rounds certainly had the advantage of allowing for surprise progression, as in the FA Cup (lower division club plays lower division club etc) - but it was a complete organizational nightmare trying to reach agreement on when and where fixtures should be. That was why the system ended - and we now have the 2 planned weekends per year.

Today, with the multitude of competitions, the organisational problems would be even worse.

It's not as if the current system does not produce it's surprises (plenty regarding that in recent posts)

Yes some clubs struggle to get motivated for the CSC/T, and others regularly feature strongly - but would there not be a similar degree of predictability if we found workable regional or divisional formats?

[Jethro]

Graeme, you may have forgotten but at this time last year the CSC was in fact the British Orienteering Club Championships (supported by CompassSport). After much debate on this forum and representation by Nick Barrable the event was "reclaimed" by CompassSport. It is therefore not particularly surprising that BOF do not feel inclined to put more into the event than they do for other events which are not their direct responsibility. They do of course provide insurance cover. On the plus side they only claim a levy and not a share of the profit.

[awk]

but would there not be a similar degree of predictability if we found workable regional or divisional formats?

In terms of the divisional formats, I would suggest not. For starters, the teams would be pitched up against clubs of a similar strength, leading to (hopefully) closer matches, and thus less easy to predict who will win. Then there would be the annual mixing provided by promotion and relegation. Say there were 4 or 5 teams in each division, with one going up and one going down after the qualifiers, you would get half or 40% of the teams different to the previous year. This mixing would also lead to greater variety in the national divisional matches - again hopefully leading to less predictability.

(My suggested format is for division of the country into 4 or 5 areas. Each area would have X divisions of 4-5 clubs each. What is now the qualifying round would be the area matches, where the clubs in each division would meet up in their match. The winners of the match would go up to the next division for the following year, the last placers would be relegated. The winners would also go forward to the national divisional final to meet with the other winners of the equivalent division in the other areas. You'd thus land up with national winners of division 1, division 2 etc. The issue of smaller Scottish clubs could be dealt with by for instance, initially making Scottish Division 1 equivalent to, say division 2/3 in the other areas, with the equivalence being changed if the Scottish club wins/comes last in the national divisional final.)

[graeme]

But the "issue" with the smaller Scottish clubs is that they're small, especially in terms of the people willing to travel 5-6 hours on Saturday, and again on Sunday, bringing kids during term. Typically we can bring a dedicated group of around 15 people who would be a match for the top-15 in most English clubs under CST rules. There's not much interest in rolling over the Div 3 English clubs or getting demographed out of it by much larger English clubs who can find daytrippers to fit all the age criteria. Certainly, nobody will travel for an incomplete team (e.g. once it was clear that the family with the demographically-necessary juniors wouldn't travel, everyone in INT decided not to come to the final this year)

Do you have an idea for how small clubs can compete in your league system?

[The Loofa]

For any league/division system to work you would need to have fewer scorers in lower divisions. e.g. 24 to count in Div 1, 18 in Div 2, 12 in Div 3 or whatever

[awk]

For any league/division system to work you would need to have fewer scorers in lower divisions. e.g. 24 to count in Div 1, 18 in Div 2, 12 in Div 3 or whatever

I'd agree.

There's not much interest in rolling over the Div 3 English clubs or getting demographed out of it by much larger English clubs who can find daytrippers to fit all the age criteria.

Well, rolling over the equivalent is pretty much what the Scottish qualifiers do now, isn't it?

Certainly, nobody will travel for an incomplete team (e.g. once it was clear that the family with the demographically-necessary juniors wouldn't travel, everyone in INT decided not to come to the final this year)

But you don't need any juniors to make a complete team (and the final was rather less than 5-6 hours away this year, at least for INT!).