How to keep people involved in orienteering?

[Angry Haggis]

Students will be getting junior rates from next year now that BOF have agreed to let clubs treat students as juniors for levy purposes.

I thought there was a BOF motion passed a few years ago (around 1999?) that required that students be charged junior rates.

[frog]

We've been treating students as juniors for a few years.

[Scott]

They are trying to ensure maximum membership of BOF, whether this is the best approach for clubs has probably never been considered.
They are doing this to show the government backed funding bodies how big a sport Orienteering is (through official membership figures)

Just to clarify: Sport England aren't at all interested in membership figures any more - the main thing they care about is participation numbers. I understand the situation is different in Scotland, as Sport Scotland do still use membership numbers as their main metric.

[Red Adder]

BOF faces interesting times ahead as their paymasters reduce grants. If they try to raise money from members and competitors to cover the loss I think they will find out pretty quickly that the bulk of those who participate would favour a SHR style organisation - or will no longer be involved in orienteering.

[Wayward-O]

Once a new person has been to an event, we need to ensure that they come to another - and so on - until they join a club and become a regular. Therefore, we need to ensure that they receive the details of the next event(s), not have to go looking for them. A couple of ideas -

1. Too often details of a club's next fixture is buried on the fixtures page of the website. If a new competitor accesses the website to see the results of the event they attended, then they should automatically see the details for the next event - the best place is on the Home page of the website.

2. You can just about guarantee that the new competitor will take their map home with them, so use it as a vehicle to provide information. We (usually) only print on one side. For Level D local events, consider printing the details of the next couple of local events and also the next Level B or C event (even if being organised by another club) on the back of the map so that it can be pinned up as a reminder. The information presented could be extended to include the current class leaders if the event was part of a series or appeals for help at upcoming events. I'm sure others can think of other information that could usefully be shared with new and established orienteers in this manner. For colour-coded events, details of upcoming events could be included on the back of the maps for the White to Orange courses, say.

[Paul Frost]

1. Too often details of a club's next fixture is buried on the fixtures page of the website. If a new competitor accesses the website to see the results of the event they attended, then they should automatically see the details for the next event - the best place is on the Home page of the website.

All 8 club websites I have built have the next event at the top of the home page

Good idea about printing on the back of the map (or possibly on the front somewhere).

[Clive Coles]

We normally try to put simple details of the next club event on the SI times readout each competitor receives and the end of their run.

[LostAgain]

I suspect that a there is a point here around what BOF is aiming to achieve by having the top down mebership structure.
They are trying to ensure maximum membership of BOF, whether this is the best approach for clubs has probably never been considered.
They are doing this to show the government backed funding bodies how big a sport Orienteering is (through official membership figures)
Also hopefully they'll be looking to show what a good job they are doing in growing the membership....
All in order to secure ongoing funding.

Much of what BOF does involves dancing to the tune of the paymasters.

Look at the Talent Pathway for O' and for other sports, you won't see much difference.

In Scotland some years ago athletics (in all its forms) was suddenly taken over by an entirely new body call Scottish Athletics. They introduced a SAL membership structure and fee that took no account of the well established club structure. All of a sudden SAL was issuing race licences (insurance) you had to be a member of SAL to run in one of these races, or pay a £2 surcharge.
There was absolutely no requirement to be a mamber of a club.
The clubs were not happy. Where did this organisation come from, what was its mandate ? It was a coup.
The clubs tried to reject the whole thing but somehow failed, I forget why.

Hill Running under the auspices of Scottish Hill Runners (an "informal " body working in the interests of the sport) decided to take their own tack. They arranged their own insurance for races so that organisers didn't have to go to SAL, therefore competitors didn't have to pay a levy, competitor's didn't have to join SAL, and could simply be club members (though that is not a requirement). The ethos is; come, run, enjoy.

There are no levies to SHR. Runners may choose to join SHR ( for just £8). People join because they want to, because they agree with the aims of SHR. The only situation where you are required to join SHR is if you want to take advantage of their race insurance (which presumably comes from the insurers). SHR does not charge the race for insurance. As a hill race organiser I have passed on some of the profit from races to SHR purely as a matter of altruism.
SHR has no paymasters other than its members and participants and is able to act as it sees fit in their interests.

Orienteering could go a similar way, could we not take FRA insurance for an orienteering event, similar to the Capricorn and Phoenix. Thereby avoiding levy and paying excessive amounts for a BOF overhead?

[roadrunner]

Once a new person has been to an event, we need to ensure that they come to another - and so on - until they join a club and become a regular. Therefore, we need to ensure that they receive the details of the next event(s), not have to go looking for them. A couple of ideas -

1. Too often details of a club's next fixture is buried on the fixtures page of the website. If a new competitor accesses the website to see the results of the event they attended, then they should automatically see the details for the next event - the best place is on the Home page of the website.

2. You can just about guarantee that the new competitor will take their map home with them, so use it as a vehicle to provide information. We (usually) only print on one side. For Level D local events, consider printing the details of the next couple of local events and also the next Level B or C event (even if being organised by another club) on the back of the map so that it can be pinned up as a reminder. The information presented could be extended to include the current class leaders if the event was part of a series or appeals for help at upcoming events. I'm sure others can think of other information that could usefully be shared with new and established orienteers in this manner. For colour-coded events, details of upcoming events could be included on the back of the maps for the White to Orange courses, say.

Good ideas. Another alternative that I've seen is to print the details on the SI/Emit results slip - which is something else that everyone will almost certainly take home with them.

[Sunlit Forres]

Paul - I really like the idea about advertising the next event on the map. I've just done exactly that for a Roseisle map I've been tweaking for one of our new planners who's doing our Sat League event at Roseisle on 13th Aug. Thanks very much for the good suggestion - I'll let you know if it works.

Sorry that this is a bit off-thread but this year we put details of forthcoming orienteering events on the back of the race numbers for the Moray Forest Runs Series. Despite 287 people taking part in the series (4 races spread over 6 weeks), not a single new adult has come to an event as far as I can tell, apart from those who'd come anyway.

Despite our club trying to get involved with local running events, it seems that runners just don't want to try orienteering. Just about all of our new members have been juniors - most of the new adult members have been attracted through their kids.

[Paul Frost]

I think most of our "runners" come from a hill running, OMM, LAMM type background rather than road/trail.

I remember a conversation with a runner I was trying to convince to have a go at orienteering...
"But if I keep stopping or slowing down it will ruin my pace/flow"
"If the ground is uneven isn't there a risk of injury?"
"If we don't all start at the same time who am I racing against?"
How would I know if I was catching someone up to give me the encouragement to run faster?"

Let's face it, we are a weird bunch, generally well paid professional types that complain bitterly about an extra 50p on entry fees. Yet we are prepared to work for days unpaid as a volunteer, not bother to claim expenses and possibly spend more than 5 times the entry fee in fuel to get to the event. There are generally no prizes/cash for winning, no chance of fame (to the general public), every event location ideally needs to be new, etc.

In spite of all those things, a reasonable number of us want it to stay that way, but it's a hard sell to convince Joe Bloggs to try it.

[ChristineV]

Quite correct Adrian ~ this is why the current fixture list is rubbish.

................

Garbage in ~ garbage out. And BOF has used our money to get us to this sad state of affairs.

What sort of message does this give to those who contact BOF for information as to how to get involved ?

I've only just caught up with this thread.

I learnt at a regional association meeting this week that the fixtures list is due to be revised soon.

Also, the reason why software updates/revisions to the BOF website take some time to appear is because they are NOT using vast amounts of our money to do it. BOF gets the work done by its software company when it does not have more urgent work to do, thereby not paying huge fees; the drawback is that, if the software company is busy, there can be a considerable lead time before a revision gets uploaded (and I think BOF do pay for really urgent stuff to be done).

Christine

[70plus]

Despite our club trying to get involved with local running events, it seems that runners just don't want to try orienteering. Just about all of our new members have been juniors - most of the new adult members have been attracted through their kids.

Very interesting, and exactly what I would expect. I remember many years ago (this may be getting to sound corny) a Lancashire club, several of whose members had themselves arrived from fell-running, did a blanket mailshot in one of their main towns - I think the response was very close to zilch. Many of O's recent adult recruits have indeed come in via their kids, who have picked it up at school. It seems that any publicity push for O will entail a lot of effort for small returns.

Every autumn our club puts on the Sandstone Trail race, which one of our members started about 30 years ago. It is purely a running race, which attracts over 200 non-orienteers, mostly from local running clubs, and shows no sign of dwindling. We recently tried to persuade those clubs to take over the organisation, but oddly enough they weren't interested

[DeerTick]

I think most of our "runners" come from a hill running, OMM, LAMM type background rather than road/trail.

I agree with Paul on virtually everything he posts here, but differ here re DeerTick. I came into O from track/road/X-Country in the seventies. I remember being accused of "unfairness" because I was fit! My PBs at 1500, 3000, 3000SC, 5000 and 10000 all date from the year I abandoned track training and concentrated on road running and orienteering (It's essentially an elongated reps session). My marathon PB took a couple more years . To my (now) eternal regret I drifted away from orienteering and have only returned in the last few years. My crass errors demonstrate that.
I do agree with those who point out the potential for injury, though. My daughter, Susan, has expressed an interest, but I would be unhappy to see her have bash in the run-up to an important marathon.

AP

[Gross]

AP..... you were running with Stuart Easton & co... so orienteering wasn't new to you