Sue Harvey MBE

[Scott]

Congratulations!

[graeme]

What for?

I think Robin already got one for services to orienteering, and Sue probably deserves one for that as well. But there's also the massive contribution that Harvey's made to
mapmaking, first through raising the standard of UK O-maps (when I started "Harveys Map" was the mark of quality). And then, another obvious-when-you-think-of-it, making outdoor maps for walkers without the clutter that the multi-purpose OS maps had to include. No matter that some mappers have since surpassed them, Harveys set the standard for others to aspire too.

So whatever it's for, it's deserved three times over.

[Scott]

Ms Susan HARVEY
For services to Orienteering and to the community in Doune and Deanston, Perth and Kinross.

So probably what graeme said .

[simonbeck8848]

Graeme: "massive contribution that Harvey's made to
mapmaking, first through raising the standard of UK O-maps (when I started "Harveys Map" was the mark of quality). "

In 1976 Robin Harvey produced 2 or more of the maps that were used for WM76 aka WOC76 (Culbin, Darnaway). These were rightly praised for their quality and clarity and he wrote a really good book to pass on his skills to others, and gave mapping courses, I went on one in 1978.

But I feel a lot of people push for progress too quickly and there followed a difficult period when the volunteers who had been doing the big time mapping in the 1970s grew tired and nobody seemed to take over. As someone who produced 4 maps that would have been of the size / quality that one would expect for a regional event in the 'noughties' I felt I'd made a fair contribution and hoped I'd set an example for others to follow.

But it didnt happen, money and volunteer time got spent on items of secondary importance perhaps partly because people would volunteer for easy tasks in the hope that others would then do the real work, and very few maps got produced to Harvey standards, people such as myself (and I could mention others) got pestered to go on doing the hard work that nobody else would contemplate, great forests got felled without ever being used for O.

I actually get a bit annoyed when I see someone like Robin apparently taking the credit for raising standards, let's not forget that from 1976 onwards, Robin appears to not have done any mapping, I am happy to be corrected on this, all I'm saying is that I have not seen his name on an O map since then. Robin apparently joined those who make their contribution by telling others how things should be done, something of which there has never been a shortage.

Surely the people who should take the credit for raising the standards are the volunteers who spent hundreds of hours of their time producing maps to a professional standard to keep fees down by approximately GBP1 per event in today's money assuming the cost is spread over 3000 maps.

At the time I laid the man / woman's share of the blame on the shoulders of the Harveys although my view have mellowed with age and I now blame more the orienteers who ran their sport on a shoestring to save a pound on fees then thought nothing of spending several times that amount on the drive home from an event on some convenience item such as a meal in a service area because they couldn't be bothered to buy the required food in the shops and plan things a bit more thoroughly.

Did Robin do the right thing but a decade too soon, or were his efforts let down by the general stinginess of the orienteers of the time in terms of expenditure on what is perhaps the most important piece of O equipment (the map)? Or perhaps he, like myself, suffered from delusions that a sensibly large number of orienteers would do their bit to help with mapping? I have always wondered whether the Harveys involvement in O has been a good or bad thing for the sport.

Oh I hate it when the display starts jumping up and down, is it a hint not to write long postings?

Simon Beck

[simonbeck8848]

As for Sue Harvey, my image of her in recenet years is dominated by a futile quest for orienteering's holy grail, getting it as an Olympic sport. I find it hard to believe that someone who is clearly an extremely intelligent person should be so badly mistaken, perhaps she knows best and we're actually closer and it is a real possibility. But the way at least one event has been spoilt by the requirements of the media / world master games board of directors or whoever pulls the strings these days, the IOF seems to neglect its duty to run the international scene in the interests of orienteers, I just wonder who(m) they think they are there to please. NB I'm not saying Sue is to blame for all this, but all the same, as present or recent past president I feel she has / had a bit of explaining to do.

Simon Beck

[EddieH]

Sadly Simon, my recollection is of hearing Sue say that getting the link between WMOC and the World Masters Games was her greatest achievement.

I really liked Sue and on one awkward occasion found her very supportive - always kind and thoughtful. I too find her fixation on using WMOC as a futile attempt to get into the Olympics hard to understand.

[Red Adder]

Lets be honest, BOF gets a high proportion of its funding from the Govt, and in return the Govt expects (nay, demands) medals, especially Olympic / highly televised World championship. Look how athletics lost funding after performances were perceived to be poor. From this standpoint Sue Harvey's approach seems reasonable. With all the tracking technology available perhaps O still has a chance of making it televisually.

It probably fair to say that the Harvey's did set the bar very high with regard to mapping, a standard that few amateurs had to time or skill to match. That is changing though, with the availability of increasing amounts of technology. In the 80s and 90s I produced a few very modest pen an ink maps. Using OCAD / aerial photos / electronic survey aids (and the good old compass and legs) I can produce a lot more maps, in shorter timescales and to a far higher standard.

So lets not be negative here, applaud the Harvey's for their efforts and look to increasing the number of maps produced, and especially to attract more people to use them.

[Oldman]

I find the general reaction here rather depressingly negative.

A well-known UK orienteer who has given much to the sport over many years is publicly recognised for that in a high status national award scheme - let's congratulate her and celebrate the further raising of orienteering's profile that it represents.

[Becks]

Yey for Oldman! He put that a lot better than I was going to!

[simonbeck8848]

OK Red Adder, I think you're confusing BOF funding with the funding for the national team(s). As I understand it, team funding does indeed depend of winning medals, BOF funding (and lottery grants etc that clubs apply for) is more dependent on being able to convince the powers that be that the public will get something of value in return.

But as you say in para 2, the technology makes it easier to produce good maps. The progression to good maps wasn't a bad thing, it's just Robin (and others) pushed things forward faster than the sport had the resources to provide.

In the 1980s the spread of o was held back by the severe shortage of maps outside the parts of the country / world where it was well established. Whereas good maps are better than bad maps, bad maps are better than no maps at all, and a specification that allowed maps to be produced quicker would have helped the spread of O, many compromises might have been reached, beginners need a good map, but they dont need all that time consuming contour detail accurately mapped, conversely, experts ought to be able to navigate roughly across areas that havent been mapped in detail, then just the area around controls mapped to a higher standard. As an example of the sort of standard that should have been used for more years, I would suggest the first Leith Hill map, produced by Robin himself.

Of course, the above is said with an element of hindsight. As I've said already, Robin may have had an optimistic expectation of the willingness of orienteers to help with mapping. But when it became clear this wasnt going to happen, did either of the Harveys reccommend some sort of compromise? No they didn't.
more....

[simonbeck8848]

Clearly it would be harsh to blame Robin and Sue for the resulting problems (volunteers getting cheesed off, areas getting used too much partly because there weren't enough new maps being produced and partly because they werent big enough anyway so a lot of the courses had to go round the map twice, landowners and the public getting cheesed off when the wood got chewed to bits or major events planned by 2nd rate planners because more qualified individuals were required for the map....) but all the same, if one really wanted to have a debate about this, and have, say, 4 people propose the motion "This house believes that Robin and Sue have caused a lot of problems" or similar, one could make out a strong case.

That said, the motion would surely be defeated, as the public want progress, better maps and Rob and Sue are percieved as the people who've brought it about. The problem was, the public weren't prepared to pay for them, either by helping with mapping or by paying higher fees to have proffessional mappers do it for them.

SB

[Gross]

Simon.... Bollocks..... Sue deserves her MBE... from being a top class competitor, multi linguist, high flying sports politician to founder member of FVO...

Congrats

[simonbeck8848]

but sadly it isn't all bollocks, Gordon. Nor is Eddie talking a load of bollocks. Nor was John Disley when he expressed (in 1980) his view that modern map production was as difficult as minor brain surgery and that alone would slow the spread of orienteering.

(well perhaps he wasn't qualified to talk about brain surgery...)

Think of the problems there were with the Scottish champs in the 1980s. I remember being approached by the chap who held the post of SOA mapping convenor in 1983 who told me that unless I stepped into the shoes of the team who had failed to produce the scottish champs map in time, the event wouldn't go ahead in the intended area. This in a year when i was the defending champion and contributing to the sport by planning one of the days of the 6 day event. But the previous Drumore map seemed fine in 1976, and it could have been used again in 1983 in conjunction with the part of the intended Scottish champs forest that the team (claimed to have) completed. It could have been a really good event for the sake of accepting the sort of maps that were in use in the mid 1970s, before the standard got pushed beyond the capabilities of volunteers in any sort of technical scottish forest.

Instead it went ahead in an area that had a Harvey standard map but had been used less than a year previously and when the planner tried to plan a different course he took elite into a grotty part of the forest that apparently hadnt been mapped as the mapper(s) thought it was too grotty to use, the map was wrong, people got confused and going by what I was told, had there been an official complaint, I wouldnt have been surprised if it had been upheld. Then when Drumore was used in 1986 on a new map, the rest of the intended area had been felled and the forest got trampled to bits and we've never been allowed in there again AFAIK, plus further damage to the reputation of O.

By all means give Harveys credit where it's due, but the people who deserve the credit for the improvement in mapping standards are THE VOLUNTEERS WHO MADE THE MAPS not the people who wrote the specifications! I think Robin and Sue have caused a lot of problems in the field of mapping, but to repeat what I said earlier, there is an element of hindsight in this and perhaps we should do the decent thing and give them the benefit of the doubt. ISNT IT A PITY MORE PEOPLE DIDNT HELP WITH MAPPING?!

I'm going on a field trip tomorrow and can't post to the forum for some days, say what you like about me but I wont be able to read it!

SB

[Big Jon]

What a shame Simon is away for a few days - I'm very amusing by his ramblings/rantings - I'm just waiting for him to contradict himself - it'll happen in time!

[simonbeck8848]

OMG someone's replied already, well I'll try and use the word 'paradoxically' so watch out for it!