Mapper as Controller? Ranmore Compass Sport Cup

[PeterRiches]

First time I have seen this was yesterday @Ranmore, just wondered if anybody has any thoughts on the practice?

[EddieH]

Not good IMO. I once saw it at a JK Relay!

[NeilC]

Not ideal but always difficult for a CSC match where the grade2/B controllers want to compete for their club rather than control. MV did try and find an external volunteer but for various reasons none came forward. Perhaps when the level B concept beds in and officials are appointed 12 months in advance then this will improve.

[Clive Coles]

I don't think anyone would think that the practice of doubling up the duties of event officials was best practice. It leads too easily to "just in time" event organisation.

But we have brought this upon ourselves by developing an increasing appetite for more cups and competitions. and high quality "worth travelling to" level B events.

We are still very dependent on a small pool of key officials to whom we turn when ever we want organisers, planners, controllers and mappers. Too often it's the same folk who have the necessary experience to cover these same 4 roles at the larger events. New recruits to the panels don't just appear.

So, rather than tut tut and say it shouldn't be happening let's also thank the guys who actually made the event happen.

[AndyC]

I'm looking to "do the courses" to qualify as a "B" planner and controller ( I have the relevant experience it seems) at which point I know I will be persuaded to fulfill one of those roles for CSC in NE simply because I'm too slow (and fat ) to ever score well and I'm therefore no loss to my club.

[SeanC]

One way you could make this less likely is to change the scoring to reduce the impact of clubs that have key runners controlling/planning/organising.

For example, lets say MV yesterday had two competitors who couldn't compete because they were planner or controller/mapper. In the trophy for all other clubs the 13 best score, but the score = the average score from each of the 13. For MV they are allowed to have their best 11 only, and their score is the average of the best 11.

[Clive Coles]

One thing we do in EAland is to make the CSC event an association run event. We try to enlist fixture officials and mappers from different clubs to spread the load and to allocate "on the day" responsibilities to different clubs.

This means no one club takes the hit: the organisational impact on each clubs chances is, by so doing, kept to a minimum.

For the CSC, the cash surplus becomes the association's income rather than that of the club who organises or "owns" the map. It's our way of helping to finance the associations activities.

EAOA does not charge its club members an additional (separate) EAOA membership as well as the BOF membership. Instead the association derives it funds through a levy on clubs based on capitation.

[EddieH]

Quote "We are still very dependent on a small pool of key officials to whom we turn when ever we want organisers, planners, controllers and mappers. Too often it's the same folk who have the necessary experience to cover these same 4 roles at the larger events. New recruits to the panels don't just appear."

And will do so even less with the new qualification requirements I read about in Focus, to say nothing of current officials that will drop out because of them.

BOF can try to make it sound as positive as they like, but I fear major problems in staffing events in future. My club has cancelled events in the past because NO-ONE was available to organise, and we once outsourced the planning role in a Scotlandsgaloppen (spelled correctly ) because no planner was available in the club. As a club we now have a far larger pool of potential officials, but it's not going to get easier with dictatorial requirements.

[Urban]

You only have to read some of the attackpoint logs from those that were there to see this was a bit of an issue. Independant eyes.............

[graeme]

Been there, done that, Edinburgh street race. We don't have enough volunteers to be picky, and it takes out one fewer person, the map should be well done before the controlling starts (OK this doesn't always happen, regardless of how many officials there are). I think its especially OK for urban maps where there's less subjectivity in the mapping.

[PeterRiches]

Thanks Urban, exactly the point I was trying to raise.

[graeme]

@PeterRiches
I don't see your point is well made at all. We've all been to poor events with a different controller from the mapper. And good events when the same person does both. If you're beefing about a particular poorly planned race, you should come out and say so; in a constructive way, pointing out exactly what could be done better and where attention might be paid to remapping before the next event.

Ranmore is based on a very old map (it was old when I ran there 25 year ago!), the GPS traces suggest it is quite distorted, as OS maps-based of that era tend to be. Very often, when I'm controlling or planning, I find the map needs updating (and I do so). Sometimes I have to put in so much work I feel I should get my name on the map (my threshhold for this is >50 corrections). What do you think the controller should do? - leave the map wrong? Cancel the event? Postpone it until the club gets a remap? Ban the planner from using half the control sites? Spend hours mapping for no recognition at all?

[PeterRiches]

Where these jobs are combined the Controller is hardly likely to send the map back, or ask for a revision, which an independent official may well have done.

We all know how hard it is to get the event "right" and there are always things that could have been done better, I am sure that all planners and controllers would agree, that hindsight makes everything better.

By combining these jobs, however, you are reducing your chances of it being as good as you can make it and sadly I think that was the experience on Sunday.