Ideal size for an orienteering club?

[SeanC]

I've had various conversations over the years with people who have toyed with the idea of restructuring elsewhere (both merging small clubs and splitting big clubs) and I wonder what others think? Is there an ideal size? What's too big and what's too small?

The advantages of being in a big club could be:

- competitors more likely to be able to enter club team competitions (eg YBT, Harvesters, Relay.
- club members more likely to find people of similar background (eg elite types to train together, families to do O holidays together), and more likely to see people at big events.
- economies of scale: less committee posts to fill, less websites to build etc. Possibly more likely to find volunteers with the right skills. More likely to have club coaching, more likely to find a good publicity officer etc.
- Branding could help regional publicity (eg club name for a county).
- less likely to be dominated by one or two characters, so change/modernization more likely.

Advantages of a small club could be:

- Committee likely to be known to all members, so "them and us" less likely and possibly more friendly.
- More likely to focus on development in areas good for newcomers (eg in Kent most people live in SE London or Medway towns which have poor orienteering areas)?
- Branding could help local publicity (eg a club name for a town).
- more likely to be dominated by one or two characters, so these characters could force change/modernization without the need to compromise with lots of different views.

[Red Adder]

Interesting thread given the failure of a possible WSX / WIM merger - one club's members very much wanted it the other didn't - as reported in latest CS.

Having been in a small club for years I'd say around 40 units is really too small - you generally run all all your events on a knife edge as far as volunteers are concerned and know that if the three or four of the key members should drop out for whatever reason the club could effectively fold within months unless you rapidly made the hard decisions as to what could still be achieved and what would have to be dropped.

I'd therefore say 60 units is possibly an optimum minimum number and once you get above 150 units, if their is sufficient land available, having a couple of clubs would be sustainable and add a bit of local competitive interest.

Having said that there are currently a lot of clubs happily soldiering on with 40 or less units.

[Clive Coles]

Tend to agree with that assessment RedA. A membership of 40ish is a bit low especially when your membership is already drawn from an entire County. But to merge would probably extend the new club boundary across two of our Eastern Counties.

I think the bigger clubs (such as Southdowns) are successful because, within their area, they are able to resource their helpers from groups of members which are centered on different towns and forests. They have the numbers that allows them to share the load of running local events so that travel is not too time consuming for the team concerned.

Mergers could work though the success may be determined by the way the combined membership is clustered across an enlarged footprint.

[Gross]

One..... then there is no problem to worry about political nonsense that invades orienteering

[andypat]

Even then I suspect you'd be heckling yourself at the AGM

[Gnitworp]

... and would it be quorate?

[madmike]

If the constitution was carefully crafted - yes i am sure MiddxO may help with evidence here as I think they had 1 member at one stage but the club subsequently underwent a 600% expansion!

[SeanC]

If a club's job was just to organise local events (and didn't need a chairman, safety officer, publicity officer, results secretary blah blah) I think you could get away with 10 or 20 units if the local events were simple enough. Clubs can join together to organise regionals.

However even 60 units looks a bit small from the competitors viewpoint. Would that be enough for a full CSC, YBT, Harvesters team? In the end it's the competition that matters for long term retention.

Im not sure it would matter to have a club that spanned 2 or more counties. Ideally a club would just be for one town so people could meet up for midweek training and transport, but this seems a long way off given the UK orienteering numbers. Once the club covers half a county, why not 2?

Maybe the sticking point is wanting to keep clubs alive because of all the work that's gone on in the past?

Have any clubs looked into the possibility of devolution? Splitting their club into local sections for local training, organising local events etc, whilst keeping the big club to enter competitions, committee stuff and organising big events?

[madmike]

Have any clubs looked into the possibility of devolution? Splitting their club into local sections for local training, organising local events etc, whilst keeping the big club to enter competitions, committee stuff and organising big events?

Interesting thought Sean, or reverse devolution might be even better in some circumstances.

I:E. Join smaller clubs together as an alliance club for major compettions (BOC,JK, CS Cup YBT et al) but retain a MADO-type approach locally for training, social aspects and low key events.

As a hypothetical example and merely to illustrate my point, joining the neghbouring HH, LOK and CHIG into a " reverse devolved" club would create something much more able to compete with the big boys but still have all the advantages of the MADO approach with semi-autonomous sub-clubs based pretty much on the existing clubs.

[Red Adder]

we could cause a lot of upset by suggesting mergers etc of clubs where you don't know the sizes, skills and personalities involved - but what the hell....

In EAOA Havoc & SOS would appear to be the natural Essex county club - though perhaps Havoc & Chig represent NE London & its fringe better. SMOC came partly out of WAOC so could return ? Norfolk is already a merger of Wash and Norwich. Suffolk is really on its own unless it put SOS the sword and took its Colchester & N Essex based members (Constable Country OC ? - despite that area's total lack of woods) - the rest joining Havoc.

Alternately WAOC / Suffok / Norfolk could join together based on their core forests and be called Thetford Chasers - long on acreage, rather short on quality.

Or we could all go back to whence we came - I gather it all started more than 40 years ago as EAOC - ie club before splitting up in to the entities we have today.

Frivolous thoughts no doubt as natural conservatism will prevail but given the sports decline realignment of clubs in to units that would be more viable and in fact in a better position to grow while at the same time reducing administrative costs is surely something we and BOF should be looking into, rather than some of the other gimcrack thoughts that are pursued.

[alanbrett]

Have any clubs looked into the possibility of devolution? Splitting their club into local sections for local training, organising local events etc, whilst keeping the big club to enter competitions, committee stuff and organising big events?

Not as formally, though CHIG have recognised in our new not quite yet signed off Development Plan that we have two very different demographics within our club - the 2/3rd that are based in NE London boroughs and the smaller but more widely dispersed contingent in the M11 corridor (Bishops Stortford/Harlow/East Herts in particular).

Each has needs that are best met in different ways, and we have abandoned a previous CHIG Schools League for example as it was straddling both areas but achieving in neither. We have some a new series launching in the Autumn focused on attracting juniors in NE London as well as new monthly training based in NE London.

How to successful cater for a more widely dispersed group is more of a challenge!

[alanbrett]

Have any clubs looked into the possibility of devolution? Splitting their club into local sections for local training, organising local events etc, whilst keeping the big club to enter competitions, committee stuff and organising big events?

Interesting thought Sean, or reverse devolution might be even better in some circumstances.

I:E. Join smaller clubs together as an alliance club for major compettions (BOC,JK, CS Cup YBT et al) but retain a MADO-type approach locally for training, social aspects and low key events.

As a hypothetical example and merely to illustrate my point, joining the neghbouring HH, LOK and CHIG into a " reverse devolved" club would create something much more able to compete with the big boys but still have all the advantages of the MADO approach with semi-autonomous sub-clubs based pretty much on the existing clubs.

Perhaps a "North London Orienteers" could provide a counter balance to the existing largest London based club!*

Certainly in London memberships are being driven by the perceived level of activity by existing clubs [as well as branding] - so in a way it is the fault of the existing north of the river clubs that SLOW is becoming the biggest club north of the river too.

Something that clubs north of the river need to address if they wish to retain their existence!

*Personal opinion only and not that of CHIG

[SeanC]

Well, running with the North London/Herts example (though you could pick dozens of similar places in the UK) my thought was not so much that clubs join for convenience, but that there could be genuine MADO style development opportunities. So a combined CHIG/LOK/HH club could have sections based on (for example) Watford, Luton/St Albans, Welwyn/Hertford, Bishops Stortford/Harlow, Chigwell and Hampstead. You'd probably need a new club name, which is where things would start to get tricky.

The purpose of each section would be local development, coaching, local events and shared transport to bigger events. From the newcomers viewpoint, that gives mini clubs spaced every 10 miles or so, which is more what people look for when looking for a new activity. Some would then go on to become travellers to the bigger events (including many team competitions which are currently out of reach for those unlucky enough to start in small clubs).

[madmike]

Well, running with the North London/Herts example (though you could pick dozens of similar places in the UK) my thought was not so much that clubs join for convenience, but that there could be genuine MADO style development opportunities. So a combined CHIG/LOK/HH club could have sections based on (for example) Watford, Luton/St Albans, Welwyn/Hertford, Bishops Stortford/Harlow, Chigwell and Hampstead. You'd probably need a new club name, which is where things would start to get tricky.

The purpose of each section would be local development, coaching, local events and shared transport to bigger events. From the newcomers viewpoint, that gives mini clubs spaced every 10 miles or so, which is more what people look for when looking for a new activity. Some would then go on to become travellers to the bigger events (including many team competitions which are currently out of reach for those unlucky enough to start in small clubs).

That is pretty much what I was thinking - a masterly summary

[Clive Coles]

As for names:

North Thames Chasers as the Community Forest of Thames Chase runs through HAVOC and CHIG territory.

Just to provoke RedA who dislikes funny names and spellings : SEASOK ~ South East Anglia Stragglers Orienteering Klub

Not representing anybody ~ especially SUFFOC or SOS !