gg wrote: what would make the people who didn't come change their minds.
It seems fairly clear that putting on an attractive weekend of events is key (e.g. another British champs, or an area champs, or at least a UKOL race). Look at the teams entries. They are almost exclusively from relatively nearby clubs, suggesting most just travelled on the day. Hardly any teams from Scotland, north east, south east/central/west, Wales...
SROC 7
DEE 6
LOC 6
MDOC 4
DVO 2
EPOC 2
HALO 2
NOC 2
OD 2
PFO 2
WCH 2
FVO 1
RR 1
SELOC 1
SHUOC 1
SLOW 1
graeme wrote: Urban-WOC is going to introduce a new format which, from all I've seen, will be very elite-focussed. Whatever that is, it will soon be clamouring for space in the calendar, so getting ahead of the curve and combining it with MSR would be good (and from a development point of view, put it in University term, and dont clash with JWOC).
Clamouring for space in what calendar? If it is "very elite-focussed" it doesn't sound like the sort of thing that the typical demographic of UK orienteers will jump at the chance to put on or attend.
From sitting on the Event Scheduling Group, I think things are fairly sorted for the next couple of years:
2018: Sprint/Middle SWOA, BMSR + UKOL urban NATO
2019: Sprint/Middle EMOA, BMSR AIRE? (not sure what combined with)
But then there is a tentative plan in 2020 to have a British Middle + Northern Champs weekend, and a British Sprint + Sprint Relay weekend, both in NWOA. Personally I think that is a good combination, a British sprint focussed weekend, and combining the middles with an area champs. Although it is true that some will feel it isn't worth travelling far for just 2-3 sprint races in one weekend (those who count "value for money" just by number of minutes on their course, ignoring other things like excitement, intensity, number of controls, atmostphere, etc.)