Orienteering is a cheap sport?

[Lumpy Lycra]

Totally agree SJ - using LA's specific sports:

How does this become a cheap family sport?
Football every Sunday would be certainly less expensive, so would Judo and Swimming.

How do you do football as a family sport? standing on the terraces perhaps, or shivering on the touch line encouraging little Janey, but they don't even let girls & boys play in the same team above a certain age, let alone W45s!!

Recreational swimming may well be cheaper than competetive O, but my observation of families with serious swimmers is that it is hugely time consuming and very disruptive of family life. Perhaps I'm biased by too many hours gossiping at the pool side during swimming lessons and school galas to see it as a family sport.

I'll agree to a certain extent on Judo & the martial arts - with a local club you have little need to travel and the organisational overheads are much lower. But at at our local Karate club the norm is still for mothers to drop the children, and I was very much an oddity in taking part too.

Orienteering offers something for a huge range of ages, abilities and budgets. It allows juniors to escape from their families on junior tours, camps etc. and produces confident and competent young adults. It gives a focus to holidays and access to otherwise inaccessible land. It may not always be cheap, but it is almost always value for money.

[EddieH]

Lies, Damned lies and statistics

Awk's analysis of kit depreciation costs are somewhat invidious. Yes if you run your kit into the ground you can reasonably divide the cost of the kit by the number of outings Iincluding training) in its lifetime, but to argue that for growing children the costs of each event are higher is if anything the opposite of the truth. If they grow out of their kit then the more events you can use it in the more value you get out of it - in fact the less you do the sport the more expensive the kit becomes.

All in all I think the ground has been well covered here - it can be a very cheap sport, and possibly because many more expensive events are used to subsidise many local ones - (Maybe that's wrong fo some people?)

I never cease to be suprised by how, with huge the professional mapping costs that we demend, that events can be as cheap as they are. Basically it is because of MASSIVE voluntary input, and that we don't require large chunks of entry fees to be put into prize money and don't insist on frills at most events.

If people moan too much people will simply stop offering voluntary effort. In fact we see it happen all the time - it happened to me for about 3 years after being shown negative appreciation for a big job - I tried to go through the motions of carrying on but my heart was not in it. And to be absolutely honest 10 years on I still do less and put a little less into running things that I did before. I LOVe this sport, but I know plenty of people that have been lost to it because of negative feedback.

[Oldman]

I LOVE this sport, but I know plenty of people that have been lost to it because of negative feedback.

Perhaps we should form a group who when we encounter feedback that is unreasonable (note the difference from constructive) says so in no uncertain terms to the person responsible, highlighting the consequences that flow from it.

We could even do it for the very rare contribution of that type here!

[awk]

Lies, Damned lies and statistics
Awk's analysis of kit depreciation costs are somewhat invidious.

My very rough analysis of kit depreciation was based on real experience, based on orienteering most weekends. Of course if we orienteered less, that cost per event would go up to more; it was considerably more last year when offspring was going through a growth spurt (three pairs of O-shoes alone in 12 months). I don't see how that's invidious - simply realistic. How else would you cost it?

I totally agree with the other points made about orienteering by Eddie, S3 and Lumpy, but all they do is reinforce the point I was making. Nothing you say indicates that orienteering is cheap but they do underline what great value it is, and how it offers many hidden benefits - Mrs H has shown how this can exploited with her 'attacks' on the media. And that's the basis it should be sold on; to sell it as a cheap sport per se would, IMO, be misleading.

I see "cheap" as being cost in absolute terms, whilst "value" is relative. For instance my mountain bike may not be "cheap" (and worth a lot of orienteering entries!), but it's been fantastic value! However cheap children's football is, I don't regard it as good value, generating the sort of bad behaviour and sportsmanship that I have to handle every day of the week!

If people moan too much people will simply stop offering voluntary effort.

Neither I nor, from reading his post, LA were moaning about the events themselves - but were commenting on the portrayal of orienteering as a 'cheap' sport. There is an important difference, which those commenting on our posts simply don't seem to recognise. I totally agree that without the input of huge amounts of massive voluntary effort, orienteering would be a LOT more expensive. In fact, the volunteer ethic in orienteering should* be one of our proudest marketing boasts - and should* be used to underline what fantastic value the sport provides. (*I know it is in some areas - especially by BOF).

Personally, I regard orienteering as one of the cheaper sports I personally do, and I love it too, it's been life-defining, but I also think we need to keep a realistic perspective on it. That's all I'm arguing for.

possibly because many more expensive events are used to subsidise many local ones

I'm sure that does happen in certain cases, and more in some parts of the country than others, but I think I'm right in saying that we as a club would make quite enough money without putting the big events on. in fact, I think we'd make more, given the amount of volunteer energy and effort the big ones take up, but I'm prepared to be corrected by others more knowledgeable (Our biggest standalone loss maker in years was one of our most prestigious events).

[epocian]

awk said
it was considerably more last year when offspring was going through a growth spurt (three pairs of O-shoes alone in 12 months)

You could, of course, sell the other two outgrown pairs on ebay so recouping some of your costs!

[Tatty]

If you'd seen my lads O shoes you'd realise they're fit for nothing!! most people tend to sell wearable O shoes through the Junior Squads as part of their fund raising. not sure you'd get too amny bids on ebay

[awk]

Exactly Tatty. O-shoes aren't only worn for O-events. I get through at least one pair a year even nowadays, and train a lot less. Peanuts either way!

[LostAgain]

Thanks AWK. I'm not sure why anyone should think my posting was knocking orienteering or the volunteer ethos...... Most confusing. Then again I see many postings that appear to be misread or understood. Some people like to be antagonistic

We as a family have and will continue to orienteer for many years. All I was doing with this posting was pointing out that many people seem to misrepresent our sport as cheap, and in some instances suggest that we should price higher to attract a certain type of young individual that equates cost with prestige.

I'm arguing against this. Today £13 entry fee for family at DVO event should be encouraged (a big thankyou for also not calling it off). Still cost us £45 in diesel, but then maybe we should not live in the arse end of nowhere

Also agree with the view that orienteering is one of the few sports in which the whole family can actually participate. I'd not neccessarily agree that we encourage a better ethos than other sports, I'd suggest that this is more from the type of person who orienteers, these people would have equally good values in any other sport.

I'm just a voice for the family orienteer who will be spending in excess of £1000 in February pursuing our sport

[Gross]

. Still cost us £45 in diesel, but then maybe we should not live in the arse end of nowhere

:

You must have one hell of a thirsty car 45 GBP of fuel must equate to something like 600 Km of driving... maybe it's not the arse end of nowhere you live but............

[epocian]

Tatty said about O shoes

not sure you'd get too many bids on ebay

You've obviously never searched for Inov8s on ebay - they usually fetch good money!

[Tatty]

Noy if they've got holes in the toes and the soles are falling off

[geomorph]

Hmmmm
Its all discretionary....
Tennis club all year family fees 390GBP . Kit about 300/yr (mostly rackets). Coaching 20GBP/hr. Junior squads 6GBP per hour, about 300GBP per year. Interclub junior tournaments cost even more per go

Golf club all year fees for one £900 or £17/round/person. Kit expensive..... an hour with the pro... 50GBP

Basketball club 3GBP per hour per person, tournaments 4GBP each. Kit cheapish

Travel for these three about 1 litre per round trip

Orienteering.... travel is the biggest component. However most of the year I can get an event a week for under 10litres (about 120 miles). We spend about £1000/yr in all.
But if I want really good terrain then I'd need to work on a per mile basis for car costs of at least 35p/mile as the car would not last the planned 10 years, more like 3.


Running.... 2 pairs of trainers/yr. Clothing generally lasts twice that time and often a lot more. Step out the door and do it. That's cheap, but its not competitive stuff

[mharky]

Tatty said about O shoes

not sure you'd get too many bids on ebay

You've obviously never searched for Inov8s on ebay - they usually fetch good money!

You obviously don't know what O'shoes are...

[Scott]

You obviously don't know what O'shoes are...

Aren't they those things worn by people whose feet are too feeble to cope with Inov-8s?

[awk]

Aren't they those things worn by people whose feet are too feeble to cope with Inov-8s?

No, the feet are still fine - it's the Inov-8s that got totally trashed in no time.