New Incentive Schemes

[sketchweppers]

No one as compained about the navigation challenge? Is that high praise indeed?

The navigation challenge just appears to be a watered down version of the colour flashes - which gave me real incentives. We did our first yellow courses as two pairs - one adult and one child in each pair, and thought we would just walk round the forest. After the event we discovered that there was such a thing as a 'par time' and at the next event I was really pleased to complete an orange course in par.
After that it was just a case of trying to get 3 courses of the same colour in par so we could get our colour flash. I think that I am really proud of my blue badge - especially since my first blue took me over 2 1/2 hours!
This new navigation challenge isn't much of a particular challenge - you just have to complete a course of a particular TD - doesn't matter if it takes you 3 hours - you will still qualify. Most stubborn people will probably persevere enough to manage that.
I'm hoping that my club still has some of the colour flashes as my son has now completed 2 blues in par - and will be keen to get his blue badge. He already has a green one - so the 5 star navigation challenge won't be much of a challenge.
I much prefered the old incentive system.

[roadrunner]

I think we should see how this goes. It might suit the newcomers better who, if coming from a running background, will be used to black and white targets (eg 5k target times - even though these are also affected by terrain, if by a lesser extent). If it's mainly used by people in their first year or two they will tend to stay local anyway.

If you stay local, then perhaps you do always tend to run in a similar type of terrain. But that still leaves the issue of it being far easier to run a given mins/km in, say, East Anglia than in Scotland, so surely we're still either making the challenge too hard for some areas and/or too easy for others.

With the navigation challenge, as far as the "easy" courses are concerned then just to complete them indeed represents an achievement for a beginner. But once you get to running green, blue, brown or black, surely it's nothing without a target time. I agree with sketchweppers - the old scheme with "par" times was much better, why did we change it?

[smf]

I much prefered the old incentive system.

I agree with sketchweppers - the old scheme with "par" times was much better, why did we change it?

It hasn't changed!

British Orienteering has now launched two new incentives schemes; The Navigation Challenge and the Racing Challenge. The incentive schemes have been devised by the Development Committee and will run alongside the existing Badge and Championship Scheme. The new incentive schemes are aimed at newcomers.

[roadrunner]

It hasn't changed!

British Orienteering has now launched two new incentives schemes; The Navigation Challenge and the Racing Challenge. The incentive schemes have been devised by the Development Committee and will run alongside the existing Badge and Championship Scheme. The new incentive schemes are aimed at newcomers.

I beg to differ. Appendix J (which covers the badge scheme) says that this only applies to Level A events - and that's not just the Championship Badge, it's Gold, Silver and Bronze as well. Previously, you could get the latter at any "badge" event, of which there were many more. And I didn't see anything there about the old colour-coded awards, though perhaps the information is buried in there somewhere.

[sketchweppers]

and that's not just the Championship Badge, it's Gold, Silver and Bronze as well. Previously, you could get the latter at any "badge" event, of which there were many more.

Totally agree with you on this one.
At the new 'regional' (level B) events - which presumably are sort of equivalent to the old 'badge' events - you now run colour coded courses with mixed age classes. The results are sometimes presented in age classes, but rarely are any badge times quoted. Presumably if you took the trouble to calculate the badge times on the correct course for your age class you could try to claim the Gold, Silver or Bronze badges if applicable.
I haven't tried it yet - perhaps someone out there has.

It is all very well saying that the new incentive scheme is for newcomers and the rest of us have the ranking list. However there is a huge divide between getting your new gold racing challenge and getting to anywhere near the top of the ranking list - even for your age class or region. The 'old' badge system really filled this gap. I am quite proud of achieving a silver badge.

[charles2]

Yes I am confused by the Gold, Silver, Bronze badges and the events at which they can be gained. As a fairly new orienteer I scoured the website for information on these badges after my wife's cousin mentioned them to me last Autumn, since I knew nothing of them.
One part of the website states that:
"These badges are awarded on performances in Regional Events (Level C), National Events (Level B), the British Orienteering Championships, British Elite Orienteering Championships (Long distance race only) and the Jan Kjellström Individual Events(Level A) over a two year period." (the incentives webpage),
whereas Appendix J states it is only at Level A events (as pointed out earlier by roadrunner).
So which is correct?

[sketchweppers]

One part of the website states that:
"These badges are awarded on performances in Regional Events (Level C), National Events (Level B), the British Orienteering Championships, British Elite Orienteering Championships (Long distance race only) and the Jan Kjellström Individual Events(Level A) over a two year period." (the incentives webpage),
whereas Appendix J states it is only at Level A events (as pointed out earlier by roadrunner).
So which is correct?

I just think that BOF have not updated this information on the website since the new event structure started back in Jan 2009. Before that there were 5 levels of events - then we had the 3 levels which wasn't very popular so it was amended at some later date to 4 levels.
Before Jan 2009 only Regional (old level C) events were used for ranking and were often called 'badge events' and entry was by age class (long or short). Badge times were calculated with reference to the fastest times for each age class long course, and extrapolated for the short courses. Now anybody can run any course, but badge times could still be calculated for the recommended age class courses (which are still published). The problem with this system was when there was a very small entry per age class - it skewed the badge times. BOF probably need to clarify whether you can still achieve badge times and which events qualify if they are saying that this new system works along side.

[DJM]

It would be straightforward to estimate what rankings points score would be equivalent to the old "Badge Event" Gold, Silver and Bronze standards for each age class. Thus, it might turn out that W45 Silver was equivalent to 650 points (just a guess, I've not done the stats yet!). Then any score over 650 points on any contributing course at a Level A/B/C event would be of Silver standard.

Similarly for the other age classes where the different G, S and B standards would be published in a table on the BOF website. The rankings software could easily be tweaked to display what standard was reached at each ranking event too, so no extra load on the organisers ...

Does this suggestion have support?

[charles2]

Thanks sketchweppers on the clarification. It does look like BOF haven't updated the Badge scheme info on the 'incentives' page despite adding to it with the two new incentives.

[SeanC]

It would be straightforward to estimate what rankings points score would be equivalent to the old "Badge Event" Gold, Silver and Bronze standards for each age class. Thus, it might turn out that W45 Silver was equivalent to 650 points (just a guess, I've not done the stats yet!). Then any score over 650 points on any contributing course at a Level A/B/C event would be of Silver standard.

Similarly for the other age classes where the different G, S and B standards would be published in a table on the BOF website. The rankings software could easily be tweaked to display what standard was reached at each ranking event too, so no extra load on the organisers ...

Does this suggestion have support?

That sounds a bit like the "age adjusted" percentages ParkRace uses. It's quite neat as you can order the results of each race by real time or "age adjusted" percentage. If something like this was programmed in to the ranking lists then we could see who is the best - age adjusted. Might be quite motivating at club level and especially as people get older.

You could take it further and list all results loaded on the BOF website with the age adjusted percentage to see who was the age adjusted best.

The problem with this is, unlike ParkRun, there are no rankings for under 16's. Giving a gold, silver and bronze award based on this age adjusted ranking list score for under 16's would be inconsistent?

There seems to be a big overlap between gold, silver and bronze based on non-age class level B and C events, and the colour coded awards. It feels like there should be just one scheme, perhaps computerised as these new award schemes are to improve their popularity and reduce volunteer time? Less confusing and more easily promoted. People are saying "BOF should sort it out" but who is BOF in this case? Is it the new events committee? Is it the development committee? Someone else?

The other thing is that paying for the computer programming and maintenance cost money, how do we get an informed view of the costs? Also these various schemes need publicising if they are to be effective (someone who has joined our club 2 years ago and done maybe 40 events asked me what the ranking list was the other day) and this costs money too if we're expecting BOF to do it.

[sketchweppers]

It would be straightforward to estimate what rankings points score would be equivalent to the old "Badge Event" Gold, Silver and Bronze standards for each age class. Thus, it might turn out that W45 Silver was equivalent to 650 points (just a guess, I've not done the stats yet!). Then any score over 650 points on any contributing course at a Level A/B/C event would be of Silver standard.

Similarly for the other age classes where the different G, S and B standards would be published in a table on the BOF website. The rankings software could easily be tweaked to display what standard was reached at each ranking event too, so no extra load on the organisers ...

Does this suggestion have support?

This sounds like a good idea, but as Sean C said - it wouldn't work for the under 16's
However I disagree with Sean C about the overlap with colour coded badges. I think the colour coded badges are the step between being a complete novice and the Gold, Silver and Bronze badges.
When I started orienteering just over 4 years ago - on orange - I worked my way through fairly easily to the green badge, then did some 'badge events' and acheived my Bronze badge. I found it much harder to get my blue badge, and will not even try for the brown badge, but would still like something to aim at - so the G, S, B scheme was and still could be great, so DJM's suggestion could fit the bill, provided something equivalent could be done for the juniors.

[roadrunner]

It would be straightforward to estimate what rankings points score would be equivalent to the old "Badge Event" Gold, Silver and Bronze standards for each age class. Thus, it might turn out that W45 Silver was equivalent to 650 points (just a guess, I've not done the stats yet!). Then any score over 650 points on any contributing course at a Level A/B/C event would be of Silver standard.

Similarly for the other age classes where the different G, S and B standards would be published in a table on the BOF website. The rankings software could easily be tweaked to display what standard was reached at each ranking event too, so no extra load on the organisers ...

Does this suggestion have support?

I can see one problem immediately: if there aren't enough competitors on a course for ranking points to be awarded, then you can't get a badge standard. In the past, you could get (or fail to get) a badge standard even if you were the only competitor on a course in that age group - the controller would define the badge times in this case (often by reference to other age groups on the same course - for example, if M35 and M40 share a course, then the M35 badge times can't be slower than the corresponding M40 ones). OK, it wasn't as accurate as using the ranking list (which itself isn't and can't be perfect), but does it really matter? We're talking about an incentive rather than deciding the British champion!

[graeme]

Does this suggestion have support?

No, it's much more fun to reinvent the wheel every time
This "square wheel" concept obviously has too many corners: let try a triangular one.
For juniors, you could always use "the points they would have got if they were of road-crossing age ".

[batty]

What I think is disappointing is that one has to award it to oneself. I don't see much logic in that . As a teacher the children enjoy getting their colour badges presented in assembly and are always eager to move on to the next. it would have been great to use these but if only the recipient can download them for themself what is the point? I'm sure many won't bother.

[SeanC]

It doesn't have to be awarded to yourself. Nominated people from clubs will have access to the list of who's won what in their club. So clubs can present these awards after events, at the club dinner etc. An excuse to meet up after an event - your monthly award ceremony at 2pm etc.