YBT final 2011

[madmike]

RS - I think you are right in some cases but wrong in others. For example clubs on the periphery on an Area where the neighbouring association heat is closer and helps raise a full team (not always easy these days!).

Not black and white as you know methinks

[Mrs H]

Hell - if they're that desperate to get to the final in the sure and certain knowledge they are not going to win it then why not?

[SeanC]

I assume it's going to be a great event and the juniors will enjoy the atmosphere/buzz etc, especially those from clubs who don't normally get to the final?

Mixing up clubs from adjacent regions could make the heats less predictable and more interesting and would give clubs regions dominated by one very successful club (eg SE/SO) more hope of making the final - which would be motivating for everyone. The other rules don't encourage clubs which don't have a large junior section unfortunately.

[AndyC]

Given that the intent of the YBT is to develop juniors the more clubs that can attend the final (within reason) the better.

[SeanC]

It's not making the final that's the problem, it's making the heats.

There are nearly 100 UK orienteering clubs.

22 complete teams in the heats

7 incomplete teams in the heats.

Approx 70 clubs didn't enter a team.

[SJC]

Approx 70 clubs didn't enter a team.

Probably not quite that many as it is England and Wales only - the Scots have their own competition. But still far too many. It would be interesting to see a table of which clubs did and didn't enter teams and find out the reasons why some chose not to. Are there really that many clubs without nine juniors in them ?

[Clive Coles]

I guess SUFFOC ( a small club) is fortunate ~ it's only in the last two years that we have got to the YBT final. For all previous years ( in my memory) we have never had sufficients juniors to form a complete team.

Two factors have changed things around :-

1) Three families with appropriatly aged children have joined the club. Not quite sufficient in themselves to form a complete team but a good base.

2) We also now have a very competitive school within the county ~ Barnardiston Hall, current British Schools Champions in the mid=preparitory class. They have a large boarding intake ~ regular orienteering is an ideal way of filling a Sunday morning for those with leisure time on their hands. For some time the school children used to "participate" by running yellow and orange courses. Then they were encouraged to move up to realise their potential and success followed. With YBT and the British Schools occuring in the same school term there is plenty of motivation for them to build up experience at the regions Sunday morning fixtures.

It would be nice to claim that we are where we are because of developments such as coaching and club nights. These will I am sure help in time but I wouldn't claim they made the difference this time around.

For small clubs it's hard to build a full sized YBT team ~ there is a strong element of luck in being able to attract sufficient young competitors. School contacts for us have been the catalyst.

[Gross]

t would be nice to claim that we are where we are because of developments such as coaching and club nights. These will I am sure help in time but I wouldn't claim they made the difference this time around.

An addmission

[AndyC]

Are there really that many clubs without nine juniors in them ?

It is not the number of juniors that matters but the number that can be fielded on the day. In the case of the NE round large number of scouts weren't available because it was Remembrance Sunday and they were on parade. I suspect similar issues may have reduced the numbers elsewhere (and yes it probabl should have taken place on another Sunday -but there isn't a suitable event within the window)

[Pat M]

For example clubs on the periphery on an Area where the neighbouring association heat is closer and helps raise a full team (not always easy these days!).

Quite right, madmike. The round trip for the average Deesider to the Welsh heat was 82 miles, and the round trip to the NW heat would have been 270 miles. Added to that it rains less in Wales and they have much better cake stalls, diolch yn fawr.

[bob]

Hell - if they're that desperate to get to the final in the sure and certain knowledge they are not going to win it then why not?

Just like we didn't win it in 2006, Mrs H

[SeanC]

Clubs need a lot more than 9 juniors to make a complete team as there needs to be a range of ages to cover all the courses.

I agree with Clive's analysis. We (DFOK) don't have a strong link with a middle/secondary school so our juniors come from families. We do have maybe 10 or so, but only 4 or 5 would be keen enough to travel an hour or so to a YBT qualifier. In practice you need 10+ such keen families because the rules demand a spread of ages and because some families wont be able to make a particular date. In most cases, that excludes all but the large clubs.

As far as I know, CHIG, HAVOC, LOK, SLOW, DFOK, MV and SAX didn't field a YBT team from the South East.

The solutions are obvious... either allow two or more clubs who can't make a team to combine, or start a parallel competition for clubs with fewer juniors- eg teams of 5 with no age/course restrictions. Maybe it didn't make it onto the bulging agendas of the old event committee(s)? - hope the new event committee will see this as a problem worth fixing.

[awk]

The solutions are obvious... either allow two or more clubs who can't make a team to combine, or start a parallel competition for clubs with fewer juniors- eg teams of 5 with no age/course restrictions.

No, no, no, no!! These are not the obvious solutions! The obvious solution is that clubs work harder to get nine (and yes, SeanC, they only need 9 as has happened on numerous occasions in the past) juniors out - that's less than a football team. The rules were written very carefully to allow a club with quite a few beginners to take part, as has been achieved on equally numerous occasions. Introducing all sorts of cop-out clauses diluting the competition would be a significant step backwards. Looking at a number of the clubs who didn't take part suggests to me it's more about the will in the club than the numbers of juniors (" We do have maybe 10 or so, but only 4 or 5 would be keen enough to travel an hour or so to a YBT qualifier.")

RS, on clubs competing in 'their' regional matches. This misunderstands how the system was set up: it was not designed to have a set of matches with clubs from one region going to one match. Instead, it was designed to provide a geographically roughly even spread of matches hosted by different associations from which clubs could choose the most convenient, either based on distance, or based on timing. What DEE did was anticipated/expected by the rules, and was completely unexceptional. AndyC: my club had a similar problem one year with the YHOA hosted round, and thus decided to compete in the NWOA hosted round (which was also, coincidentally, closer too).

[Norni]

As captain of NOR, I was excited about entering a team in this year's YBT. For the first time in a number of years, we have in excess of 9 juniors who regularly compete on orange and above. Unfortunately our regional heat was held during half term and consequently virtually our whole team was unavailable.

I know there are lots of thing to consider when putting the fixture list together, but by scheduling junior events at half-term we are surely shooting ourselves in the foot.

[Nottinghamshire outlaw]

Clubs must make sure that they are involved in the decision making process about when their Yvette Baker match is held - don't allow a fixtures secretary who may not know about school holidays to choose the date!!