a quick vitriole courtesy of the N.O.C

[ba-ba]

My dearest Nopesport,
how much would you pay, per person, for a week of training planned by your own club (5 days) in the Highlands, including several newcomers to the sport? Bearing in mind you paid £7.60(for 6 days per person) the year previous.
£5 for a week?
£10 for a week?
£20 a week?


Answers on a postcard.

[pyrat]

The cost should depend on the actual cost to the club for the training exercises. If you are going to the highlands you might need to get maps from the National Orienteering Centre.. in my experience these maps seem pretty expensive.

But something like £30 for a weeks training not including accomodation and food seems pretty reasonable to me.

[Paul Frost]

To make it easier for people to answer, here is a link to the price list (it's a PDF) of resources available from the National Orienteering Centre, NATCEN (NOC is Nottingham OC).

I would be interested to hear which part of the costs you think is excessive and how much you think it should cost.

[graeme]

Depends what you're getting.

£3 a large, technical, recently professionally surveyed map, £1 an area access charge, £1 parking might be typical.

If you want to spend a day training on a small, crappy, amateurly surveyed area in Edinburgh I'll sort you out something for free.

[AndyC]

Paul,
can I just get an understand of why an extra discount is needed for SOA ?
£15 per hour seems a reasonable charge rate judging by professional charges I see in the real world of business but I can't get my head around all the other charges and what they would total per person per day

[andy]

can I just get an understand of why an extra discount is needed for SOA ?

probably because SOA clubs pay an event levy to the SOA as well as the BOF one

[Mrs H]

I'm guessing the original question is why has it trebled in price from last year?

[Paul Frost]

Any extra discounts to SOA members may be related to the fact that NATCEN and it's equipment is owned/funded by the SOA. Many of the map updates are also paid for by the SOA. SOA members pay an additional membership fee on top of the BOF fee, so it's nice to think we should get some advantages.

The cost per person would depend on how many people took part. It takes the same amount of time to arrange permissions for 20 people as 5.

The cost of printing a map is not just the ink/paper, someone needs to operate the computer that prints it etc. It all takes time, which should be included in the costing.

I'm not sure how the price has trebled from last year, you can look at the costs for 2008/9 here, they look very similar to me.

[Mrs H]

Out of interest - who is actually responsible for administering Natcen (I put that in Google but all I got was something to do with social research) is it BOF, the SOA (Whose web site it appears on)or Glenmore Outdoor Centre?

[Paul Frost]

It is run by the SOA.
Hilary Quick (SOA Development Officer) is a paid employee of the SOA and she 'runs' the National Centre.
I think in the distant past British Orienteering part funded it, but I'm fairly sure there is no direct funding of it now.
When I took over developing the SOA website (4-5 years ago) I asked if it should have it's own identity / website or be part of the SOA site, and was told that as it was no longer part funded by BOF it should be rolled into the main SOA site.

[awk]

My dearest Nopesport,
how much would you pay, per person, for a week of training planned by your own club (5 days) in the Highlands, including several newcomers to the sport? Bearing in mind you paid £7.60(for 6 days per person) the year previous.

Whatever was paid the previous year is irrelevant - that sum, after all, could have been massively subsidised by financial support that is no longer available (I don't know - just one possibility). You certainly appear to have got a really good bargain.

[Big Jon]

National Centre areas are among the best in Britain - and would hold their own in any international comparison. A few pounds per map (particularly if there are already controls hung out) is a small price to pay for top quality orienteering on top quality areas. Compare this to the cost of driving to Strathspey or accommodation or eating out and I'm sure the O component of a training week is a pitifully small proportion.

[ba-ba]

When I last posted I'm afraid I pussyfooted out a little bit. Here is what I meant to say, in full, no punches pulled. I have been told it is quite persuasive...

I appeal to you on a matter of utmost travesty; namely: How much would you pay for a week of training in the Scottish Highlands?

As some of you may be aware, and some of you may not, my mighty club visit Aviemore, in the Scottish Highlands, early every September for a week of quality training before the start of term, so we can be on good form, both physically and banterously, ahead of the winter, where we try to attract as may non-orienteers as we can to join our club. We are normally very successful in this quest, as many will confer.
This year, our trip to Aviemore included a wide range of members; from national squad members, to complete newcomers to the sport of Orienteering.
Our coach organised 5 quality training sessions (1 less than the normal 6, as we took in the Park World Tour on the way home) around The Scottish Highlands in the week between Sept 3rd and Sept 9th. The National Orienteering Centre at Glenmore are usually very very helpful in providing us with access to the quality areas which we require for our training, providing well priced A3 maps on waterproof paper for our training over 6 days. In the last 2 years we have taken in Loch Vaa, Inchriah, Uath Lochan, Culbin, Roseisle, Alvie and Anagach, to name but a few.
Last year, the use of 6 areas, for 25 maps per area (in A3), cost ~£190 (I have rounded up). This works out at about £7.60, per person for the week. As a week of training, the club paid this cost, even if it did include maps for former members who attended the training week. The club are happy to pay £7.60 per person for quality maps for quality training.

This year our trip included 12 people. We asked for:
1x map of Loch Vaa per person = £3.25 per person
1x map of Uath Lochan per person = £3.25 per person
1x map of Inchriah per person (note: wrong scale compred to what we asked for) = £3.25 per person
2x map of Roselisle per person (extra for tour champs) = £6.50 per person
1x map of Kinguisse per person (note: wrong scale compared to what we asked for) = (£2.25 per person)
£2 per map (£1 per A4 sheet); £1.25 for copyright. Per map.
please note: we found out the cost as we picked the maps up, not before. We were not informed of the price increase compared to last year.
I hasten to add that this year the A3 maps were in 2 A4 pieces (last year they were whole A3.)
This year, as a club, we have been charged ~£240 FOR 12 PEOPLE for 5 days of training.

Between 12 people this equals £20 per person, for one week of training. Including beginners to the sport.

Considering that I paid £20 for a 5 days of quality Orienteering on M21L at the Lakes 5 day, including course setting, course hanging, parking and assembly area , I DO NOT expect to pay pretty much the same price per day when courses are planned by “my” coach, with no expenses provided for parking, hanging or full SI capability.

I post this as no longer a member of my club's hierarchy; instead a frustrated 'punter' Orienteer hoping to improve the technique of myself, and that of novice Orienteers, and not dissuading fellow Orienteers because of the price of our sport.

Just to add the costs for our week in the highlands, which has got more and more expensive over the last couple of years (per person):
Accomodation: ~£82 per person
Transport: ~ £28 per person
Food: ~£15 per person.
+PWT entry/accom@£15 per person

I know we got several CRACKING areas for training, but surely the National O centre is there to attract clubs to Scotland (either UK based or abroad). How the hell will this be achieved by charging an extortionate amount for maps? especially when charging the mystical 'copyright' charge.

May I just add that our freshers' week events have been exceedingly popular and successful, even without 3 of our most influential members. (see BOF's medal list for reasons why we are missing some of our most influential members....)

I will happily answer any forthcoming criticism with similar vitriole. I must add that some have found my late night/early morning rants irrepressible.

"So lets be young, lets be crass enough to care"

something many of you forget to remember. (either youth OR crassness).

[SeanC]

I guess if this were a trip organised by a non-uni orienteering club they might consider subsiding the overall cost of the trip out of club funds. That option may not be available to most/all uni clubs? Is it worth pitching for a BOF development grant for this? Even if the map cost were reduced no doubt the transport and food cost would continue to rise and rise.

[Paul Frost]

I think your were undercharged last year.

6 X 25 = 150 maps in total (A3) / £190 = £1.26 each map.

Last years price list shows:

Club/group training
Area advice & access negotiations (per area) £10.00
Parking information free
Print map (A4) at NatCen (laser print on pretex, per copy) £1.50
(includes copyright fee)

Which should have been £285 for A4 maps, A3 would cost more.

With regards your comment of only paying £20 for 5 days of orienteering in the Lakes.
Most of us paid considerably more than that as we had to pay more to make up for the subsidy given to students
There is also the matter of economy of scale. The cost per printed map will be substantially less when you are printing hundreds.

Perhaps we need to ask the question "Should one association subsidise the training costs of members of another association?"
As I said before, the NatCen is run by and funded by the SOA not British Orienteering.
I suspect that there are not many Scottish orienteering clubs that go on training weeks in England, so there is not much scope for reciprocal benefits.

..but surely the National O centre is there to attract clubs to Scotland (either UK based or abroad).

I'm not sure that the NatCen has a particular remit to attract visitors to Scotland, but I will ask the question.

How the hell will this be achieved by charging an extortionate amount for maps? especially when charging the mystical 'copyright' charge.

The copyright fee goes towards the cost of producing new, and updating existing maps. It's not difficult to spend £500-1000 on an update alone.