AGM News In Brief

[EddieH]

Well Sean that's the can of worms opened by the vote. We'll have to wait and see what BOF rules, what happens and the whole malarky starts all over again. I cannot see that there will be any benefit from the vote. I am certain it will incur BOF unnecessary expense - but on the plus side it will no doubt give a lot of scope for Nopesport debate as things are not as some want them

[Mrs H]

Sean why don't you put the questions direct to the Lakeland Massif - they must surely have thought all these things through before putting the motion - it would be interesting to see how they propose it to be implemented - or are they leaving the dirty work to others?

[greywolf]

I'm quite surprized that there aren't another 100 posts on the topic of the victory for the 4 level proponents.

Partly because we all know it will be left for BOF to implement...so won't really take effect for a year or two, and partly because we suspect that it was only a temporary measure on the way to next year's AGM motion establishing a 7-level system (I understand there's still some debate about naming all those levels, one of them has to be called Regional, obviously, the others, in a shameless bid to draw in more young {<50} punters, will probably be Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble & Grubb)

[RJ]

......These are the immediate questions that spring to mind. Any thoughts/answers?.......

I think the table published on Page 10 of CompassSport, Issue 1, seems to answer most of your questions SeanC. I hope so anyway.......

[SeanC]

I'll check tonight RJ, thanks.

Might it be a good idea for one/some of the proponents to field questions by email? They will always be points for clarification for some clubs and these might mean tweaking/clarification of the proposal which would be better identified before the BOF committees become involved - especially as the vision for this proposal is coming from outside the committees.

For what it worth, I hope this works and we can all settle down to discuss OCAD issues and shades of green.

[awk]

Hi SeanC
Having chatted about this with several people at the Nottingham event yesterday, all that is clear is that nobody is clear - the inevitable result. The table that RJ refers to doesn't help altogether, as the definitions are so woolly (most of the level 2/3 descriptors are interchangeable) or unworkable (anybody for embargoing a goodly proportion of our major cities for 12 months at a time?). My club has a committee meeting coming up - we will carry on as normal, and wait for somebody to clear the mess up.

[Marco Polo]

I think this should be the same table as published on the BOF website here.

http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/n ... tables.pdf


Looks like your 'district' event can be a ranking event as well.

[Angry Haggis]

[Red Adder]

Its interesting that most of the comments here suggest they come from those who supported living with 3 levels for at least another year to see how things panned out. Many of those who I know who support 4 levels almost instinctively felt that 4 represented the sport better did not seem to appreciate the rationale behind 3 levels or the consequences of another change.

All very sad really when the main (and potentially fatal) problem for the sport is that its ageing and contracting. I know its not scientific but I note the JK had around 80 competitors in total on M21 L / M21S. At my last M21 JK 20 years ago (in the more accessible East Midlands) the total was over 600 [itself down from 860 in the supposedly crap EA forests attracted in 1986]. At this rate of contraction each competitor will have thier own personbal level some time in the next 20 years.

Falling numbers is what we should spend time and money on addressing.

[DJM]

Red Adder wrote

Falling numbers is what we should spend time and money on addressing.

Couldn't agree more ... and reference to JK M21 numbers reminded me of the CompassSport article 9 years ago which similarly urged that we focus on the two Rs, recruitment and retention, and not on the admin issues of the day.

See http://www.stpaulsschool.org.uk/resource.aspx?id=147065 for the full article.

[graeme]

... and the last compassSport showed that the trend continues...

a large number of juniors, essentially all of whom give up at 18-20 (elites aside).

a group of people recruited some 20+ years ago now moving through the age groups aged 40+

The retention of the 45-75 age groups is rather good. Juniors quitting at 20 is common to pretty well all sports, I don't think we should beat ourselves up over that. The big decline is the 20-year failure to recruit new young seniors. I would be rather confident of being able to finish higher in 40L, 35L or 21L at any national championship than at 45L.

As for collapsing M21 numbers, note that the elite numbers have held up pretty well, which surely tells us something.

[SeanC]

Looking at the proposals details, our bog standard regional event has a 12 month embargo and a level 2 controller so that would mean it's a level 2 event. If I interpret this correct this would mean that old badge events are level 2 and old district events are level 3, or at least this is how it looks from the South East perspective. No doubt our fixtures secretary will sort it out in good time.

I'm of the opinion that for most clubs a big improvement in publicity at club level is the easiest way to increase membership and participation in the short term. With an influx of new members more innovation would follow. But many clubs struggle with publicity, particularly the small ones who most need it. Perhaps this is because the most active members are fully occupied with all the other stuff? Or maybe it's hard to find people who have the relevant personality/experience (given there are no training courses in publicity as there are for planning, mapping, coaching...)?

I'm stirring a bit for fun here, but if BOF were run as a private buisness, and we had to do what the MD told us.. then I suspect we would get paid publicity officers doing club publicity for us, paid for with a big increase in levies and the like. We would be told that it would go up anyway if we didn't maintain our participation levels - which it has.

[awk]

I know its not scientific but I note the JK had around 80 competitors in total on M21 L / M21S. At my last M21 JK 20 years ago (in the more accessible East Midlands) the total was over 600 [itself down from 860 in the supposedly crap EA forests attracted in 1986]. At this rate of contraction each competitor will have thier own personbal level some time in the next 20 years. Falling numbers is what we should spend time and money on addressing.

Interesting perhaps to note that the M21 entry (149) at the JK represented 6% of the total entry, with the W21 (125) at 5%. A quick, unscientific, comparison with the City of London Race, shows that the proportions there were respectively 17% (85) and 10% (49).

We found this in our club when we hosted the Northern Champs at our National Event in the Dales, and the M/W21 entry was less than we often get at our local summer evening sprint races. Whether this is universal, I haven't checked, but certainly these sorts of races do feel as if there are more young adults.

Looking at the proposals details, our bog standard regional event has a 12 month embargo and a level 2 controller so that would mean it's a level 2 event.

Ah, I see, that's what the quality criteria are going to be. Going to make a lot of difference, I can see that.

[pete.owens]

Looking at the proposals details, our bog standard regional event has a 12 month embargo and a level 2 controller so that would mean it's a level 2 event.

Applying those critera then some of our summer evening local events would be level 2 but our old style badge events wouldn't.

[Marco Polo]

12 month embargo for your summer evening events- surely not!