paid 'jobs for the boys' in Orienteering

[Guest]

Where do we draw the line? If we go 'professional' so to speak. Are the people manning road crossings, running the start, car parking etc who give up two thirds of their Sunday (or more) at least not equally entitled to be paid for their time. If we adopted this approach event fees would rocket sky high. 'Volunteers' doing these jobs may soon become disillusioned knowing fellow members of the club are being paid for their time. Volunteers would then dwindle, costs would rise and the sport would ultimately fail by pricing itself out of the market. To many, a fiver to run through a forest, multiplied 3 or 4 times for a family could be money better spent elsewhere.

[FatBoy]

Sorry if I might appear biased as I am a mate of Stodge's but I'm sure he's not out to attack Mike Napier's skill/professionalism etc. I think it's basically two things:

1) The amount of money involved is quite alot and there's fear that this sort of professionalism within the sport will kill it

2) The fact that the WCH SI team who also do a fantastic job every race for FREE weren't even considered

With regard to the BOF site I think the main problem isn't the fact that it's not flashy but more that the logos etc on it are very poor and n months on it still isn't finished. If I did that sort of job for my customers I'd never get paid.

[Gillian]

About the BOF site - i find it very hard to find things on it. Admittedly I'm not the most adept at using web-sites, but the old one did seem much easier to find things like results, fixture lists, ranking lists etc

[G]

3k
sorry. tourette syndrome.

completely agree with FatBoy's last post, its nothing to do with mike napier himself, its the fact that they could get the same service, or at least close, for free, from the locals.

i think its down to people who dont really know about technology organsing stuff, but there is no solution to that as these are the people we need and depend upon to appear time and time again organising stuff, the people with their heads screwed on are doing other things, not so motivated, not retired.

controversial me.

[Supersaint]

on the note of costs for events, i went to an AIRE Wednesday evening informal where i paid 50p (yep, i claimed student rate!) for my 3 runs totalling about 10km - roughly 1p/200m. that's the kind of costs i want to see! (and yes, before everyone tells me, i know it was only a training event, didn't have electronic punching and didn't really need much organisation, but it did have a new, pretty accurate map)

[brooner]

pah, we had to pay £2 (adult rate - they wouldn't give up the junior rate despite being students) on wednesday to run round a pretty crap area - only got 7 controls for my money too! Considering most CC's in the area give us junior rate which ends up as either £1.50 or £2 I wasn't best pleased forking out that for a measily wednesday evening event.

[David]

ouch, its obviously more expensive up north.
50p for a control pick of 24 controls in 4.7km at the local LEI summer league event last night

[andy]

pah, we had to pay £2 (adult rate - they wouldn't give up the junior rate despite being students) on wednesday to run round a pretty crap area - only got 7 controls for my money too! Considering most CC's in the area give us junior rate which ends up as either £1.50 or £2 I wasn't best pleased forking out that for a measily wednesday evening event.

it's actually a BOF policy that students pay the reduced rate. I was speaking to Suse Coon (with her BOF councellor hat on) about this as I raised it at the SOA AGM last year that clubs didn't really know about it. She was going to take it to BOF that an email should be circulated among clubs that students pay the reduced fee. We might see knowledge of it yet!!

[Stodgetta]

Ouch!
You want to be a Chaser!
Training events every Tuesday thru' the summer, usually to practice a technique, but courses suitable for novices and experts, and novelty events, too. SI used to encourage juniors (if it's not out on hire), and all on the doorstep for most Chasers (an advantage of being a nucleated club). Best of all, it's FREE.
Different people planning/organising and gaining experience, all doing it voluntarily.
(We also have free circuit training/swimming all winter, and club runs once a week year round....).

In defence of my husband, he did say Mike Napier does a good job and has no complaints about his work at all. It's just a shame Stodge is not "tried and tested" in the eyes of the JK organising committee (despite doing every Chasers event for 2 years:FCC/UK Cup, JIRC's, CSC, YBT final next December and working professionally for SportIdent at Corporate Challenges). If he's not given the chance, how can he (or anyone else in the country) be "tried and tested" and be allowed to do it voluntarily, saving £££'s from entry fees for us?

[MarkC]

pah, we had to pay £2 (adult rate - they wouldn't give up the junior rate despite being students) on wednesday

You should definitely complain about this - students paying junior rates has been around for years now. Are there any students on the committee of whichever the organising club was to help make the case?

On the other hand, though, do you really think that it's that unreasonable to pay the cost of a pint of beer for entry to an event? After all, the costs of maps, planner's travel, possibly land access need to be covered, and I doubt that any club's informal evening events are intended to make a profit.

Stodgetta: I'm impressed to hear that WCH's evening events are free, but I'd guess this is only for club members, rather than anyone that turns up?

[Steler]

Having talked to members of the JK2005 committee it is obvious that they have gone for the safe option by employing Mike Napier. Who can blame them. They are trying to produce a great JK but the slightest problem with results and there will be all the whingers putting the event down. If I was on the committee I would certainly voted for Mike Napier as I believe and have been told that he is the best and also the only person with the multi day and relay experience required and of working with the commentary teams.

[rob f]

Having talked to members of the JK2005 committee it is obvious that they have gone for the safe option by employing Mike Napier. Who can blame them. They are trying to produce a great JK but the slightest problem with results and there will be all the whingers putting the event down. .

Yeah, and dad isn't safe - come on russ we're getting a east midlander when we have 2 west midlanders in stodge and dad who can do the job well enough

[brooner]

pah, we had to pay £2 (adult rate - they wouldn't give up the junior rate despite being students) on wednesday

You should definitely complain about this - students paying junior rates has been around for years now. Are there any students on the committee of whichever the organising club was to help make the case?

On the other hand, though, do you really think that it's that unreasonable to pay the cost of a pint of beer for entry to an event? After all, the costs of maps, planner's travel, possibly land access need to be covered, and I doubt that any club's informal evening events are intended to make a profit.

It was FVO organising so perhaps they aren't as used to assisting students as the Edinburgh clubs are. I wouldn't mind paying £2 for a decent event, but this was a wee C5 on a country park and not nearly as enjoyable as the two CC's i had at the weekend which cost me a grand total of £3 for two days racing in quality terrain.

Ok, the maps for these had been printed for the event and as there wouldn't have been that many of them I think they might have cost as much as 50p a map. they were using control cards that were older than me so they can't have cost much or else would have been written off many moons ago. Are there any BOF levies on C5's?

[G]

stop bumming mike napier!

we at chasers are nice enough not to require proof of membership at everying we do, so we dont charge people for training who are not members, we are pleased at the fact that some new faces are there and try to get them to become part of the club without asking them to hand over money.... that will come with time ....

[awk]

Are there any BOF levies on C5's?

The levy is calculated for all events (bar BOC and JK which are 'levied' via a proportion of the profits), but the first £X is then written off. I think that figure is around £50 at present, which means that the vast majority of C5s don't pay, maybe all?