Money - too tight to mention?

[graeme]

Taxpayer: 733

Not quite. A lot of that comes from the lottery. Now we haven't heard (yet) what sort of raid on that "ringfenced" money is going to happen.

[Spookster]

Not intending to be a doom and gloom thread - just wondering what people think will be the impact of the budget/spending cuts on us in the next few years?

An open letter from Sport England Chief Exec to NGB Chief Execs that is published on the Sport England website

Of course Scott is right about the UK Sport money funding primarily the International Programme - that does cease in 2013.

[ryeland of doom]

In the 1980's I managed to keep going through prolonged unemployment by hitching and use of the far cheaper public transport then. This time (yes I have been done already) it will not be so easy although I am able to pick up casual work and just about keep a car going.
A big change since the last blight is that there is far more local orienteering now. We have more parks and urban fringe areas mapped. There are more events near the cities and a choice some weekends. Urban orienteering is also a positive development since then.

Best of all, thanks to technology and restraint our entry fees are affordable to far more people than most other sports. Thanks everyone for not pricing us out of orienteering.

[ifititches]

I was under the impression that most of the money the sport got was from lottery funding, and not taxation, so money is effectively coming from whatever the sample of the population is that buys lottery tickets.

Thanks to open government info you can see exactly how much orienteering has received from the lottery over the years by a simple search at
http://www.lottery.culture.gov.uk/

Lots of clubs were putting in for funds from 1996 onwards, "orienteering" as search word shows the sport receiving 193 grants totalling £8,320,450 since 1996. Although a sizeable amount is for the world class programme, we will all have benefitted from the maps and equipment that have been funded

Not making any particular point here, as I am certainly OK about my taxes being used to fund sport and keep participation fees down, rather than quite a few other things I can think of.

Just seen Ryeland's post and so sorry to hear about the work situation and that we are too far away to offer you lifts.

Ruth

[madmike]

Brilliant, instead of paying taxes we just pay for what we use / want to. Be interesting to see how quickly the ministry of "defense" goes bankrupt

Defence please Mharky we are British!

PS didn't you know it was already bankrupt

[Mrs H]

My interpretation of the way of the world was this: The government set up and initially funded a great many jobs in the leisure industry in the hope that we would eventually take over the funding directly (as opposed to indirectly) once we had seen how good an valuable these people were so that they could then divert the money they were no longer spending to employ more people to do jobs that we didn't know we couldn't live without and so on and so on.

I'm not sure what the scenario was if we suddenly thought we didn't need the people or that we could do the job better ourselves.

Speaking personally all I know was that I launched a very successful development initiative myself - and yes I did get some lottery funding for equipment - only to have the apparent fruits of my labour of love snatched away by BOF Central's determination to make everyone join and thereby justify their own existence.

In this regard I feel BOF's target driven dependence on central funding has done me and my club a great dis-service (although I'm amused at their strange interpretation of what a satellite club should be).

So perhaps I think a slimmed down BOF would be a good thing, it will of course mean a substantial pruning of the paid staff.

[SeanC]

Our experience is different. The BOF development officer gave us crucial advice to help our lottery grant application and on our local series format. We used the BOF postcards and posters, which if we had produced ourselves would have been produced too late to be effective and quite possibly have looked very poor. We also used the BOF "come and try it" banner seen at many events now, though we also designed a bigger one ourselves for roadside advertising. Caroline Povey produced a newspaper advert for us and there was some money towards advertising costs.

Mike G is right to point out that the clubs are the main players in these sorts of initiatives, but our own experience is that the BOF help has made a big difference - quite possibly between a successful initative with lots of newcomers, and a demotivating unsuccessful one. Quite possibly they are less important for bigger clubs where there is more likely to be in house experience with development and publicity - but the smaller clubs are the ones who need the help most if they are to continue.

I've no objection to such development help being provided by volunteers, the region or someone paid other than BOF, on forums such as this.... so long as it works.

I thought the BOF "club nights" initiative was started because there was some government money available for local/frequent/community based sport (rather than inspired by MADO, though no doubt it influenced the final model)?

[roadrunner]

Speaking personally all I know was that I launched a very successful development initiative myself - and yes I did get some lottery funding for equipment - only to have the apparent fruits of my labour of love snatched away by BOF Central's determination to make everyone join and thereby justify their own existence.

It's interesting to observe that perhaps one of the most successful initiatives to encourage people into running - the Parkrun series of events, which started with one event and 13 runners in 2004 and now boasts 38 events each week with more than 100 runners at many of them - was (and still is) open to all from novice to international, free to enter, with no need to be a club member: perhaps not so far away from the MADO concept? I don't think they had any interference from NGBs, nor any government subsidy, either!

[Mrs H]

but our own experience is that the BOF help has made a big difference - quite possibly between a successful initative with lots of newcomers, and a demotivating unsuccessful one.

...but where do you think BOF got the model from? Up until MADO the only initiative BOF were interested in was schools development

[fleetfoot]

I don't think they had any interference from NGBs, nor any government subsidy, either!

Based on this extract taken from an email to someone trying to create a new Parkrun event maybe they have more subsidy than you think.

"All new parkrun events currently need funding and the cost of a new parkrun is £5000. We usually ask councils, NHS or local sport organisation to get involved and fund a part of this start-up. This is something that needs to be considered and that we are happy to discuss regarding to any specific situation."

This seems to be a down payment to the "owners" of the "Parkrun" concept and in addition organisers then have to provide all the timing equipment, laptops etc. Clearly this has to be all funded from somewhere so maybe they won't be free in the future?

[SeanC]

...but where do you think BOF got the model from? Up until MADO the only initiative BOF were interested in was schools development

Just to be clear, the development initiative I was referring to (that BOF helped with) was a 4 event mini series aimed at newcomers a specific area. I think that concept must date back to the early years of orienteering in the UK.

Someone else may be able to say whether the club nights initiative started because someone found out about a pot of money, or because someone was looking for money to start a nationwide MADO style initiative.... and this is as close as they could get.

[andypat]

I don't think they had any interference from NGBs, nor any government subsidy, either!

Based on this extract taken from an email to someone trying to create a new Parkrun event maybe they have more subsidy than you think.

"All new parkrun events currently need funding and the cost of a new parkrun is £5000. We usually ask councils, NHS or local sport organisation to get involved and fund a part of this start-up. This is something that needs to be considered and that we are happy to discuss regarding to any specific situation."

This seems to be a down payment to the "owners" of the "Parkrun" concept and in addition organisers then have to provide all the timing equipment, laptops etc. Clearly this has to be all funded from somewhere so maybe they won't be free in the future?

Is parkrun a loss leader?

[RCB]

only to have the apparent fruits of my labour of love snatched away by BOF Central's determination to make everyone join and thereby justify their own existence.

I disagree with you 'Mrs H'; in my time in orienteering I have never come across a central determination to make everyone join BOF, just gentle encouragement and a good deal less than my son receives to join the local football, or my wife gets insisting that she join the local gym or Salsa class. To become a BOF member I had to do all the homework, work out the correct association etc. If anything the 'encouragement' to join could be emphasised more - sell the positive: superb national events, excellent focus magazine, website and £2.00 off at events etc. I joined because I wanted to experience the 'National event' and what a buzz it was - it is the reason I still compete today after 25+ years. I just wish someone had encouraged me to branch out from local O when I was still young enough to benefit. A bit of corporate 'hard sell' might have encouraged me to take my head out of the sand and experience this wonderful sport at National level. Superb areas, great people and a real challenge. I hope the clubs do what my club did in 1986 and start meeting up and training together on a weekly basis - they are still going strong after all these years so hats off to BOF and our most proactive volunteers for promoting a formula that works.

[Roger]

This [£5000 start-up cost] seems to be a down payment to the "owners" of the "Parkrun" concept and in addition organisers then have to provide all the timing equipment, laptops etc. Clearly this has to be all funded from somewhere so maybe they won't be free in the future?

The Parkrun home page refers to sponsorship from Nike, Sweatshop, Lucozade Sport and the London Marathon. It also appears from the minutes of a meeting between the Assoc of British Athletics Clubs and England Athletics that Parkrun sought support from EA but failed to get any:

Despite Park Run being in the original programme for EA a satisfactory agreement had not been concluded. The London Marathon Trust is now providing some funding for Park Run, which England Athletics welcomes. The allocated funding of approx £150,000 per year has been ring fenced by EA to support other participation initiatives. ABAC asked for more information on how this money is to be re-allocated.

I've since heard discontented mutterings about the Parkrun events not having EA permits. Sounds familiar?

Perhaps one of the regular Parkrunners like AngryHaggis knows more.

[Mrs H]

I disagree with you 'Mrs H'.

I wasn't expressing an opinion I was stating a fact. Your experience may be different and a lot has changed in 25 years - you now have to fork out the full BOF membership after a year's free honeymoon period. A lot of MADO recruits chose not to and did not rejoin when the year was up and worse than that some long standing regulars whose main sport was not orienteering but who were very useful in the club locally also left. BUT they still come to MADO events as Independents - just we can't ask them to help at or put on events any more - I can't see that as anything but bad news. Weekly meetings are great if you club has a central point - ours doesnt.