Junior Development (split from PPs)

[LostAgain]

80+ juniors in the club - some of the older ones went to Stafford and the younger ones stayed home and beat up the other juniors.

Clearly MAROC have something working well, a model that could provide a basis for many other clubs and BOF when trying to grow their membership.

It's was really good to see a Scottish club come down and John should be thanked for making it happen. Particularly when many of the local clubs did not enter a team, HOC & WCH.

[graeme]

a model that could provide a basis for many other clubs and BOF when trying to grow their membership.

Yes, all you need to do is have one of the best mappers in the country in your club, weekly events on different TD5 areas with up to date professional quality maps, and make sure there are limited other options available for the kids in your area. Can't think why all clubs aren't doing it

[Olsoran]

Hmm, clearly some of that helps Graeme.

What really differentiates MAROC now from the, what was also a successful MAROC of old, and maybe other “small” clubs, is that we’re seeing the results of 6 or 7 years of investment in a truly year round junior coaching program that fully caters for age 6 upwards as far as the 16+ Talent Squad.

Having 8 qualified coaches, whilst roping in and developing parents over the same period to take on supporting roles enables the club to function without overloading key people.

….and yes we’re truly grateful that nature has blessed us with some of the best quality TD5 terrain there is. As EddieH recently posted elsewhere, events at Cambus, Glen Dye and Birsemore on virtually successive weekends this Sept/Oct, with more on Speyside just 90 minutes away, does give us technical interest and advantage.

…..and watch out, I’m sure Jon will be only too glad to have a further excuse to advertise next year’s truly multi-day Scottish Champs on Deeside.

[andypat]

I suspect what Maroc have (in addition to all of the above) is a group of people who are less self centred than the average orienteer and prepared to sacrifice additional time and effort in attracting and developing their juniors.

[LostAgain]

Yes, all you need to do is have one of the best mappers in the country in your club, weekly events on different TD5 areas with up to date professional quality maps, and make sure there are limited other options available for the kids in your area. Can't think why all clubs aren't doing it

I'm not sure that these would be the only reason. There are many clubs who have an abundance of suitable terrain, not as great as MAROC but nevertheless still very good. Kids everywhere have other things pulling on their time, XBOX/PS3 and other electronic goods are even available in Scotland from what I've heard. If it was just this then several other clubs in Scotland would meet the criteria as well as the Lake District and Northern England.

[Mrs H]

We in HOC land seem to be experiencing a bit of a turn over when it comes to juniors. A number of very active families - including my own - have grown up but are still active in the sport. We also have quite a few very young families who joined around the time of the Malvern Initiative and subsequently, who have yet to reach the PPJR stage - particularly the night O side. What we definitely do lack within the club is a structured and regular junior coaching programme, although it is still very strong within the region. I don't think this means we are more self-centred - I've certainly done a fair bit of work on junior development myself but now my children are grown up I'm working on other areas of the sport. It's other people's turn now - maybe people with children of the relevant age themselves who want to see that side of the sport stay strong.

[Big Jon]

Graeme, looking back over the areas we use most regularly for our junior training the names that occur most frequently are, Glen O'Dee, Bell Wood and Tilquillie, none of which can be described as classic technical terrain. However they are useful because they are close to Banchory/Aboyne and are fine for white courses.
I think the difference is that in spring and autumn any Sunday without an event from Maroc or Gramp or a major SOA event, there will be a training session, maybe 10-12 per year. Each session has 2-3 courses for all technical levels from white to TD5, so if a junior attends 8 sessions they could have done up to 24 courses and had advice between each one on how they got on and what techniques to think about. this means a lot of learning very quickly.
Families are encouraged to attend a series of events or training sessions and pay for these as a package - thus encouraging them to stick it out. Many are hooked and come back regularly.

[SeanC]

Out of interest are most of MOR's juniors coming from Banchory/Aboyne or are they spread across the area and from other towns as well (if there are any other towns in MORland )? I'm wondering if the currently fashionable concept of targetting small geographical areas is more important for juniors as some will go just to hang out with their friends, from school etc?

[EddieH]

Sean, you are clearly a little ignorant about the geography up here.

MOR is the county of Moray and is about as near MAROC as SAX is to HH.

[SeanC]

MOR than a little ignorant I think.

[Big Jon]

Maroc juniors are almost all from the Aboyne/Banchory catchment areas (fairly large geographic area but only 1200-1300 in total at both academies). We are hoping to spread the word to Alford (next academy north) and maybe even to others, at present there is a bit of primary school work going in these other catchments but almost nothing at secondary level. Just a case of lack of numbers/time - at present most is spent on developing the current squad and introducing newcomers from the same area.

[Sunlit Forres]

Like Jon, we in MOROC seem to have loads going on in primaries but less so at secondary (Speyside high excepted thanks to Pippa Weir's heroic efforts). In September alone there are 13 primary school coaching sessions and 5 primary schools events in Moray. Given limited volunteer manpower this is probably the best compromise and I think any club able to support a limited schools programme should concentrate on the top end of primary rather than spreading themselves thinly and trying to do everything. We get quite a lot of 'newcomer' primary-aged kids at our regular local events, but most of the secondary ages are from established orienteering families. Most of them weren't orienteering families until they started taking their kids to events while they were at primary school.

The interesting down side to providing loads of opportunities to orienteer locally is that it's hard to entice people who aren't fanatics to travel outside our own area - we could only muster 6 juniors for last weekend's North Inter-Club Junior Comp an MAROC's fine event at Cambus O'May. All of them were from established orienteering families.

In November we're holding a club event on a new map of Buckie, based at the High School. It's being heavily promoted by the local Active Schools Team, with a schools 'come and try it' day 2 weeks before during school time using the same map. As far as I know orienteering has never happened in Buckie and it will be interesting to see if many secondary kids turn up, what they make of it if they do, and whether we'll see any of them at the next event a month later 15 miles down the road. at Lossiemouth.

[mappingmum]

SF - What publicity methods so you use to reach the non-O market?

[LostAgain]

When I spoke with Big_John last weekend I think he said that they were not targetting Primary School, as past efforts had yielded little. Their target is the secondary schools, in particular 2 schools and this through after school clubs etc It was from this effort they have been successful in recruiting good numbers of juniors and engaging their parents.

Mayb John can clarify / confirm this?

[Sunlit Forres]

Apologies to viewers south of the border - this is a bit Scotland-specific but will be my last post on the subject.

Mappingmum - I think we're just really lucky that the Active Schools Team have adopted orienteering in a big way and do much of our publicity for us. We also have a couple of very enthusiastic PE specialists covering several primaries. Most of the Moray Active Schools team have done UKCC Level 1 at Glenmore, and deliver sessions in many schools. Hilary Quick deserves credit for being such a big inspiration and providing continuing support in this area; it's much more than just a Moravian thing. The Team has promoted and organised CPD sessions for teachers to learn how to do it themselves and has encouraged/supported schools to get their own maps made - most of our junior publicity goes through them (eg posters done through BOF Print Portal) and through a very supportive local press.... I think there are some family ties to Active Schools with the Northern Scot weekly rag.

As a club we are nowhere near as far down the road as MAROC, but we do try to support after-school sessions wherever we can & do all the technical side of the various schools champs. Many of Moray's schools have done orienteering as a main sport this term. Each area schools group is having their own 'Active Schools' mini-festival followed by a Moray-wide festival in October (it was the Lossie area schools today). We expect schools activity to dry up a bit after that (til the next Autumn term), but we now provide a 'pathway' to mainstream orienteering by running a Saturday morning schools league embedded in to our monthly Saturday club league events. This is the first year for the schools league and it's still too early to judge its success, but junior attendance at these Saturday events will tell us if it's working.

I've been asked to participate in a couple of workshops in conjunction our Active Schools at a conference later this month in Glasgow where all Active Schools teams in Scotland will be represented. sportScotland seem to like the way we work together and I'll do my best to encourage Active Schools in other areas to work with their local O clubs too. I believe that Roger scrutton will also be attending, and possibly Freefall too.

Interesting to see LostAgain's comment - possible MAROC have established orienteers inside the secondaries. This can make a big difference - just as Pippa has done at Speyside where she works. You ony have to look at the impact people like Blair Young and Terry O'Brien have made to see that.