4 Levels

[SJC]

It is now over two years since the general orienteering public had the results of the event structure reorganisation thrust upon it.
During that time it has been relentlessly promoted by BOF through a conference and repeated articles in Focus.
Yet still there appears to be a general lack of acceptance of a three level structure.

If it was such a good thing then I am certain that clubs and regions would have adopted it with enthusiasm. The fact that the majority haven't is judgement in itself.

[distracted]

Clive - I asked:

what makes the 'regional' event special? How is it different from a 'district' event in terms of experience and quality?

You have answered what you think a 'regional' event should be in terms of their administration - not what it currently offers above 'district' events in terms of quality and experience. I could conclude that this means there is actually no difference between the two in many cases...

Awk rightly points out your opinion that old regional event = new regional event, which just doesn't work. If you want something that guarantees quality, you have to do something to ensure that really is the case - are you going to start vetoing events because they're not 'quality' - including no more 'regional events' in Thetford Forest?

I also disagree with the notion of saving the best areas for use once every few years - this doesn't help with encouraging people out into the forest, especially if then forces all of your events aimed at newcomers onto second-rate areas. Imagine it's one of your first orienteering experiences and you're met with an orange course round a small bramble-invested patch of woodland where you have to use the mud-covered paths all the time - it doesn't create a particularly good impression. Alternatively, you could use a small section of one of the club's 'better' areas - some runnable woodland, more variety in features, more options for the courses and for how to complete them. Anyway, surely a "good area" should be able to provide a good range of different challenges and be difficult to become 'over-familiar' with?

If it was such a good thing then I am certain that clubs and regions would have adopted it with enthusiasm. The fact that the majority haven't is judgement in itself.

It is necessary - however people aren't aware of why things have changes, and there is a lot of unwillingness to change. The former isn't through lack of trying - some people just won't accept it full stop. However, if the implementation hadn't been completely bodged I'd guess there would be a more general acceptance...

[awk]

It is now over two years since the general orienteering public had the results of the event structure reorganisation thrust upon it.

Well, actually, it was around this time last year.

As distracted indicates, I strongly believe that the initial problems were primarily down to a completely fouled up introduction, with a rushed implementation of a 'pilot' or 'transition' year, which simply caused confusion. Much, much better to have prepared properly, and rolled out for the start of this year. I accept that because of that, establishment and acceptance will take longer, but things are settling down, and once regions start taking control then things will fall into place. That's certainly happening around here.

[Wayward-O]

Although I don't believe that the currently implemented 3-level structure is perfect, I do not want to see a reversion to four levels.

IMO, events naturally fall into one of three tiers (not competition levels). These tiers are defined by where governance of the event resides. For National and pan-Regional (Area) events, the governance naturally sits with BOF, for Regional and Regional League events, the governance should sit with the Regional organisation and there are then those events that are internal to an individual club. The Nopesport League events would be tier 2; Nopesport acting as a Region in this respect.

Within each tier, there could be differerent levels of competition. The problem with the current three-level system is that all Regional events have to comply with the requirements outlined in BOF rules, including those on embargoes, controller level, etc. Within a three-tier governance system, Regions would have the ability to define different requirements for the Regional and Regional League events within the Region.

The third tier, those events governed by individual clubs, would include all events organised for and by an individual club. In this tier, I would also include holiday events organised by an individual club where the club is the 'brand'-holder, i.e. White Rose whilst Regionally-held brands, such as October Odyssey, would be in the Regional tier.

In a three-tier structure as described, it would be up to the governing body to specify and enforce the required standards to ensure event quality. BOF would, therefore, only define rules for tier one events, with National guidelines for tier 2 and 3 events.

[roadrunner]

1) Level 2 is ranked for starters. I was relieved as I feared for sometime all colour coded events might be included irrespective of the quality of the field. Ranking . IMO, is a prime reason for there to be a difference.

1) Yes L2s can be used for ranking, but unlike you I see no problems in using old district events for that. With a unified ranking list, there is no problem with a weak field, because it's not just how you do against the competition that matters, but how that competition has previously performed.

I'm not sure that you'd want to include all former "district" events, but some of them could be. There's certainly a need to exclude some of the new "L3" events that were the former "L5", like non-standard fun events, club training etc. I have reservations about calculating ranking points on courses with few competitors, but that issue should be eased with the single ranking list approach.

2) Level 2 competitions should be held on areas where sufficient options exist to provide the technical navigation challenge required by the competition. This needs to acknowledge that sprint, urban, midddle distance and relay events have different technical challenges. It should not however be easier to accrue ranking points at soft venues.

The current ranking scheme (and indeed the former one) takes into account the spread of times, which would tend to be less for an easier course. So I think that, provided there is at least a reasonable technical challenge (i.e. not a straight running race), there shouldn't be a problem.

3) Level 2 area should not be overused and over familiar. By advocating more regional events we are putting pressure on clubs ignore the need to rest areas from competitions.

I also disagree with the notion of saving the best areas for use once every few years - this doesn't help with encouraging people out into the forest, especially if then forces all of your events aimed at newcomers onto second-rate areas. Imagine it's one of your first orienteering experiences and you're met with an orange course round a small bramble-invested patch of woodland where you have to use the mud-covered paths all the time - it doesn't create a particularly good impression. Alternatively, you could use a small section of one of the club's 'better' areas - some runnable woodland, more variety in features, more options for the courses and for how to complete them. Anyway, surely a "good area" should be able to provide a good range of different challenges and be difficult to become 'over-familiar' with?

I think the issue here is that some clubs don't have that many "good" areas, and those they do have may have restrictions on the time of year they can be used. You've obviously got to put the highest-level events on these areas, and so the embargo requirements mean that they can't be used so much for other events. But I agree that you should try to give beginners a good first experience, and a small but good area (too small for a high-level event) would be ideal for this.

4) Level 2 should be controlled by grade 2 accredited controllers. I hope the current relaxation to allow grade 3 officials is a temporary expedient. We all have to learn our craft ~ expertise is acquired by experience. We therefore need more grade 2 officials if we are to increase the number of regional events ~ this will take time . Once we get them they must be utilised.

Everyone seems to be agreed that we had too many of the old "Regional" events, and these all needed G2 controllers. As long as we only put the "better" of the old district events into L2, why should there now be a shortage?

I have to say that, personally, I think four levels rather than three gives a structure that is easier to understand and map to people's expectations. How much the detail should be mandated by BOF is another matter...

[awk]

I'm not sure that you'd want to include all former "district" events, but some of them could be. There's certainly a need to exclude some of the new "L3" events that were the former "L5", like non-standard fun events, club training etc.

The intention was never that all former district events would go into L2; many were primarily aimed more locally, or had a restricted number of courses. They would go into L3. I don't think anybody has suggested that any of the new L3 events should count towards the rankings list.

Everyone seems to be agreed that we had too many of the old "Regional" events, and these all needed G2 controllers. As long as we only put the "better" of the old district events into L2, why should there now be a shortage?

Mainly because there was a shortage before, and the numbers were gradually going down.

I have to say that, personally, I think four levels rather than three gives a structure that is easier to understand and map to people's expectations. How much the detail should be mandated by BOF is another matter...

Four levels are easier to understand if you've been in the sport for a while as they more closely map on to the older system. Three are very easy to understand if you relate them to the structure we have in the sport: club-association-BOF, and who should be responsible for any quality assurance and level of competition.

[Gross]

If there was a shortage of controllers before then there will be one more soon.... I'm getting peed off with all the political stuff jumping out of British orienteering that I'm seriously thinking of quitting after my next 'job'

[EddieH]

2 things

1 As I believe AWK's committee intended the 3 tier system, 3 tiers would be reasonable as they were trying to make old regional events less specific, leaving it to local marketing and public confidence to decide on the premier events.

However the system was NOT implemented as they envisaged, and the majority seem to think level 2 = old regional (pretty obvious really as BOF call them "Regional".

What seems utterly stupidto me with the new working is the lumping of over 90% events into 1 category - I think there is a need for a lower level for all training events and the vast number of very local uncontrolled minimal course events aimed primarily at club members. This I believe is over 50% of events and would mean that a search for reasonable "district" type events would be far more useful.


2 rankings

Firstly with only 4 events to count having ranking in some region's level 2 events which would appear to be on well known easy areas will make ranking a nonsense. It matters not that the system allows for easy vs hard areas - a fairly rechnically incompetent good runner may easily be able to knock out 4 runs on easy local areas that he is very familiar with thus obtaining 4 big scores and potentially leading the list.

This effect will be regional - it won't happen in Scotland where SOA have decided to put a £1 levy per competitor on level 2 events, thus probably ensuring that the SOLs will be the only ranking events in Scotland.

[SJC]

However, if the implementation hadn't been completely bodged I'd guess there would be a more general acceptance.

If it was as simple as a bodged implementation then it would be relatively easy to fix. However the problem goes deeper than that. As is evident from the discussions here and the content of the Focus articles, no-one is actually sure what it is that is being implemented.

however people aren't aware of why things have changes, and there is a lot of unwillingness to change. The former isn't through lack of trying - some people just won't accept it full stop.

Orienteers are generally intelligent people and will accept change if the change is clearly articulated and the benefits of it explained. However in the two years (and it is two years) since the event structure reorganisation was published no-one has been able to do this. If they had then we wouldn't still be having this debate.

[Scott]

Firstly with only 4 events to count having ranking in some region's level 2 events which would appear to be on well known easy areas will make ranking a nonsense.

Eddie - where did you hear that it would be only four events to count? It's still going to be six as far as I know.

I personally no longer care whether we have a three- or four-tier event structure. Can anybody actually tell me why it is so important? I've seen plenty of arguments about why three levels are better than four (and vice-versa), but I'm yet to see anyone explain why it really matters. As far as I can tell there are more serious issues facing the future of the sport in the UK, and - so long as whatever we have is implemented sensibly - the "administrative levels" into which we categorize our events probably won't make that much difference to anything in the long run.

With the competitions review underway I'm not sure this is the best moment to be messing about with the event structure again, but hopefully we can all somehow manage to cope with whatever the results of the AGM vote are, and move swiftly on to spending our time worrying about something more productive.

[awk]

If it was as simple as a bodged implementation then it would be relatively easy to fix. However the problem goes deeper than that. As is evident from the discussions here and the content of the Focus articles, no-one is actually sure what it is that is being implemented.

I know what should have been implemented: a simpler yet progressive structure of events that (a) reflected the organisational structure of the sport (club-association-NGB); (b) provided sufficient flexibility to incorporate the wide range of types of orienteering; (c) enabled the respective administrative tiers to implement competition and quality standards appropriate to their area at their level of the event structure; (d) enabled individuals to progress through the structure by being able to run at distances and standards of their own choosing.

The fact that this has only partially come to fruition is due to the bodging. The bodging IS the deep seated problem, or at least a symptom of it.

Orienteers are generally intelligent people and will accept change if the change is clearly articulated and the benefits of it explained. However since the event structure reorganisation was published no-one has been able to do this. If they had then we wouldn't still be having this debate.

There we are in agreement. The reason is that those people who developed the ideas were never allowed to take it through and explain it.

The main failure of implementation (the bodging!) came about because BOF is congenitally unable to allow those who develop anything to take any sort of ownership and help make it happen. Just at the time it needed the maximum amount of input from the event review group, the group was disbanded, and responsibility passed over to committees who only partially grasped what was going on, not least because those who knew what was happening were never able to discuss or explain it, because they had been excluded from the process. The committees therefore put things into place that ran completely counter to what the ERG was trying to achieve.

It's happened time and time again, indeed is still happening. It's why the only things that have ever properly worked in BOF, or moved BOF on, have been implemented by individuals who have made things happen, often bypassing BOF. It's a fundamental flaw in the way BOF works, and sadly there is no sign of it changing.

Indeed, the whole process is a major indictment, not of the scheme, but of the way the Federation works. And there is no immediate prospect of improvement. I found the whole process thoroughly dispiriting, and totally alienating. Certainly, it has made me think very long and hard about any involvement with BOF, and is the primary reason why I've gone back to working at club level.

So, Scott, the reason why this is important is not to do with the number of levels, but to do with the complete failure by BOF to implement change effectively, representing as it does a fundamental weakness within BOF that needs addressing.

In spite of this, people are making it work effectively - the best example perhaps being in the SOA. My region has certainly started to take it on, and I'm confident that in the next few months we'll see the new system settling in. The last thing that is needed is another change, particularly a retroactive one.

[Scott]

So, Scott, the reason why this is important is not to do with the number of levels, but to do with the complete failure by BOF to implement change effectively, representing as it does a fundamental weakness within BOF that needs addressing.

Well, quite. That would be a good example of what I mean by

more serious issues facing the future of the sport in the UK

But sadly, very few people are actually talking about that directly. Instead, everyone (including much of the non-Nopesport-reading populace) is busy getting excited about how many levels there should be in the event structure and why.

[Sunlit Forres]

Speaking as a semi-interested observer of this complicated debate, I'd like to offer my view as a fairly simple club-level orienteer. For me, the 4-level system is what we need:

Level 1 - National events directed/controlled by BOF. Grade 1 officials required.

Level 2 - Regional events. To include a prescribed selection of colour coded courses (as per the BOF table in Event Guideline B) that can be matched to age classes. An example is a SOL in our case up here in Scotland. These events, and the areas to be used, to be timetabled/allocted by regions. Grade 2 officials required with controller appointed by regions. It is the variety of courses on offer that would differentiate these events from level 3.

Level 3 - District events. Colour coded events to include a minimum of yellow, orange, light green, green, blue and brown (controlled by clubs). Dates for these should be allocated to clubs by regions so as not to have 2 adjacent clubs doing one on the same day. Grade 3 officials required and a controller appointed by clubs.

Level 4 - Local Events. Totally at the discretion of clubs with as few or as many courses as they like. No special qualifications required for officials. Anything goes!

Somebody mentioned how we treat urban-sprint events etc. Not sure about this one at all, but I would like to see urban events put on in conjuntion with mainstream events wherever possible.

I'm sure some will see this as an over-simplistic view, and if I'm missing something then fair enough - it's just the view from the grass roots.


Finally, as it's been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, one observation from me on embargoed areas:

[/quote]

I think the issue here is that some clubs don't have that many "good" areas, and those they do have may have restrictions on the time of year they can be used. You've obviously got to put the highest-level events on these areas, and so the embargo requirements mean that they can't be used so much for other events.

Although we have several good areas in Moray, there are only 2 with on-site toilets: Culbin and Roseisle. These areas are Forestry Commission showpieces for public access and recreation with facilities to match. It's not inconceivable that either or both of these places could be used for major events in the coming years. It would be a shame if we were prevented from using small parts of these areas for small events to attract newcomers, and give them the best possible experience. I'd prefer it if it was up to the local clubs how rigidly they apply any such embargoes - provided they apply the spirit of them, then that ought to be OK.

[Scott]

Although we have several good areas in Moray, there are only 2 with on-site toilets: Culbin and Roseisle. These areas are Forestry Commission showpieces for public access and recreation with facilities to match. It's not inconceivable that either or both of these places could be used for major events in the coming years. It would be a shame if we were prevented from using small parts of these areas for small events to attract newcomers, and give them the best possible experience.

Somebody more knowledgeable may correct me on this, but I don't think there's anything in the rules to stop you holding local events on an area which has been embargoed for a major event several months later - especially events targeted at newcomers. All an embargo means is that anyone who runs (or plans/controls) at the local event would have to declare themselves non-competitive at the major event.

If you're planning on competing for a pot at the major event, then don't go to the local event.

If, like most of us, you're never going to be in the running for prizes at the major event anyway, does it really matter to you whether you appear in the results as "n/c" or not? Personally, I would quite happily go to both events, particularly if it's a nice area. Neither having been on the area nine months earlier nor being officially "non-competitive" is likely to affect my enjoyment of the later (major) event. I guess other people may feel differently, though.

If you're a newcomer, does it make much difference to you at all?

EDIT: Turns out that I am stupid, and the guidelines say that clubs should not organize events on an embargoed area within the embargo period. But as long as anyone who runs at the earlier event is clearly warned in advance that they will have to declare themselves non-comp for the later one, and the events are more than (say) three months apart, does it matter if they do? (Genuine question - I'd be interested to hear arguments for both sides.)

[Sunlit Forres]

Thanks for that Scott. Interestingly, I went down to the November Classic this year, having never run in the New Forest before. I'm sure that all the locals had been sticking to whatever embargo had been put in place, but nobody's telling me thet they weren't at an advantage over somebody like me who was totally new to the place.

Like you, I can't get excited over this sort of thing. It doesn't bother me if somebody comes 22nd instead of 24th because they've got a bit of local knowledge. Anyway, in my experience, I tend to make as many mistakes in areas I know as the ones I don't! If you're good enough, and the map's good enough, I'd have thought that familiarity with the area wouldn't make a right lot of difference.