BOF- A Turning Point

[Mrs H.]

Anyone read John Morris' article in compassSport yet? Briiliant!

You see it's not just me who thinks the tail is wagging the dog. Thought Bob Roach's response proved John's point nicely - "No, we are not going to repsond to this because we don't want to talk about it" Like John says:"Who's the boss?"

Is John on nope? would like to hear from him.

[RJ]

Any chance of getting the article online to read?

[gross2006]

Well if that is the John Morriss I know from days gone past.... don't buy a stamp.... you'll need to fill in 20 forms:)

[eddie]

the article is in this months compass sport and having just read it myself john has laid out a good case. hopefully some good discussion will come from this.

[Mrs H.]

RJ - you are meant to buy the magazine

[PorkyFatBoy]

I was wondering how long it would take till someone mentioned that article on Nopesport. Well worth a read as it goes beyond rant into suggesting alternatives.

[Guest]

Mrs H wrote:

RJ - you are meant to buy the magazine

Why? I was just hoping we could have a read of the comments for all those people who don't subscribe to the magazine. Then it might encourage others to subscribe!

[Becks]

I won't get to see it till I go home at the weekend - what does it say?

[Mrs H.]

Well, I don't want to do Suse out of her livelihood - and as Gross suggests - it is a fulsome and well written piece - but basically it questions BOF's existing function in the sport and suggests that it has moved from being a service provider (the services required by the members who should be calling the shots) to a directorate dictating the direction of the sport and telling the members what is required to go in that direction. John, who is a business analyst, suggests that it is quite common for organisations like BOF to move away from their original objectives towards personal survival mode - which may have little or nothing to do with facilitating the sport but everything to do with qualifying for money from various sources. He says the BOF was very badly set up in the first place which has made everything complicated. He says there is a lack of transparency in that members are not being told how various initiatives are doing, and a general lack of communication in that members are only being told the things BOF wants hem to know. He says members should vote for the functions they want BOF to perform on a rolling basis and BOF should be concentrating on increasing participation instead of trying to get more money out of fewer people.

[Klebe]

Excellent summary Mrs H.

[Godders]

I suspect it comes down to do we want funding for the World Champs team or not?

[gross2006]

A big thank you to all who volunteered at the Outdoor Adventure, Olympia this weekend. It was a huge success and there was a hundred of requests for club details in the South East area. The main aim of the event was to promote the World Cup and drum up awareness and interest which was achieved over the weekend.


Above is a quote from BOF website. If one of BOF's major functions is to increase participation then we now have something that can be measured & I hope BOF will publish a report after the WC to show us how effective this has been. According to above we should see a measurable increase in club membership & a significant number of non orienteering spectators at the WC events.

I wasn't at the Outdoor show so can comment on that specifically but I have been involved/seen a number of these things in the past & I'm afraid they have made about zero impact in the long term..... hope I'm proved wrong but I doubt the Show will increase specators at WC by anymore than a dozen:)

[Ed]

without having read the article, I'd have to question whether BOF is meant to be a service provider or a governing body (aka directorate). Since it is the sport's official governing body for the UK then I'd have thought that it was meant to be doing some governing - which usually implies a leadership role. Surely the question is therefore simply whether the leadership is heading in the right direction or has made a 180° error (wrong direction) compounded by a series of parallel errors (failure to recognise wrong direction, still believe heading in the right direction) and is rapidly leaving the map, with the next question being how can anyone else tell that the mistake's been made until they get to look at the splits afterwards (this isn't the last leg of the Spring Cup relay, there is no GPS tracking)?

OK, so it's a stupid analogy, and I can't believe I'm actually writing something that could be considered a defense of BOF, but effectively having an annual referendum to decide what should be done sounds to me like a recipe for nothing ever being done, and what is done not being done properly.

[Ed]

According to above we should see a measurable increase in club membership & a significant number of non orienteering spectators at the WC events.

there will be a significant number of non-orienteering spectators at the world cup. Having a race in Battersea Park on May Day bank holiday will see to that.

Whether these spectators *want* to see the orienteering is an entirely different question... (cue complaints about poodles being trampled to death, etc.)

[Mrs H.]

As you say Ed, you need to read the article - it is very well thought out and I cannot summarise all its point in a few paragraphs. godders - elite performance is exactly a function that BOF should be looking after. I have sent an email to Neil Crickmore - who has popped up on nope and is the only southdowner i know of - and asked him to tell john morris that we are debating his article if he might care to look and even comment. He does however say that he is not accusing BOF of wasting the money - he is simply saying he is not being told how effective the expenditure is - a lot of things have been presented to us as facts which may not stand upt o closer examination - such as - clubs had £5-10 K sitting in the bank (does yours) people are prepared to spend more on leisure (some people are prepared to pay a lot to join and expensive gym and get some exercise) schools initiatives bring in lots of new members (for the effort involved they seem to present a very small return). Everyone try and read the article if you can.