Focus ?

[Scott]

(for leading 20 athletes in World Ranking)

Wot no France?

20 athletes is all the Frenchmen who currently have any world ranking at all - and half of them are ranked below me

On the other hand, France do have three men in the top eight.

[Spookster]

Well if you sum the world ranking of the best three men from each nation, you get a different list. Figures in brackets are position at WOC 2011 relay.

1. SUI 13 (4th)
2. FRA 14 (1st)
3. SWE 32 (3rd)
4. NOR 41 (2nd)
5. FIN 69 (7th)
6. RUS 86 (5th)
7. CZE 114 (12th)
8. UKR 122 (10th)
9. GBR 126 (15th)
10. LTU 149 (6th)
11. EST 161 (8th)
12. DEN 174 (13th)
13. ITA 189 (DSQ from 3rd after 2 legs)
14. LAT 200 (11th)

[PhilJ]

All arrived today with a CROESO flyer (yes please) and an Oringen flyer(?)...
Q. As CROESO is on the same time as the Oringen why is BO advertising it? Surely if they are advocating that we all go to the Oringen then they will lose lots of cash from levies, particpation numbers etc from people not going to CROESO.

Is this a bit shortsighted, yes they will have got £170 from the Oringen for the flyer mailshot but will lose alot more if people decide to go to the Oringen instead of CROESO.

As the ex-publicty guy for CROESO I approached BO last year for help with marketing and sponsorship e.g. asking who are the BO partners, which companies had sponsored BOC/JK etc, what tips they had to publicise an international multi-day....ah got nothing..zilch...no help, no assitance honestly nothing.....If BO want to survive my view is that they take over all the publicity and marketing for all international and multi day events..that includes getting sponsors also. So that would be doing the website, doing the flyers etc after all the more people that come to these events the more money BO will get from levies. They are the "experts" at marketing and publicising the sport.

[greywolf]

Q. As CROESO is on the same time as the Oringen why is BO advertising it?

You're suggesting that they should refuse advertising from foreign events on the basis that there's a clash with a domestic event? No doubt there was a reason (Olympics?) why the CROESO organisers decided to clash with O-Ringen, but they must have been aware that some (discerning? ) GB orienteers would head east - especially as for some of us Halland is rather more convenient than Aberystwyth...

NB inside Focus there is an ad for Tiomila which clashes with the British Champs...

[epocian]

In all honesty can't see why Focus exists and it must cost a fortune to produce
think BOF could spend the money better elsewhere

[Mrs H]

Indeed - and if the marketing manager didn't spend so much of her meagre part time on producing Focus she might have more time to do some marketing outside the sport and provide the kind of support that Phil asked for.

BOF are currently obsessed with alternative income streams - hence the CompassSport Cup kerfuffle - the advertising in Focus will help pay the Marketing manager's wages and printing costs, but how much better would it be if she got some sponsorship to pay her wages so she could go out and market the sport to people who are not already paid up members of the sport?

I am quite convinced that the main thrust of BOF's funding strategy is to protect the jobs of the staff rather than develop the sport

[awk]

This all may be true, but I do remember times when people here have complained about BO's failure to communicate and present an image.........

[andypat]

Well, my CompassSport arrived this morning.

Great read as ever, thanks Nick.

Dave Nevell's article on WOC results doesn't make happy reading though, particularly for our top women. I presume there is nothing there that wouldn't already be known by the BOF performance coaches, but I'm expecting some healthy debate to follow...

I thought the article failed to address a fairly signficant issue regarding strength in depth. With the sprint event being the target for our top two guys this year at least, I dont think the results in the long necessarily represent a decline, more so a change in emphasis to sprint. Essentially we dont have the strength in depth to compete at a high level in three events plus the relay. I'd like to see Dave maybe look at the results of the top one or two competitors each year and see if theres still a decline.

[lucy]

The really good news is that I am not 40 next year so must have been mis counting all this time, and the wife has gone back to being a w21 so is well happy! Happy Christmas Everyone!

[PhilJ]

Greywolf

You're suggesting that they should refuse advertising from foreign events on the basis that there's a clash with a domestic event?

Yes - exactly correct, they should be promoting Bristish Orienteering Events and where there is a clash with another country's event they should do everything in their power to make sure GB orienteers compete in GB events...else as I say they lose levy income and reduced particpation numbers (linked to funding MP3 etc). They did not have to put the Oringen flyers nor Tio Mila advert in Focus, BO choose to do this and got the income from the advert etc

They are after all the British Orienteering Federdation (of old)

....re the date of CROESO, much long discussions were held on this in early 2009 and the date has changed from the original 29th July - 4th August back 1 week due to the Olympics, fully aware that it clashed with the Oringen and many of the GB junior tours, it was felt that the clash with the Oringen and tours would have a lesser impact on entries than the clash with the 1st week of the Olympics...time will tell but it doesn't help with BO's current marketing strategy

[SeanC]

Why doesn't Croeso advertise in the equivalent scandiavian publications? The timing is a great selling point - enjoy the wilds of Wales then stay on for the olympics. Some nice pictures of the sun setting over Cardigan Bay and some map clips of the technical forests?

[greywolf]

So you wouldn't be bothered if your attempts to advertise CROESO overseas were rebuffed on the same grounds? And given that your Welsh event appears to clash with various English and Scottish events maybe you should try and get BOF to stop advertising them via the fixtures list

The point is that there are hundreds of "undecideds" who might just go to Wales if they thought it was going to be really great event - how many does it normally get cf the Scottish 6 Days? - certainly dwarfing the few extra who might go to Oringen...

[PhilJ]

Seanc

Why doesn't Croeso advertise in the equivalent scandiavian publications?

because it is very very expensive to advertise, did look at placing an ad in Skogsport but would have cost circa £500.00...however we did have a stand at this years Oringen village and distributed over 2500 leaflets at Swedish events so far (1500 at this years Oringen) plus flyers went all over Europe and beyond to all the summer multiday's thanks to many Nopers who took them, WMOC, WOC, JWOC, Finland 6 day, Austria 6 day, German 6 day, Croatia 5 day, OO Cup Slovenia, SOW Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and USA, so far shifted circa 15,000 flyers, 10% return will give 1,500 entries, which would be excellent.

[EddieH]

I rather think this has been mentioned before, but the reason that the Swiss O Week clashes with the Scottish 6 day is that the Swiss asked BOF if there wew any major events in Britain that week and were told "No"

[andypat]

Greywolf

You're suggesting that they should refuse advertising from foreign events on the basis that there's a clash with a domestic event?

Yes - exactly correct, they should be promoting Bristish Orienteering Events and where there is a clash with another country's event they should do everything in their power to make sure GB orienteers compete in GB events...else as I say they lose levy income and reduced particpation numbers (linked to funding MP3 etc). They did not have to put the Oringen flyers nor Tio Mila advert in Focus, BO choose to do this and got the income from the advert etc

But they are promoting CROESO as well - same flier in with Focus for Croeso as for Oringen. There's a huge difference between promoting both events and refusing to promote one! To refuse to advertise wider events on the basis that we should go to "British" events sounds a bit North Korean to me. I'm going to Wales on the basis that its what I can afford this year. With respect to CROESO, if I wanted to go to Oringen, it would make not one hoot of a difference whether or not if I found either flier in the BOF mailing. I say take the advertising revenue BOF and get on with things!