How did recreational sport get so extreme?

[SeanC]

Well yes, but the economics seem to be that clubs need to take the lead on marketing and BOF's role is supporting (eg see the action Ed has taken on). Perhaps someone (ie an orienteer) reading this might want to start a small business offering publicity services to clubs with money in the bank but no volunteer publicity officer (it could work as I know there is a developing market in website services)? Lots of clubs seem to struggle getting a publicity officer and someone doing it for a business would learn what works pretty quickly.

Why bother with all this development? I think it varies on where you are. Many small to moderate sized clubs need to get bigger to offer something that appeals to groups other than those aged 40+, eg a junior section big enough for the junior competitions. There seems to be extra jobs appearing that stretches the small/moderate club - child protection officers, website development, social networking person blah de blah. My experience is that a slowly expanding club is definately a happier place to be than a slowly contracting one - people can move on from their jobs rather than be stuck with them years after they wanted to give up, and new people bring new ideas and make things more interesting/fun all round.

[Clive Coles]

I beg to differ with the title of this thread ~ I don't believe our sport has become extreme. There are an enthusiastic well voiced group within our membership who would like to take it to those ends but the far larger majority of folk that you encounter at our Sunday morning events are recreational orienteers.

I don't think it has to be up to BOF to lead us to their promised land. If the hard nut racers want to set up a series and market it to other adventure diciplines I have no problem with that. But you cannot expect the recreational majority to become evangalists for a cause that is outside of their comfort zone.

I think the sport has it's problems, particularly with retention and the replacement of volunteers who are prepared to give their time to run a club. But I don't think the strap line "a sport for all" is outdated.

The problem I think with orienteering is orienteers. We have become intense ~ let's try and bring fun back to the sport.

We need to accept that the cost of travel and the escallation of entry fees, particularly for the level B events, is causing families,students and the unwaged to think again about attending many of these events in a season.

I believe the development of a local event programme is the key to building a club membership. Local series and regional leagues are also a catalyst . And there should also be a social element to our programs.

We are by and large a recreational sport, we don't have to be ashamed of that fact.

[Paul Frost]

I beg to differ with the title of this thread ~ I don't believe our sport has become extreme.
...We are by and large a recreational sport, we don't have to be ashamed of that fact.

The title wasn't aimed at orienteering, but from the BBC news article that was highlighting that recreational sports in general seem to be getting more extreme.
So I wasn't challenging the fact that orienteering is a recreational sport, but that many other recreational sports have become more extreme, and that those extreme sports/events are attracting increasing numbers of participants.

I'm not saying that extreme is the way orienteering should go, but we need to understand and learn why they are growing and orienteering isn't. They are being very successful at marketing their sport/events, so can we learn from that.

[Clive Coles]

Fair point Paul ~ I misreprestented your opening objective. But there are those who would rather refocus orienteering as a truely competitive "Olympic style" sport rather than being, as I believe it still is, a recreational activity which can provide challenge at all levels of ability.

Drawing from other contributions there is a debate going on as to whether BOF should direct more of their marketing budget towards the more extreme elements of our sport.

For me innovation is best promoted by the active enthusiasts. The Nopesport Urban league germinated from the grass roots to become the success it now has become. In earlier times the Compassport cup had similar origins.

Do we really need BOF to attempt to drive such innovations ? Would anything ever get off the ground ?

Perhaps we will have a rerun of the British Club Championship/Compassport fiasco ~ the launch of a British Urban League championship. That should ruffle a few feathers

[graeme]

The Nopesport Urban league germinated from the grass roots to become the success it now has become.

In what sense do you measure success? e.g. in what any other sport would regard as the premier class, Men's open, nobody actually completed the requisite six races and the champion never finished in the top half of any race.

For sure, urban races are the big growth area, but that seems more down to individual events than overall coordination, whether by nope or BOF.

[Clive Coles]

The Nopesport Urban league germinated from the grass roots to become the success it now has become.

In what sense do you measure success?

I must confess a perception, derived from folk who participate in the league. I am not an Urban eventer myself but there are a growing number of enthusiasts.

This doesn't of course mean there are not ways that the Nopesport league could be improved, but that's for the participants to develop and define.

There are parallel developments with the evolution of the Masters Cup series. This seems to be in practise how competitions evolve.

I guess in the early days success is measured by participation ~ if an idea catches on folk will travel to attend a series of events.

Once that reputation for a League has been established that could be the time to focus more on ensuring that the best orienteers are competetive in the Open "premier" class if that's what participants want.

[RJ]

I believe the development of a local event programme is the key to building a club membership. Local series and regional leagues are also a catalyst . And there should also be a social element to our programs.

Exactly what I have spoken about for a long time. First, through a strong and regular local event programme, let us bring new members into the sport. They all have to learn the skills of the sport before they can compete with the top orienteers. We should concentrate on building a much, much larger base to the pyramid. At this level the finances can look much rosier with increased participation generating a steady surplus to fund everything we need to grow the sport.

Then from a much larger participation level at the base of the pyramid the better orienteers will emerge and, maybe, eventually we will see sufficient attention drawn to the sport for inclusion in the Olympics.

Clubs should strive to run a weekly set of informal events to build their membership, and while doing that, make the orienteering more 'FUN' to participate in. There are quite a few clubs that lead the way in that respect.

[seabird]

Graeme's observation is very apposite about the lack of top level competition in the Nope League.

It highlights many of themes in the current debate. The Nope League has been a great innovation. It has now spawned a number of more regionally based leagues. Only the older, and probably wealthier, orienteers seem willing to trail themselves round sufficient urban events nationally. I suspect the future will be with the Regional leagues.

The same may eventually prove to be the case with the other national leagues that are currently in vogue.

From the centre we seem to have a drive for both an increase in National based competitions, but also the drive to localism eloquently espoused by RJ and Clive. The latter is clearly being taken up by a significant number of clubs, and I think the evidence is pretty clear that the desire to travel long distances to events is on the decline.

There is a place for marketing some events in the orienteering calendar as "extreme"; the Boldslitet is a clear example. To some extent RJs local events will tend more towards the "extreme", compared with Clive's, just because of the nature and quality of the terrain. "Extreme" is after all a very subjective term. It is a term that could be applied to particular events, but not the sport overall.

I love the longer events in more challenging terrain and always want them, rare as they are, to remain part of orienteering.

I also love the local events which are no more than TD3, but which provide the social buzz, familiar at fell races, which is so lacking at most main stream orienteering events. Even after 30 years of orienteering I still sometimes feel a little bit of the outsider at these. ( Heavens knows what it must be like for newcomers to the sport, when they attend these events.)

But I want these newcomers to eventually aspire to longer distance orienteering in the wilder places. That has to be where the true soul of the sport should be.

[ryeland of doom]

Do people know how tough O is? Admittedly there seems to be a difference the further north you go, I gave up brown courses as soon as I moved back to Scotland. Too bloody hard as they should be!

I like the idea of targetting more mundane runners. Long physical courses with simple navigation - you get to use the map, you get the scenery and you get a tough run. From there some will decide to up the mental extremity a bit.

[AndyO]

What a thoughtful post, seabird

I think the core of the sport will remain the local events put on by clubs across the country, attracting the majority participation from a fairly small radius, with wider appeal for popular forests. There is, though, such a range of courses in the darker colours that there is something for everyone, so when we say "family friendly" we don't mean "happy clappy" tripping gaily along a course dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, rather that all members of the family can find a course that suits their individual experience, technical ability and fitness. I have always held that inclusion - where elites can be running in the same forest at the same time as novices - to be a real strength of the sport.

As Mharky has noted elsewhere, elites choose their races to suit their season's goals, which may be BOC, JWOC or WOC, and their presence at a "local" race may be part build-up, part training, part just fun. Elites are the top end of our sport, though, and it's great for juniors to see these guys in the forest.

I posted the link to the story that this thread started from on the Banter forum, because I find some of the "tough guy" hype a tad artificial, and the races are not cheap to enter, but they do seem to attract some big entries I wonder if having kids around takes away from the macho image that they go for?

It would be easy to plan courses in Deeside forests that would challenge any of these "extreme" races - thick green; deep blue; dirty brown; pitch black, but even without the extra description, the courses are tough enough for most. We could market orienteering to appeal to thrill seekers, perhaps at great cost, or we could use reverse psychology to keep the secret. Do we want to? Do we need to?

[Big Jon]

I'd love to attract some of the "extreme" runners to orienteering events in Deeside - but I guess the technical challenge would be too much and they wouldn't appreciate the physical challenge as they bumbled round and round in circles. Planning dumbed down long orange courses hasn't worked in the past - unless there is a guaranteed turn-out of headbangers who want to thrash themselves on a technically easy course then I don't think its worth the effort.

[Paul Frost]

I suspect that the attraction of most "extreme" events is that no particular skills are required.
You only need to be moderately fit if your aim is just to finish, and perhaps it helps to be short a brain cell or two for some events.
You can just turn up or enter without any specific training or coaching and race the same course, at the same time as everyone else.
You can go round with your mates and make it a social/shared challenge.

It alll sounds quite attractive doesn't it.

[andy]

get people to pay to run alongside/behind/with some fast elite person?

something like 'get your entry fee back if you can keep up with with Scotia'

[SeanC]

Many of the SLOW/SAXONS trail challenges have been quite successful at attracting runners. Our easy mass start scores have (to my initial surprize) also been popular with runners. My observations of these events are:

- you need to make orienteering events for runners super easy. "Orange" standard is probably too hard. Long white with controls on forest tracks and some taped routes through some adventurous stuff would be better. Or if you're giving them a hard control allow a time penalty if they cant find it, or make it a score event, rather than a disqualification.
- make it mass start. Many will want to go in a group, and it makes organisation easier (eg you can do a group explanation of how everything works).
- Give out maps 30 minutes before the start - and/or publish on the website before the race. Many will figure it out before hand.
- Prizegivings are good to encourage them do try orienteering next time. Failing that you could give them all a goody bag with promotional stuff maybe?

Publicity:
- You need to get the land permissions early so you can start promotion several months before hand.
- Posting on Runners World, visiting one or two relevant races to hand out fliers and emailing running clubs might be all the publicity you need if you get the publicity right. You can get 500 professional looking postcards printed from websites like Vistaprint for about £50 and the rest is free.
- Branding: Don't call it orienteering (except in the small print) or use colour names. Make it sound like running/adventure... but possibly "Tough Guy" might be over-egging it?
- You might need to tinker with the publicity, message and format for a few races before it begins to work, and build the brand over a period of time.

Possibly this would work in London/SE but less well in other areas, but targetting the runners/fit active types fits well with classic O if the area is good for white standard O. These more adventurous types are less likely to mind visiting a remote spot with little or no facilities and the countryside/terrain is a real selling point, even for those who don't want to read a map. If you're putting on taped routes and giving out goody bags then I think charging £10 or more instead of standard £5 district fees seems reasonable*, and as it's a one off challenge, price isn't likely to be a big factor. At least 20-30 seems a reasonable target for a first event, and if charging over £10 it looks like a good contribution to club funds (and will add a bit of atmosphere to events). If you can get 50-100 then that's beginning to look like a serious contribution.

The disappointment might be that it seems to take quite a bit of work to get many into mainstream O as of course many will be going for the experience only, but the few that do should have more stickability than the standard newcomer. It will also help build the hype about orienteering locally and the event will have more chance of getting in local papers (I guess that's another point about using "extreme" branding).

*but of course you'll need to keep your standard O fees to the normal amount unless you want a riot.

[Becks]

I suspect that the attraction of most "extreme" events is that no particular skills are required.

Paul, your post is exactly what I was thinking whilst running round in the snow today. These days everyone is doing marathons, so to impress your mates in the pub as a 24 year old you have to run a good time. But that takes real commitment and effort, which all sounds a lot like hard work. But now you can do Tough Mudder (that's the big one over here) and brag to your mates about how amazing you are when you can just about run 5km in 32 minutes. (I'm talking about mid twenties people here when I sound like I'm being nasty about times, not trying to offend anyone). And you get a T shirt! Which tells everyone how awesome you are! When you're actually kind of normal. Which is fine.

I remember reading the Runners World Comments about the muddy runs BAOC have been involved in (sorry Mr Rollins, don't remember the name of the series), and one guy was doing the usual complaining that there was NO T-SHIRT. Why someone in their mid 20s would want to be handed a crappy cotton T shirt with a logo printed on just for finishing I have no idea. I also have no interest in promoting orienteering to this person, because as an O' snob, I just don't think they'd get it.

But I do still believe there are potential O' people out there to be appealed to. But it is a niche sport, not everyone will get it, and I'm pretty happy with that Status Quo.

Seabird is also spot on.