No M/W20s in the YBT

[Mrs H]

........I also see that M/W20s will no longer be included in the YBT. Again I don't have any overwhelming feelings about this EXCEPT that it is a tool to keep a very fragile age group active in the sport so I'm not sure where the actual benefits lie.

[awk]

Sad about that. They were included for a very specific reason, and I can't see any real reason for excluding them.

[RJ]

When you examine the results from previous years it is a group of first year Uni students who are being encouraged to come along and run Orange, score high points and help their adopted club to win. It is usually a very small number of competitors in this group.... fragile age group they may be, but not the sort of fragility that is solved by running against 11 and 12 year olds.

There are plenty of other opportunities to introduce this 'fragile' group to orienteering, many opportunities that are far more appropriate. Through Uni connections they can enter the sport, and compete in the sport, with their peers.

The 20s that are competent and running the higher colours... they are well 'hooked' and need no enticement!

The fragile group we need to protect are the younger juniors, who are developing and improving in Orange and don't need to be 'beaten into submission' by students twice their size!

A very sensible amendment IMO, and one I have campaigned for for several years now.

[Blanka]

I totally disagree with you, RJ, and think it is a bad idea to have disenfranchised the M/W20's of the clubs. As a W20 (since I am a December birthday and started orienteering only at 16, therefore going almost straight into the 18 class), I was heavily involved as a club junior captain, club junior newsletter editor and came back to run for the club at the YBT when at University. I somehow doubt I would have been so involved had I not been eligible to run in any junior competition at all.

Here's what I wrote to the EA rep when asked about position on this for the JCG meeting earlier this year:

"I am not so sure about the removal of M/W20's. Think of someone like me who started getting involved in the club stuff at around 16 (late) which meant only two or 3 years of the PP's [and running for the regional junior squad]. But as I could run for the club in YBT, I stayed in touch longer and was more than happy to come back and run for the club and keep a sort of feedback loop. Similarly for the [other O family] who came back from quite afar. Whilst at Sheffield (and now here at Oxford) I have seen many other students who were 19/20 going back to support their home clubs in YBT rounds so think it would be a shame to lose this source of feedback. Having said that, I agree that the 20s shouldn't be thrashing the little juniors on the orange and would be all for introducing a rule that lets M/W20s only run green (possibly light green?) upwards, and I would also suggest reintroducing a blue course which can be run by the 20s to make their journeys from Uni worthwhile."

In my view, this decision by BOF was a bad one and it's a shame to disenfranchise the older juniors in this way.

[Clive Coles]

I think the case for inclusion is well put Blanka. Agree there needs to be rule that stops M/W20's from dominating the youngsters by entering orange & shorter non-technical courses.

Up until now YBT has always been staged in conjunction with a regular club colour-coded event. Providing we stick with that way of running the competition I see no problem with scoring M/W20's on Blue or Green courses. These courses are being planned for most Sunday morning fixtures.

One of the problems with orienteering is that clubs loose track on many juniors once they go to University. The YBT is one way that this link may be retained.

[RJ]

I emphasise with you both, Blanka and Clive Coles, and I campaigned only for the Orange course not to be used as this was an inappropriate competition for that age group. The solution, since the range of ability being shown by M/W20s is so large, is to have another appropriate competition for the older age groups. The YBT was invented to include juniors.... nothing stopping us having a higher age group competition for the Uni starters.

Whilst I do not wish to see any M/W20 leave the sport because of them being disenfranchised at some point, I also do not wish to see a set of upcoming M/W11s being lost because they are competing unfairly against much older and bigger 'kids!!'

[andy]

nothing stopping us having a higher age group competition for the Uni starters.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10515

[SeanC]

The biggest problem for the younger juniors is that many, probably most, clubs have no realistic hope of raising a full team (9 required, but spread across different ages/courses). In this respect removing M/W 20's makes this problem a little bit worse.

We've had a few families join us recently but the children are all quite young. A small clubs competition allowing say 5 in a team where they can run any course might be achievable for us, but with the existing rules my club would need to double it's size to have a realistic hope of raising a team. That may or may not spur our long term development, but it won't help our existing youngsters get to the YBT in the next few years.

[Rookie]

From my experience this will be bad.
While I was there and before, my uni club has had a good number of new M/W20 orienteers run at YBT.
They ran the orange course, some getting beaten by the kids, and at least two (a good percentage for a small uni club) of the have joined the local open club as a result and are still orienteering.
Without being able to compete (some could in the first term of first year as M/W18s) they probably won't join the local club and are more likely to drop out of the sport after uni, like others I know from uni.

andy mentions BUCS. Not much chance of a someone new doing well there. Yes they run and have a good time but at YBT on the orange they are actually scoring. Good motivation.

A "uni league" or encouraging more uni clubs to hold friendly matches against neighbours would be good, but is a lot of work for the students to do themselves. There is a University Development Officer now though...
From experience having a competition that the M/W20 novices can compete (and count) at is important to keeping them in orienteering and encouraging them to do more.

PP Relays should be M/W20 free though. Don't want EUOC/ShUOC(/OUOC?) winning that!

[awk]

The age old argument of younger children being put off by being beaten by older ones. Lots of righteous indignation, almost entirely from the grown ups.

So where's the meat? That rule including M/W20s has been in the competition since the days I first set up the inter-club junior match which eventually grew into the YBT. In all that time nobody has as far as I know been able to point to a single child who was put off the sport by having to compete against novice older teenagers. Of course, things may have changed (I let loose the strings a few years ago), but in the first decade or so that I was involved, not a single shred of evidence for that statement, so has anything changed? Can anybody actually point to someone actually put off?

On the other hand, there have been a number of older teenagers who have been included in the club team, and appreciated the chance to be so. Also a number of clubs able to field teams who haven't otherwise been able to do so. The advantages have strongly outweighed the whingeing of the grown ups.

One thing to remember - the competition was never meant to be about younger juniors, but about developing juniors. So younger ones came in and were sometimes beaten by older ones, gaining experience, but still contributing. Get used to being beaten by others, as long as they are of the same standard so the competition is even.

What IS needed is a set of rules that is able to differentiate ability (NOT age), the ones used when first setting the competition up being somewhat out of date (an issue not yet adequately tackled), and now open to (usually inadvertant) abuse, which may have led to this decision.

[mike g]

The biggest problem for the younger juniors is that many, probably most, clubs have no realistic hope of raising a full team

That could be solved by allowing neighbouring clubs to enter a combined team.

[Tatty]

This is already allowed

[haloite]

This is already allowed

only "small" neighbouring clubs as far as I'm aware - you can't have a "large" club combining with a "small" club, only "small" with "small" - correct me if I'm wrong - I'm sure you will !!

[graeme]

Yes, this is a fragile age when people are looking to move on to new things. The question is whether this is a bad thing, and we should desparately hang on to who we have, or an opportunity to grab new recruits. There's no reason not to have a novice competition at BUCS. As was said elsewhere, it's completely left to the organisers to sort the event out.

Been a while since I was a student, but the strong thing I recall was how good it was being a member of the Uni club. And the thing I disliked was how people from an orienteering background had these divided loyalties to home club/squad etc. Maybe its all different now, but it seems to me that in putting on non-elite competitions for M/W20s, it would make more sense to do it in the forward-looking context of competing for a University club, than looking back to the club (some) people had as a child.

[Dave]

YBT is a junior competiton. M20s are juniors. let them blomin run, even if you need to make a blue rather than the measly green.