AGM Levy Options

[greywolf]

Looking at your details the courses being run by the Juniors look like the same courses available on the Colour Coded event so if I was being cynical I would say this was just a way to avoid paying the full amount of levy due by making the number of juniors counting towards the levy as 0.
If other clubs also started making all juniors being part of a junior only event I am sure that BOF would soon start looking at this

You are being cynical. Obviously the white to light green courses are shared by the Schools Champs and the Colour coded event - but if you read the details you'll see that only juniors from Highland and Moray will be eligible for the former, not "all juniors". Juniors from elsewhere will be in the colour-coded event (unless it turns into the aberdeenshire champs too ) Meanwhile adult BOF members can get 11km of Culbin for £5....
While you're on the Moravian website, have a look at the list of events & results - MOR put on 20 events last year, including 4 for schools...not bad given the size of the club, & I hope if BOF were to "start looking at this" they'd think that amount of development activity worthy of encouragment, not sniping.

[Sunlit Forres]

I was being cynical

Too right you were EricH, and unfairly so. This event was conceived as part of a bigger junior development project in Moray. It was planned as a stand-alone event to follow on from the Moravian Orienteers/Active Schools Orienteering Festival at the end of April. It is aimed at attracting kids who would otherwise not have come to an O event.

When we heard that the Highland Schools Festival was going to be on 11 June it seemed the obvious thing to do to combine forces with INVOC and have a joint champs as soon as possible after the Highland Schools. A Moravian colour coded event planned for the 13th just happened to fall on the ideal date - it has become an add-on - not the other way round.

Juniors from other areas will enter the colour coded classes as normal - and be subject to levy. Had we lumped all juniors into the same event we'd have had to charge £5 per junior instead of the £3 that we're asking for - and that includes covering the cost of trophies. What kind of message would that be sending out?

As Greywolf says, if other clubs started doing this I'm sure BOF would start looking at it, and would applaud the initiative rather than sniping in such an unwelcome manner. Just think of all the extra levy income when all these kids and their parents come back to a regular event having seen for themselves what a 'real' event is like. Isn't that what the 'junior-only' levy incentive is all about?

[Mrs H]

Hocolite has organised the Hereford and Worcester Schools Champs prior to a regular MADO this Saturday which has also been registered separately (and will be run just before the MADO). There will of course also be juniors at the MADO and some of the school children's parents will stay on to run at the MADO. So other clubs are also thinking on similar lines.

Its a pity to under utilise good courses.

I had originally be saddened to think that junior only status would be compromised by adult helpers and accompanying parents getting a run at such events (or rather that said adults wouldn't get a run) - but this tandem system is a good way of getting round it.

Do rounds of the Yvette Baker/Jamie Stevenson Trophy get registered separately to the public event they are piggy backed on to does anyone know?

[EricH]

SunlitForres - I like your very selective extraction of what I said. I have nothing against what you have done and in fact believe that the type of initiative that you are doing here with the juniors is exactly what is needed. I personally dont agree with levy being charged on junior entries anyway. A lot of clubs, including my own, effectively subsidise juniors by not charging them the full rate to cover the current way the levies are structured.

Apologies if you thought I was 'sniping' at you - it was not intended. It was more a comment on the way you had to creatively use the current system to put on the event in the way you think fit.

[Eeyore]

Do rounds of the Yvette Baker/Jamie Stevenson Trophy get registered separately to the public event they are piggy backed on to does anyone know?

I don't know about the Yvette Baker rounds but I do know about the Jamie Stevenson Trophy. There is only a 'final' as only 19 clubs are eligible and no qualification is needed. It is a stand alone event for juniors only with proceeds going to ScotJOS.

[NeilC]

Do rounds of the Yvette Baker/Jamie Stevenson Trophy get registered separately to the public event they are piggy backed on to does anyone know?

The heats of the YBT are usually just normal events. The final this year (at least) did get a levy concession, a public event was held at the same venue but was temporally displaced in that the open event was run before the junior one.

Clearly there is the possibility of creative accounting but BOF ought to be able to identify real initiatives for junior-centred events when deciding whether or not to allow a levy concession.

[Spookster]

I had originally be saddened to think that junior only status would be compromised by adult helpers and accompanying parents getting a run at such events (or rather that said adults wouldn't get a run) - but this tandem system is a good way of getting round it.

The problem is, it doesn't seem appropriate that people have to "bend the rules" by holding two parallel events as a way of making such excellent initiatives viable. The "junior only" events being levy free in the levy model was intended to mean the events that really are junior only, not the events that have a small number of additional adults, or events like the Moravian one at Culbin that will probably have a 50/50 mix of seniors and juniors, if the two sub-events are considered as one.

Apparently it has not been easy for JCG to define which events are junior only and therefore should be levy free. Consequently other ways are being considered to reduce levy at events which have mostly juniors - and making juniors count as a fraction of a senior for levy calculation does this.

[graeme]

Gosh, whoever would have thought that people would bend the rules like that?

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9117&p=101294&hilit=+levy#p101294

Just make it simple and let the clubs worry about which events subsidise which. Maybe different clubs will have different priorities .

Better to spend time making events better than filling forms to manipulate complicated BOF rules in a zero-sum game.

[Mrs H]

The problem is "junior only" vs "junior centred" isn't it? I am not a big fan of the first as it seems to be limiting the potential of the event. Having done more than my fair share of accompanying adult duty (and not just for my own children) over the past 10 years - getting a run has always been a bit of a sweetner as I'm sure it has for all the adult helpers - but far more importantly it is an opportunity to get new parents - you know those ones accompanying their children from all these fabulously successful schools initiatives - to have a go
. What I'm really saying is coat-holding is such a bore why should the kids have all the fun.

Is their scope for a satisfactory definition of a "Junior-centred" event which might allow the JCG to take the accompanying adults and helpers into consideration - after all it would make events more attractive to put on from the club's point of view.

[frog]

Agree re junior only events. At the Jamie Stevenson they usually let adults run round the courses once the kids have finished and as some have made a long trip I think that's a good idea. I've never wanted to be one of those parents who lives a proxy life through their kids and suspect most orienteers feel similarly.
It's fine if it's junior training, but I think actual events should include adults and children.

[Clive Coles]

It strikes me we are trying to be too clever and too fair to the extent that events are being split to circumvent rules and guidelines.

Let's face it levy is a tax ~ avoidance can be frowned upon or endorsed. But it is a necessary evil ~ without this revenue our sport would be underfunded.

So let's keep the levy system simple ~ seems unnecessary to favour one style of competition over another. Before long someone will be arguing OAP's should pay less levy

Let clubs stage competitions to suit the age groups of likely attendees. Let the levy rules be standard across all events. You win some, others may need to be subsidised.

[RJ]

Agree with your general thrust Clive Coles, but there do have to be some allowances.....

One of our school events last year had 352 children participating. That gives a levy of £517.50....... hardly fair that we should subsidize the event to that amount. We have already done all the work over several years to generate an event of that size on a regular basis. BOF have had no input and really don't deserve a payment!

But JCG are on the ball with this one and will declare certain events which are juniors only as levy free.

On the general question of a differential between senior and junior I will go along with the current 'status quo'. It has meant that our district events have had to have their entry fees increased this year to allow for the cross subsidy of juniors by the senior entry fee. The events have a higher proportion of juniors taking part than the national average.

[Sunlit Forres]

[quote="Clive Coles"]It strikes me we are trying to be too clever and too fair to the extent that events are being split to circumvent rules and guidelines.

Let's face it levy is a tax ~ avoidance can be frowned upon or endorsed. But it is a necessary evil ~ without this revenue our sport would be underfunded.
quote]

I can see where you're coming from Clive, but I think clubs just need to be honest. Like MADO's Hereford & Worcster Schools Champs, our own Moray & Highland Junior Champs is meant to be an event in its own right. It's aimed (and marketed) at the non-orienteering community in the hope of bringing new people in to the sport who wouldn't turn up at a mainstream event. It's more for organisational efficiency and presentational reasons that it happens to coincide with a colour coded event. If parents want a run they will have to enter the colour-coded event and pay levy so BOF will actually benefit. They wouldn't if there wasn't that option.

With the exceptions of our stand-alone schools festivals, all other Moravian events treat juniors just like seniors for levy purposes. I think we're playing within the spririt of the rules and I'm sure that BOF would recognise the difference without needing to bring in new legislation.

[Spookster]

So let's keep the levy system simple ~ seems unnecessary to favour one style of competition over another.

[...]

Let the levy rules be standard across all events. You win some, others may need to be subsidised.

Agreed. I think we should scrap the levy-free "junior-only" events, and set the levy for juniors at all events such that it better matches their proportion of entry fees. Small and medium sized events aimed mainly at juniors will still end up paying no levy.

[RJ]

Agreed. I think we should scrap the levy-free "junior-only" events, and set the levy for juniors at all events such that it better matches their proportion of entry fees.

Sorry Spookster I can't agree to paying even 20% of that £517.50.