Proposed new membership fees

[youngladdie]

I hope everyone wil lbe attending and voting at the BOF AGM?

BOF seem concerned for their members in these hard times in the midst of a recession, and only increasing membership fees by about 4% - Why not leave them the same or decrease them?
Have you noticed Senior members to rise from £20.00 to £20.75 - Junior members - NO INCREASE -Yet agan the seniors are subsidising the juniors.

There are three director vacancies to be filled, in addition to the Directors already employed - How many Directors do BOF need?

Vote at the AGM, and vote AGAINST a membership fee increase.

[Scott]

There are three director vacancies to be filled...

...to replace the three who are obliged to stand down at this AGM.

How many Directors do BOF need?

Ten, apparently - the same number that is has at the moment.

[youngladdie]

TEN directors? I disagree - they do not need 10 directors.
reduce the number of directors - reduce the membership fee.

[Scott]

Are the directors actually paid? I thought they just got expenses...

Anyway, I can't see this changing in the near future, seeing as we've only just has a governance review. Focus would be a better cost-cutting target...

[RS]

Quite agree about Focus. If they were desperate to tell us anything, pay CompassSport and put it in there as well as on BO website.....

[youngladdie]

yes - elite-praising Focus, and expensive, lavish annual report booklets.

[RJ]

Do you want to be a part of a proper organisation, or just a rag-tag collection of interested 'runners' who go orienteering on Sunday.

We need a bright, clean, colourful image so that the general 'public' can take us seriously, including all the government agencies who give us support. I also want to read something that is colourful and informative, not a black and white A4 sheet of paper with the details in cramped columns of text. That is.... those of you who can remember the BOF Bulletin of 1997 and earlier! We have made great progress and we certainly don't want to be going back!!

[roadrunner]

Do you want to be a part of a proper organisation, or just a rag-tag collection of interested 'runners' who go orienteering on Sunday.

We need a bright, clean, colourful image so that the general 'public' can take us seriously, including all the government agencies who give us support. I also want to read something that is colourful and informative, not a black and white A4 sheet of paper with the details in cramped columns of text. That is.... those of you who can remember the BOF Bulletin of 1997 and earlier! We have made great progress and we certainly don't want to be going back!!

I see your point, and there's a need for professional-type publicity material for sure, but does it have to be sent out to every member? In athletics, the governing body never sends us anything, and I don't think we're any the worse off for that. Any material that we need to know (and there isn't a lot) is distributed by local clubs in their own newsletters.

[Scott]

Not a particularly representative sample, but of the orienteers I know I can think of two others who I know actually read Focus, and at least twenty who I know stick it straight in the recycling - I can think of quite a few very long-established orienteers who pay it so little attention that the new event structure took them completely by surprise.

To be honest, I think the desire not "compete" with Compass Sport means that Focus is often pretty tedious reading unless you're the sort of orienteer who religiously reads every set of BOF committee meeting minutes anyway (although, to be fair, Focus is more "professionally" laid-out/presented than CS). It needn't be so, of course - The Fellrunner (FRA) and Summit (BMC) both strike a much better balance between boring-yet-important NGB information and articles that normal people might actually want to read.

We need a bright, clean, colourful image so that the general 'public' can take us seriously

I doubt very much that any member of the general public would get very far if you gave them Focus to read. Compass Sport, on the other hand, I often catch my (non-orienteer) father reading...

Perhaps combining the two is the way forward .

[EddieH]

I totally disagree with RJ.
I don't believe glossies have the power people think they have, and I do not think that time spent professionally creating Focus is good use of our funds.

As for your personal desire to read something colourful and informative read CompassSport whilst BOF can publish the informative stuff that Nick is sensible enough to realise most of his readers will not want to pay for.

Quite apart from anything else I consider BOF's change in the appearance of Focus to be very unfair to Nick. CompassSport historically bailed BOF out of a crisis, Nick takes a huge risk in taking over the magazine and immediately BOF apparently try to compete.

[Scott]

Are they really trying to compete? I can't imagine anybody in their right mind deciding not to buy Compass Sport because they have Focus instead.

Anyway, I reckon the important bits of Focus could be condensed into two (glossy) sides of A4 - as they already do with Local Focus, in fact. Does every member of BOF really need to be sent a whole page dedicated to "Anti-Doping for the Elite", columns on the British Athletes Commission and the fact that the North West has a new RDO, a list who's obtained Clubmark recently, or two pages on the new online fixture list?

[graeme]

. Does every member of BOF really need to be sent a whole page dedicated to "Anti-Doping for the Elite"?

Well ... it says it applies to "Elite courses in the UK". And over 400 people entered the various British Elite Championships in 2008...

Including your good self. I hope that beard isn't steroidally enhanced

[Scott]

Yeah, the decision to do away with "retroactive" TUEs for those who aren't in the Squads could make things interesting - if people adhere to it, I imagine BOF will find themselves bombarded with applications from all us ailing punters who turn out for the British Elite Sprints. But surely something that would be better publicised in the relevant event details, where people are probably more likely to read it?

Including your good self. I hope that beard isn't steroidally enhanced

Rest assured that it's, erm, 100% Me. I wouldn't want to render myself ineligible.

[RJ]

Scott..... we and our friends represent such a small fraction of the orienteering public, and your 'straw poll' amongst 'your' friends doesn't consitute a representative sample. I would suggest that your friends who stick Focus into the 'bin' without reading it are the ones who have 'the problem'! It fact it is rather discourteous of them to do so. A quick scan of the pages and the articles is the least they should manage. How are we going to move this sport forward if we are only interested in our own little world of 'O'?

Of course it is important to know which clubs have achieved Club Mark! Has your club? If not, why not? Clubs put in a lot of effort and commitment to achieve CM, and again it is discourteous to shrug it off like that. Are we not interested in what other clubs are doing? Is your bit of 'O' that good!!

There are 11,000 orienteers in UK..... I would suggest quite a few of them would like to know what is going on. It is all very well hoping that the internet will do the job..... but it just doesn't! The net is a very valuable tool for retrieving information, such as fixtures, forum gossip, and all the rules and regs (if you need them) of the sport.

CompassSport fills a completely different function.... it displays the action end of the sport, the personalities, the maps, the races, the competition... and does a brilliant job!

[RJ]

Does every member of BOF really need to be sent a whole page dedicated to "Anti-Doping for the Elite"?

Well I'm very reassured by the fact that the sport of orienteering has an anti-doping policy etc. It leads me to believe that the sport is mature and is a 'proper' sport!!