Money - too tight to mention?

[SeanC]

Not intending to be a doom and gloom thread - just wondering what people think will be the impact of the budget/spending cuts on us in the next few years?

Some thoughts

Could be good if people prefer orienteering to expensive gyms or more expensive hobbies.

Could be bad if a 25% reduction in public spending impacts on BOF, sports council, land use fees etc etc.

[geomorph]

Sean,

Increased unemployment over the past 21 months has led to a 10-15% fall in golf club membership around here, and our tennis club is down 5%, though because both are patronised by employment sectors which have not experienced as large an increase in unemployment as industrial/retail/small business, then this understates the national effect on discretionary sports spend.

I do not think these people have changed to lower cost sports. Many had memberships of two or more 'status' clubs, and just chose to reduce visibility to a single club.

Nationally, the bite will be big for sports at the margin of perceived relevance, which of course will be those that have relatively low participation, attract middle income and above participants, do not do well in the ethnic inclusion stakes and use large amounts of their funding for offshore competition.

The big area of concern for many Orienteering clubs will be the LA funding they receive for promoting sports participation. This will be very tight indeed. Grants will be achieved where the activity can demonstrate high participation and retention levels, so it may mean getting together with other sports clubs to pool resources to produce multi-faceted events and LA-sponsored training/fitness activities.

Already schools are reigning in budgets for AY2010/11 even though funds are ring fenced. Monies are being placed into agreed retention budgets so that they can be carried forward into the tight years to come. I suspect part of those monies will come from discretionary external sports spend.

20% VAT. For low cost things it will hardly cause a blink. High priced discretionary will be affected as available cash will have been limited by the increased-spend on the low cost stuff. BOF may be affected but may benefit from changes in NI given its employment structure.

Car parking charges at public locations will rise.

[greywolf]

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/ ... 006232841/

[Scott]

I think I read somewhere the County Sports Partnerships in England are going to be (have been?) axed as part of the cuts. I know that quite a few clubs have benefited from working with these, so if it's true then that will be one cut that has a direct impact.

Edit: apparently I read it here, but a bit of digging suggests that it's actually the Department of Health's (relatively minor) contribution to the CSPs that is being cut, and the Sport England funding, which makes up the bulk of the money, is being left alone (for the moment). So (probably) a false alarm.

[Mrs H]

I'm sure a bit of creative thinking could present orienteering to such LA bods as an extremely good value (free-ish) activity to be promoted - if that's the way you want to take things Perhaps some of our development officers could look at ways of presenting the sport as an austerity alternative to some of the more expensive pursuits - particularly the urban variety which often requires a lot of LA good will

[SeanC]

Bexley council, probably like most others, have stated aims and lots of documentation about how they want to promote healthy living and sport in their borough, and particularly at groups that tend not to do that much sport. They are always very helpful with access to parks, and putting up banners, but their beaurocracy can be irritating (eg official logos and approval before posters can go up in leisure centres).

In the immediate future I would look at getting publicity in council newsletter. Lewisham always put something in "Lewisham Life" about events in Greenwich Park and it seems to generate 10-20 newcomers each time. The magazine has the worthy aim of promoting sport, activities, council services etc which is quite difficult in our local papers (we once appeared next to an article about how to kick a crack cocaine addition in Lewisham Life) but is a dead cert for the chop in the next few years.

Also the county sports/schools sports co-ordinator route - definately worth using whilst it's there if only to learn how they do it. One of the best I've seen builds a network of contacts through schools which he uses to promote sport - often via email/internet. He uses the schools as a way of reaching the parents for primary school aged children, and appealing direct to the secondary aged children. Some are better than others though.

[andypat]

If on average people will be worse off - we will with the VAT and the tax credit going - it will likely mean that less people will feel able to travel to events less often. I'd suggest we get a bit more creative with car pooling etc to save our collective pennies!

[Red Adder]

I haven't heard the smug TV pundits mention yet that the VAT increase means around 3p a litre on petrol (£1.50 a tank) , which will impact on most people. Of course last time the Tories felt compelled to make massive cuts Maggie was helped out of her pit on unpopularity by the Falklands war.

[AndyC]

Unfortunately we're already in two wars

We should also think about the affect on Army Orienteering -both loss of competitors and potentially loss of funding for the events they organise. I keep coming across orienteers with tattered BAOC shirts showing where they started the sport.

But on the green agenda and for cost reduction car pooling and minibuses are going to be an increasing aspect

[Blanka]

Despite risking being shot down in flames I'll stick my head out and suggest that the demographic of orienteers (and that does include the 20 and 30-somethings who orienteer) is such that people will be able to afford that extra £1.50 a petrol tank or the extra VAT on the O shoes/compasses/kit they buy. From a totally unscientific poll, I get the impression that most orienteers are university graduates with reasonably well paid jobs and they are the ones who shouldn't be hit too hard by the new taxation? Recruitment of new types of people may be a different matter, I admit.

My view is that surely if the country is in a better state economically then that's good for all of us in the long term. Also, the VAT of 17.5 was actually one of the lowest in Europe and bringing it up to 20% has simply brought it in line with what most other European countries charge.

[Paul Frost]

Orienteering is not the cheapest sport to be involved with and not as "green" as it sounds so it could suffer in the future.

We are in the process of putting together ideas/plans/solutions on how we can reduce the carbon footprint of the Scottish 6 Days 2011 in Oban.

Part of our problem is that we tend to drive many miles to events in low occupancy vehicles many of which have a high fuel consumption.

We have solved that problem by having all 6 days within a very short distance of each other. So once you get there your milage will be very low, but Oban will be a long drive for many people.
So you could save money and reduce your carbon emissions by staying in Oban for 2 weeks and making a holiday of it as well. To make sure that you can find things to do for the extra week we will be offering training/coaching during the week before the event (including Kerrera).

[frog]

I think fuel costs will be increasingly important as people have less money to spend generally. People may become more selective about which events they attend

[King Penguin]

... so expect the mix of popular / well attended events to gradually change.
More emphasis on good Local events close to home and less on big National / other events farther away.
No doubt this will have an impact on ranking calculations as people compete against thsoe from other regions less frequently.

[AndyC]

Finance is an issue. I had a extended period of unemployment a decade or so ago and completely disappeared with my family from orienteering because I had no car to go to events and (this was before we embraced the Internet so well) didn't know about the events I could have got to by public transport, bike or walking.

[SeanC]

From reading these posts, I'm optimistic that individual clubs are in a good position. Few are dependant directly on state funding, and I think there's lots of scope to adapt to these changes- eg more local events, reduce embargos to make greater use of areas. I also think orienteering can expand whatever the economy, simply because there is lots of untapped demand out there.

However from reading geomorph's post, and words coming out of the news, The government element of BOF funding looks at great risk. We may need to radically rethink how and what BOF does, and lots of change in that area looks likely. I'd say we need to prepare to be very patient with BOF and to also pay more to BOF (as well as car parking, land use etc etc)... even more reasons to make sure events become more local with fewer district/regional/national events in the short/medium term.