Event Levy Proposals, 2010

[Spookster]

I have started this new thread, but the previous New Levy proposal thread is obviously relevant.

At the British Orienteering board meeting on 22 October, the board discussed preparations for the 2009 AGM, and specifically under item 7.2 how best to incorporate member discussions into its proposal(s) for levy fees (applicable from 2010). The board minutes are here, but in summary the board is keen to hear alternative proposals that generate the required revenue, before it finalises its proposal to the AGM.

To help members and clubs make such alternative proposals, and see the effect these may have on their own event finances, the levy model spreadsheet with historic participation data will be made available soon.

As a reminder, the levy fees for 2009 will be:
Participants 0 to 75 - free.
From participants 76 to 250 - £1.50 each.
From particpants 251 and above - £2.50 each.
(junior-only events are exempt from levy)

So, proposals welcome soon.

[The Loofa]

keeping it as simple as poss
one junior = 0.25 of a participant

[IanD]

Happy with Andy's suggestion, or even simpler, omit juniors from levy calculations altogether.

Certainly fundamentally opposed to the aspect of the 2009 system which penalises junior-focussed events if they allow seniors to run too.

Approve of the other big change coming in for 2009, the levy becoming independent of the registered grade of the event.

There are always two issues with the levy, how much money should it raise altogether, and how it should be structured. Could we keep this thread to the structure, and if someone wants to debate the ratio of levy income to membership fee income, or the total budget, let them start a second thread?

[Spookster]

keeping it as simple as poss
one junior = 0.25 of a participant

OK, but why 25% in particluar? In order to raise the same total levy per year, which in the 2010 budget is about £116k, either the participation level caps or the lower and higher levy rates would need to change. With juniors counted as 25% for participation and with participation level caps left as is, the levy charge rates would need to be around £2.50 and £3.70, compared to the 2009 figures of £1.50 and £2.50.

Happy with Andy's suggestion, or even simpler, omit juniors from levy calculations altogether.

If juniors are omitted completely (counted as 0% for levy calculation), that is going to make events with a relatively low junior participation pay a much higher levy. That would seem to have pushed the balance too far the other way. Juniors account for about 40% of the total 170,000 participants in orienteering events each year, so removing them completely will make the levy on Adult participants much more costly. That will make little difference to some clubs, but for others the annual levy could rise (or fall) substantially.

The BOF Levy model is available on the BOF website to test alternative scenarios. The Board meets next week and will consider suggested alternatives before making a proposal for the 2009 AGM. In the absence of alternatives the likely proposal will be an increase in the levy charges of 10p on each rate, making them £1.60 and £2.60, but with no change to the way junior participants are counted.

Suggestions are still welcome, by next Tuesday.

[SJC]

If the Juniors count as 0.5 of a competitor then that is in line with the ratio of the senior / junior entry fee at most events.

Rather than substantially raising the levy, reducing the participation levels to say 50 and 200 should achieve a similar result.

[RJ]

I feel that there should be a levy on all entries. The first 75 participants in the current model are free of levy.... there should be some! Twenty pence. A lot of our informal events contribute nothing to the running of BOF, making no contribution to the insurance costs. These events have a low entry fee, so recovering that twenty pence would be no hardship at all.

[Angry Haggis]

Why don't we have levies as a % of entry fees, rather than a fixed cost per competitor? That way, free events and cheap events don't suffer.

Fixed cost levy just encourages events to be ever more expensive - club orienteering events are starting to be more expensive than club running events which is not healthy. Tiering (like the first 75 people free) actually encourages smaller (or more secretive - i.e. club only) events - similarly not good. Flat rate for junior/senior similarly discourages organisers from ensuring good junior participation.

The way I see it, the new levy system encourages smaller, more expensive events with fewer juniors.

[SeanC]

"Why don't we have levies as a % of entry fees, rather than a fixed cost per competitor? "

This would place the burden more heavily on events with high fixed costs (eg high land access fees) and clubs with low participation rates to offset these costs (perhaps because the club is in a remote or peripheral region). This could have a negative impact on development - for example until this year my club has avoided putting on local events in Greenwich Park because of the high access fees - despite it's obvious potential for attracting newcomers. Heaping an extra levy raising burden would make things worse.

[Patrick]

Juniors account for about 40% of the total 170,000 participants in orienteering events each year

The 40% figure seems remarkably high to me, and certainly isn't reflected in any mainstream events I've been to, or even seen results from. Is it generated by including participation in schools or some other mechanism that isn't associated with events put on by clubs?

Cheers,

Patrick

[Spookster]

Juniors account for about 40% of the total 170,000 participants in orienteering events each year

The 40% figure seems remarkably high to me, and certainly isn't reflected in any mainstream events I've been to, or even seen results from. Is it generated by including participation in schools or some other mechanism that isn't associated with events put on by clubs?

Cheers,

Patrick

The figures are from all BOF registered events (in 2007), so that includes schools events organised by clubs or associations, but it would not include orienteering activities in schools.

I don't know what "mainstream events" you've been to, but for example in your area junior participation is about 28% for STAG, 36% for FVO, and 50% for SOA training and coaching L5 events. There are obviously extremes - e.g. Army events have 1% juniors, and schools events have 95-100% juniors, but 40% is the overall average.

[graeme]

Suggestions are still welcome, by next Tuesday.

I hope suggestions here count...

I like the simple system you suggest.

One loophole you need to close - you can't hold more than one event on the same day in the same place. Otherwise I'll have a junior event, an Open event and an age class event, and pay levy only on the last group.

You also need to think about events which comprise more than one run. Clearly 6-day should pay 6 levies per person, Stag's 3-parks-in-a-day only one. This years UK cup sprint/middle double header on the same day?

[Patrick]

The 40% figure seems remarkably high to me...

I don't know what "mainstream events" you've been to...

OK, I did a bit of totting things up for recent events I was/should have been at (were it not for illness/injury/work). By "mainstream" I mean SOLs or SoSOLs (South of Scotland O League), which make up the majority of my racing calendar.

SOL4: 25% junior runs
SOL5: 25%
SOL6: 33%
SOL7: 22%

Here I wasn't able to include colour coded runs as they had no age class information. However, having processed the EOD at SOL4 I know the proportion of junior colour coded entries wasn't all that high. SOL6 was also the Scottish Junior Inter-Regionals which inflated the junior participation.

For recent colour codeds that included age class data:

SoSOL2: 29%
East of Scotland Champs: 21%

So discounting SOL6, an average junior participation rate of 25% seems more realistic. Are Scottish events unusual for their lack of juniors? Or is the 40% figure biased by including events specifically for schools. Either way, I think some qualification or further breakdown of the statistics is necessary if people want to see the implications either for them or their club of adopting a particular levy structure.

Cheers,

Patrick

[roadrunner]

Otherwise I'll have a junior event, an Open event and an age class event, and pay levy only on the last group.

Or an M21 event, an M35 event, an M40 event,, ...

[IanD]

I feel that there should be a levy on all entries. The first 75 participants in the current model are free of levy.... there should be some! Twenty pence. A lot of our informal events contribute nothing to the running of BOF, making no contribution to the insurance costs. These events have a low entry fee, so recovering that twenty pence would be no hardship at all.

At present, many clubs maintain a program of small local events (the sort we're supposed to be encouraging, remember) by cutting organisation to a bare minimum. One of the things which gets cut is the charging of an entry fee. This means that the club is effectively subsidising the event; it seems only fair that BOF should match this by foregoing levy.

This happens under the 2009 system, since these events have less than 75 runners, and indeed under the system ending in 2008. If clubs were in future to have to pay BOF to put these events on, chances are that they would disappear.

[The Loofa]

Spookster queried why I went for 25%. It was based on current junior/senior levy ratio. I'm not fussed what the % is as long as its 50% max.

I bunged a few alternative parameters in - 33 1/3% junior rate, £3.50 and £1.75 levy rate and 60 & 200 participation thresholds. Answer came to spot on 116k.

Levy paying events tend to fall into 3 categories
old C5s - max 60 people - entry fee £2 or less
old C4s - few get over 200 - fee about £5
old C3s - can be several 000 - fees £8+

But tinkering with the above parameters does ignore the biggest variable and that's the reliability of the base data. Like others on this thread I was amazed at the 40% junior ratio - and then more amazed to find that SLOW's was also 40% - and as fixtures sec I thought I knew what was going on!!

So I then looked at sheet 2 (did you all find that?) which details the actual activities each club has registered. I discover SLOW's figure is mostly a lot of primary school stuff that the in-house RDO gets up to - fortunately none of it producing a projected levy - so no harm done there. But she also does a level one coaching course (training people to be level 1 coaches) and that in BOF's projection produces a levy - £270 in 2009. Sorry - wrong!

So I think all clubs should check the data on sheet 2 for anomalies, but can it all be done by next Tuesday's Board?? I doubt it.

Anyway I shouldn't be moaning on Nopesport i should be submitting direct to BOF. But then I'msure Spookster's following all this and he can copy and paste as well as I can!