Levels redux

[madmike]

Mapping mum expressed my rant much more concisely whilst I was typing

[Scott]

Is orienteering in the UK in such good shape that "how many administrative levels should we divide our events into?" is really the most pressing issue facing the sport?

When I started orienteering, we had five levels. Both as a competitor and an event organiser, that seemed to work okay. (I organised a largish urban event under the old system; it was level "O4S" or something like that, but as far as I could tell that didn't make the slightest bit of difference to how I organised the event, who came to it, or whether they enjoyed it.)

Then we changed to three levels, and as a competitor and an event organiser that also seemed to work pretty well.

And now we have four levels, and so far, as a competitor and an event organiser, that also seems to be working just fine.

For what it's worth, I can see the sense in having:
A - national Championships + JK
B - other big events where the scheduling needs to be coordinated at a national/super-regional level
C - middling events where the scheduling needs to be coordinated at a regional level
D - small events where the scheduling can be coordinated at club level

I would imagine that from an administrative, sorting-out-the-fixtures-list perspective that makes good sense. I just personally don't see why anybody outside of the various fixtures secretaries would want to get that excited about it.

[madmike]

Is orienteering in the UK in such good shape that "how many administrative levels should we divide our events into?" is really the most pressing issue facing the sport?

UHH.........No?

[DaveK]

Hmm not quite Paul - Level C was added to SEOA Lge at my request (request bit of classic english understatement) because I did not feel that the area we had for this year met the level B guidelines and I therefore asked the SEOA fixtures committee whether we could have it as a League event at Level C or should we reregister at Level B despite not meeting the guidelines like some other clubs had done across the country.

Have to say that, having very much enjoyed the event, I then wondered why it was level 'C', rather than 'B' - but the inclusion of the event in the South-east league did indeed affect my decision to travel the 60+ miles each way to participate. Guess not the best terrain in the region, but overall a very good event. Thanks HH.

[Clive Coles]

There are regional differences over their Competition structures ~ absolutely no reason why this should not be the case.

From memory I think SEOA have always run their main league with a series of regional events. Their Gallopen used to be an accumulation of results for a season at the regions colour code (District) events.

By contrast, EAOA just have one competition ~ the EA league where each club nominates one event per year as their EAL fixture. Just to confuse we renamed our league a few years back ~ it used to be the EA Gallopen ! But few folk knew what a Gallopen was ment to be so we dropped the name.

In our region we don't put on many level B events ~ we just don't get the numbers to justify putting on the number of courses many folk expect from a level B forest based event. If you want ranking points in EAland there is more chance of Brown and lighter/shorter green runners scoring ranking points if they go to a level C event.

The BOF ruling that really inflamed the debate over the retention of 3 tiers was, for me, when they tried to instruct clubs to stage their leagues at the previous style level 2 events. Many clubs just said " get lost" : we dont have sufficient level 2 controllers and there is very little enthusiasm amongst the level 3 ranks to get recertified. BOF clearly realised that they needed to compromise and relaxed the (daft) rules so that we didn't have to comply with the rules for 2 years. But this was no solution ~ it was a cop-out.

Quality is indefinable ~ it cannot be guaranteed by ticking the right boxes and providing bits and bobs in the assembly area. Those of us who have been around a long time know where events look to be overpriced and the areas that are not worth going back to. We make our choices irrespective of the level.

I believe the 4-tier basis is working OK. With luck it might encourage more clubs to be honest over the level B billing of their event. They should be the top events of the season, planned to guidelines on areas where the map is up to date and where route choice is not compromised by unmapped grot.

I applaud MV for taking the view that their league event should be classed as a level C. The 4-tier system, and the SEOA rules provides the flexibility. From the explanations given I think the decision was taken for the correct reasons. For all accounts it was a very successful and enjoyable event. Perhaps if more clubs took this view there would be fewer level B events where the experience was disappointing.

[madmike]

I applaud MV for taking the view that their league event should be classed as a level C. The 4-tier system, and the SEOA rules provides the flexibility. From the explanations given I think the decision was taken for the correct reasons. For all accounts it was a very successful and enjoyable event. Perhaps if more clubs took this view there would be fewer level B events where the experience was disappointing.

Clive delete MV and insert HH but the rest of the paragraph sums up exactly where i was coming from.

PS I have edited my earlier rant where I said Paul was wrong - the SEOA rules were changed to include level Cs so he is in fact correct - my apologies to Paul for suggesting he was in error.

[Urban]

No leave in MV because they also did the level downgrade the week before at Holmbush due to having lost land permission at other areas.
Very pragmatic.

[Clive Coles]

Sorry to HH ~ you too should get a star or three.

Needed to deduce which event we were talking about from the BOF results. I knew of the MV problems regarding land access, noted it was level C and that it was a SEleague event and made some assumptions.

Oh the fun of interpreting nopesport names, those recognisable images, and the locations you are prepared to disclose. Getting there slowly

[The Loofa]

Clive
That was the other Mike
also mad

[madmike]

Clive
That was the other Mike
also mad

I disagree, he's just mildly ecentric by comparison Loofa. Although he does have the same intials!

[Adrian]

""District" events are Level C, "Regional" events are Level B. What's your problem?"

None if it's true. But the Level C guidelines seem a bit more than District standard. For example, Level C events are supposed to have an external controller (though it's clear that some clubs don't bother) and they count for BO ranking points, which District events never did. For these reasons there are purists who won't let District events be registered at Level C.

"Under the old system for Regional and District events the rules specified which classes/courses should be offered and what format the event should take. Anything that didn’t fit into those specifications had to be registered as Local, regardless of the profile of the event. The JOK sprint, the London City race, the Tim Watkins Blodslitet would all have to be registered as Local. Anything that was not basically the same thing we have been doing since the 1970s had to be local.
"So it made sense to get rid of the rules specifying that an event at a particular level had to have a particular format. Once you have done that there is no difference between levels other than the perceived quality of the event."

It seems obvious to me that the rule about non-standard events having to be registered as category 5 could've been changed without changing the number of categories.

"...it seems lots of orienteers would rather the level still told you how many courses an event offers."

Indeed. Generally speaking, anyway. In some parts of the country a Regional event might only have 8 courses, but the guidelines could continue to allow for that, as well as for the various types of non-standard event.

"You can enter any course you like at “regional” events, and there is a continuity between courses at “regional” and “district” that wasn’t there before (eg an adult beginner on light green would have had to run M14/W14 to get an equivalent course – although they wouldn’t know that. Now they just enter light green whatever the event is)"

I don't see why it was necessary to reduce the number of categories in order to effect such a change. And I actually think it was a mistake to reduce the prominence of age classes at Regional events. Fair enough that people should be allowed to enter whatever course they like, but I think the default information at higher level events should be the age class. Anecdotally there seem to be many cases of orienteers entering Green, say, only to discover they should've entered Short Blue or whatever. (To be fair, part of the problem here lies with the online entry systems, which often don't show clearly the correspondence between colours and age classes.)

"Anything that is not a "one man and his dog" operation should be level C."

I'll circulate that to my club.

"level 4 is for low key events which are aimed at local club orienteers.
"level 3 is for your regular bread and butter events which draw participants mainly from clubs within a 50 mile radiius"

Another similar message. It suggests that most clubs are ignoring the guidelines and equating "District" exactly with "Level C".

"Personally, I think the way things have turned out has simply confirmed in my mind that the move from 3 to 4 levels was completely unnecessary. The difference between levels B and C are so trivial as to be meaningless."

This seems to contradict other comments. In my mind Regional and District events are very different fish - or at least they should be.

"we're back to a situation where level C events are often more attractive than the level Bs."

It seems hard to believe that a District event could be more attractive than a Regional event.

"Adrian, you have too much time on your hands.."

No comment.

"scrap levels and just put on events."

Hmm. Although I tend to disagree with that sentiment, I do think the value of having Levels in their current incarnation is relatively low. What use, for example, are they on the BO website fixtures list? For beginners, almost nil. And as awk suggests, experienced orienteers wouldn't do a search based on Level B alone, because they might miss something good that's only been registered at Level C or even Level D. What I usually do is a "radius" search, ignoring the levels altogether.

For practical purposes though, some method is needed of sorting the wheat from the chaff. A club has to have a way of showing to orienteers from other clubs that its event is worth coming to, and currently some sort of categorisation is a good way of doing that. True, if we got rid of the levels we'd have to think of other ways of getting this message across, but while we do have levels we need it make it very clear what they signify.

"We have too many level B events where the organisers feel the need to put on the full range of courses suggested in the event guidelines - irrespective of the likely demand. This seems particularly severe in the NW where we are regularly seeing courses attracting fewer 10 competitors - insufficient to get ranked."

This is orienteering's version of Catch 22. Some say that if you don't put on 13 courses, orienteers won't think it's a "proper" Regional event and will turn their noses up at it. But if you put on 13 courses and get less than 250(?) competitors, the whole event is OTT. I think the best option for smaller Regional events is to use the 10 course option in section 3.4 of the guidelines (perhaps minus the Black and Red courses) but to make a big play of the fact that it's an Age-Class event (with the option to enter by Colour).

"The SEOA regional league however is predominately level B with the odd level C"

Here in WMOA the League is Level C. I think this is good because it encourages Level-B-type and Level-D-type orienteers to come to the clubs' District events.

"Is orienteering in the UK in such good shape that "how many administrative levels should we divide our events into?" is really the most pressing issue facing the sport?"

I know, let's have a vote, decide on the most pressing issue facing orienteering, and not allow anyone to talk about anything else.

"In our region we don't put on many level B events ~ we just don't get the numbers to justify putting on the number of courses many folk expect from a level B forest based event."

There's that Catch 22 again.

"I believe the 4-tier basis is working OK. With luck it might encourage more clubs to be honest over the level B billing of their event. They should be the top events of the season, planned to guidelines on areas where the map is up to date and where route choice is not compromised by unmapped grot."

I like this. But I'm interested what the difference is compared to when these were called Category 3(?) events.

[Scott]

But the Level C guidelines seem a bit more than District standard. For example, Level C events are supposed to have an external controller (though it's clear that some clubs don't bother) and they count for BO ranking points, which District events never did. For these reasons there are purists who won't let District events be registered at Level C.

The "purists" are, bluntly, wrong. You can read the full criteria for Level C at the end of this document, but it basically boils down to

• "suitability of the terrain" approved by Association
• Proper map
• EOD
• Toilets (probably the most controversial requirement!)
• Electronic punching
• Pre-printed maps
• Results on club website within 24 hours
• Have a Controller

I find it hard to believe that there were many old "District"/C4 events that didn't already meet those standards. And, as others have pointed out, a fair few of the old "Local"/C5 events would also meet them.

I'm not where the bit about external controllers comes from. The old requirements for a controller at a District event were

Grade 3 Controller. The Controller should be a member of a different club from that of the Organiser and Planner(s).

whereas the current requirements are

Any Controller, who should be from a different club from the organising club

which seems much the same: ideally you should have an external controller at Level C, but if you can't get one then an internal controller will do. I think technically the appointment of an internal controller at Level C is supposed to be approved by your Association.

As for the bit about ranking points - the intention of the Rankings Work Group way back in 2008/9 was quite explicitly that the old District events should be included in the rankings! There was massive support for this in the consultation at the time.

[awk]

Have to say that I've come to agree with mapping mum. But as we've got 4 levels, and it's only just been introduced, let's stick with it and move on. The last thing I would want to do is make the mistake that was made after the 3 level system was introduced - instigate change without giving a system the chance to bed in. As Scott says, there are far more important things to concern ourselves with and, as I said, we don't take much notice anyway - half the time we don't even know what the level is.

[greywolf]

Well said, Scott
Adrian: as long as there are "purists" (although that's not the word I'd use) who feel that they know best and refuse to take notice of the guidelines or register events appropriately then it really doesn't matter how many levels there are supposed to be, does it?

PS re "It seems hard to believe that a District event could be more attractive than a Regional event." Perhaps you don't get out much. Can I recommend our next "District" (sic) event: World Champs terrain, high-class fields, indoor registration / download / toilets, and soup and cakes from the PTA

[Red Adder]

The reason that district and regional events moved to be closer is surely largely technology. When conceived district events tended to use older maps with master maps and fairly antiquated timing and results.

Now Regional & District both have higher standards. At district events my club, like I suspect most, has provided a pre-marked, bagged bang up to date map along with SI timing and rapid results service for the past deacde - something unheard of in the 90s. The differnentiation between regional (badge) and district had largely ceased to exist.

From a runners point of view I actually find no differnece between L2 and L3, apart from the price.