Is traditional orienteering dying?

[roadrunner]

How about something like this as an example of an event designed to appeal to runners that nevertheless involves map-reading and navigation: http://sloweb.org.uk/events/surreyhills2013/

[The Loofa]

Yes. This year's race is 15th June. Same courses every year. Recceing is encouraged. Numbers have been up the last 2-3 years especially on longest course (30km)

[SeanC]

I didn't see the Surrey Hills Race in the "Trail Running" event listings Andy. Might be worth contacting them to see if they'll put it in?

[graeme]

I'd like to do that [Surrey Hills] race: looks like it would require considerable mapreading skill or local knowledge. But I wonder why you don't use the O-map? Runners don't need the extra detail, but anyone who could become an orienteer would be interested in what it all means. Seems like a missed opportunity...

[paul]

A lot of the Surrey Hills race map area (http://www.slow.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#42 ) isn't mapped for orienteering. Scaling the mapped areas to 1:25000 would be interesting too!

[buzz]

The Surrey Hills race looks great - a return to proper orienteering from the 60's

It seems that the implication of the original post was that technical orienteering is traditional and that easy orienteering is progressive. In fact if you look back to the early days of orienteering in the UK it was much more like the 'less technical' Surrey Hills style trail race.

As Mrs H says orienteering is continuing to evolve - detailed professionally surveyed large scale 'technical' maps (as no doubt used at Forvie) were part of that evolution. The park orienteering in Glasgow is just a continuation.

I'd quite like to do the Surrey Hills race on a mountain bike - we could call it Mountain Bike Orienteering and attract mountain bikers

[MikeShires]

Just some input and general ramblings from our recent experiences of promoting events - TVOC has now held the second of a three event Saturday morning series around Oxford, where we had around 140 runs, 88 of which were independent runners. There were a few other O events on that day, so the event was never going to attract lots of orienteers from other clubs. However, the large number of newcomers more than made up for that.

Interestingly, many of these newcomers were runners, not families, although there were still a fair few of the latter, which made for a good mixed event, albeit with a huge queue at the registration tent!

I've been concentrating our recent publicity on online methods, particularly Facebook, and just under half of these 88 newcomers came as a result of our recent FB advertising campaign. Many of the local running clubs also uploaded pdf flyers of our events to their online forums and electronic newsletters. I'm firmly of the opinion that online marketing is the most effective (time and resource wise) method of attracting newcomers (although that does depend on who your target market is).

Marketing is all about the 4 Ps (Product, Place, Price & Promotion) - being publicity officer I am mainly involved in Promotion, with Place and Price largely pre-decided. However, the Product is equally important - and whether that is park style TD3 races aimed at runners making a step into orienteering, or whether it's more technical events to not 'dumb down' the sport, as others have said, is clearly a bone of contention. However, it's a fundamental marketing principle that the Product needs to respond to the target market. So many organisations don't identify their target market before commencing marketing it's depressing! In relation to orienteering, the Sport England Market Segmentation data tells you exactly what types of people live within a catchment area (right down to postcode level) and which of these segments are likely to want to participate in more (a) outdoor sport, and (b) individual sport. The data even goes further, and contains communication plans for each segment, including how best to target them (newspaper article, FB, Twitter, emails, flyers etc) and to what messages they respond best (i.e. what messages to put on the marketing material - be it exciting, bold messages, or a refined quality theme, or whether money is a driver to participate in sport). It was this data that influenced TVOC's recent marketing, and the numbers of newcomers we've had speak for themselves.

As the runners that attended our recent park event in Oxford seemed to really enjoy it and as many of them indicated they'll be coming to the next event (which is on a more technical area), this is clearly a good stepping stone to 'proper' technical orienteering, so park events and trail runs are important - provided they're marketed correctly! Conversely, introducing runners to technical orienteering and having them get horrendously lost during their first event is likely to put many off for good.

Personally I don't think there needs to be a choice between easier terrain or more technical orienteering - I think there is room for both, to provide variety and to keep the sport sustainable by attracting more newcomers.

[aiming off]

Hugely impressive outcome, and a different mix on the Orange course than is the norm.

[Sunlit Forres]

Presumably because you're doing something right up there - time to bottle it and send it Southward

Well obviously not everything, why aren't they joining the club?
Playing devils advocate, or doesn't that matter?

So far, 10 of those unattached runners have joined.

[Shropshire born]

As a runner and part time orienteer I feel that the traditional headbangers will kill the sport they like because they are not prepared to change their ways.
An example of this is the WMOA league is open to all member clubs but to score you must run a certain course. For me a m35 this is blue or brown but I like to run light green a nice mix to make a run more of a challenge and not a long slog in the forest as on my green and blue ventures tried them did not like them. So I don't travel very far to events in the league if fact I have travel past a league event to take part in a fell race where I will score in the winter league even if I come last. Looking at the FRA calendar there are a few orienteering style events that attract tradition runners from running clubs that would never do a Orienteering event. The key to this is a simple format eg score format, time trial or a limited number of courses. With only a few long O events around and the fact that these are not very well attended by orienteers shows that a simple approach will not work.
Equally the rise of park/urban events has it's down side for many including me.
Their trend to be organised on a Saturday means that I can't take part due to a Saturday been part of my working week. Orienteers like to say it's a sport for all yet I don't feel very included at all. Clubs can be very good and mine was when I started out but then when you stop progressing through the TD standards and stop scoring the club any points in club compertions the head bangers can make you feel left out.
I am runner who orienteers and not a orienteer who runs.
I'm a run who likes orienteering and not a orienteer who likes to run.

[andypat]

Is part of the problem the expectation that people join a club in order to orienteer?

Since 1985 I reckon I've averaged 4 or 5 road races a year (more in my 20s when I wasnt orienteering, maybe down to 3 or 4 now)
I've never felt the need to join a running club and always felt it was fairly straightforward to enter as a non SAF member and pay the extra £2.

I'm not so sure if I was looking at orientering from the outside that I'd find it quite so easy to find my niche - joining a club can seem quite a commitment.

[Glucosamine]

An example of this is the WMOA league is open to all member clubs but to score you must run a certain course. For me a m35 this is blue or brown but I like to run light green a nice mix to make a run more of a challenge and not a long slog in the forest as on my green and blue ventures tried them did not like them. So I don't travel very far to events in the league if fact I have travel past a league event to take part in a fell race where I will score in the winter league even if I come last. Looking at the FRA calendar there are a few orienteering style events that attract tradition runners from running clubs that would never do a Orienteering event. The key to this is a simple format eg score format, time trial or a limited number of courses. With only a few long O events around and the fact that these are not very well attended by orienteers shows that a simple approach will not work.

The deal at most FRA events or road races (juniors and sometimes women apart) is generally that you run the (generally single) course provided or not at all. If you want a longer or shorter course you go elsewhere that day. That O requires interval starts to avoid following limits numbers, so even if we all wanted to run the same course, numbers might preclude this (relays and other mass start events apart). Picking a course from a menu is therefore a luxury which O offers naturally. Some leagues (e.g. BOF) allow different courses to count - others (e.g. some regional associations) don't. Is it any more reasonable to expect volunteers organising competitive leagues to accommodate course choice (especially given calculation difficulties in comparison much discussed elsewhere) than to expect fell races to put on multiple courses because the Stretton Skyline looks a long way compared to an easy jaunt up the Mynd? For one, I enjoy running head to head with my vet peers in FRA, AAA and parkrun events, and find it frustrating when competitors on what might be very different courses are compared in a league. What flexibility might win in new recruits might lose a corresponding number of the old guard. Babies and bathwater spring to mind. And last time I looked, there were a good number of orienteers at the established mountain marathons, even if my knees don't allow me to enjoy that particular brand of masochism any more.

[Sunlit Forres]

In our club leagues you run whatever course you like. Simples. The harder the course/better you do, the more points you score. Probably one of the most useful things about the league tables is that they show at a glance how many members are taking part, and how often.

[SeanC]

Slight apologies for resurrecting this old thread.

I was thinking today that the turnout at today's level C event at Limpsfield Chart wasn't that great considering the glorious weather and top quality area. My club keeps results on the website going back to 2001 so I checked the long term trend, and it seems that the declining trend for this area at least is only gradual.

Here's the attendances at events at Westerham/Limpsfield Chart for level C events and equivalent events (district events in the past).

Dec 02: 200
Dec 03: 250
Mar 07: 150
Mar 10: 195
Mar 14: 170

[Clive Coles]

Unable to check as the event Sean mentions has taken place and entry fee details have disappeared from the web. But... i rather regret the trend that is developing for fixtures to have pre-entry at so many level C events with closing dates so far in advance of the date of the event. I know entries are usually accepted on the day subject to map availability, but there is often a price increase for being a "bad" boy and not committing yourself and possibly family by at the "required" time. Not particularly friendly for orienteers who plan their lives around other activities other than orienteering.

i can see justification for pre-entries and closing dates at level B and of course level A. But for your regular Sunday morning level C fixtures is this really necessary ?

If this was the case last weekend ,I just pose the question ~ were you shooting yourselves in the foot ?