Orienteering is dead

[SeanC]

Is that just because clubs have been rebadging their districts as regionals? If so that might not necessarily indicate an increase in "high infrastructure events" and this may mask a hidden tier within regional events.

I think we need to put ourselves in the shoes of club committees who make these decisions. It takes a lot of courage to change the event structure built up over 40 years. Some will feel it is the duty of their club to put on high infrastructure events for experienced orienteers as these are the events the committee members go to themselves. Many would not want to call time on an annual regional event that is part of a club's history, even if that club is half the size of 20 years ago.

Replacing these big events with lots of local events is a risk, at least initally attendance will be low whilst the new local tier generates a following, and this is likely to involve a big effort from those same core members, especially true for the small clubs that most need the new members. Little or no change is the easy decision in the short term.

Definately the way to get a balanced event structure IMHO is by supporting club committees, somehow helping them to see the woods for the trees so to speak. How this is best done, I don't know.

[drobin]

?
There were 817 finishers at yesterdays SOC November Classic in the New Forest. And about 100+ 'no shows'. The early morning weather was pretty horrible.

[awk]

The number of Regional events in 2010 is higher than in 2009, and it's hard to believe they will all be of a high enough quality to justify travelling to. I though the new event structure was supposed to have addressed this by having some sort of quality criteria imposed on these events, but so far it doesn't seem to have happened.

One of the mistakes made by BOF in this was to give L2 events the title "Regional". This immediately implied that they are the equivalent of the old "Regional" (C3) events. They're not, incorporating many of the old style C4s.

This concept of the event structure being able to regulate the quality of events is not so straightforward. It would be interesting to see what quality criteria would be used. What became increasingly apparent under the old scheme, was how those quality criteria that were there, regularly failed to produce a consistent quality of product. The fact is that many C4s were as good or better quality than many C3s. Equally, some C3s outstripped C2s.

[buzz]

Can't speak for other places but Sheffield appears to be buzzing with orienteering at the moment. In particular there seems to be far more variety than I remember from days gone by. For example...

Different types of races..

Sprint Races (with specialist maps)
Urban Races (ditto - loads of new to orienteering areas)
Middle Distance (with areas being rejuvinated by larger scale maps)
Ultra Sprint
Novelty races (caves, mazes etc.)

Orienteering spin offs

Mountain Bike Orienteering
Trail Quests
Adventure Races

Training and come and try it (sheffield)

Night Training ( winter x 6 ish)
Club Nights (including circuits and coaching sessions)
Spring Cup (spring evenings x 6)
Park Races (summer x 6)
Introductory events (spring and autumn x 6ish)

Schools Orienteering

Orienteering now on the national curriculum
Hundreds of schools maps
British schools champs and score champs
European/World schools champs

Orienteering Holidays

Multi-day events in just about every European country
A choice of organised tours

Not dead - just different and in my opinion much better for it.

[Arnold]

That's exactly what I meant initially - not that it's dead overall just dead in its existing incarnation and in dire need of adaptation.

Sounds like this is already happening in Scotland and Sheffield but less so in Southern England. Don't get me wrong there are quite a few novel things working but there are also lots of old things no longer working.

Incidentally, are there fewer of the "traditional" colour coded and regionals in Sheffield or just the same number?

Also Sheffield is probably a special case with loads of orienteers in a very small area. But no reason the rest of us shouldn't aspire to get there...

[andypat]

Also Sheffield is probably a special case with loads of orienteers in a very small area.

Sheffield = ghett'O'