We don't belong here.

[NeilC]

From the Rules Group Minutes
"11/66 Competition Rules A, D and E - British Championships eligibility to be added:
It was noted that the following changes re British Championship eligibility had been supplied by the Board and had been inserted into the relevant ‘1: General Information - ‘Who may compete’ section of the ‘Competition Rules’:
To be eligible to be awarded the title of British Champion and receive a medal, and trophy if appropriate, a person must:
Be a National member of British Orienteering and Be a British Citizen.
This must be declared at the time of entry to the competition"

Rules Group may have prepared the documents but in recent times have often been told what to put in - in this case by the Board. It's reasonable for Nopesport readers not to have read all the minutes but less so if you are going to call people stupid and useless. Doesn't encourage them to continue putting volunteer time back into the sport - but then perhaps that's a good thing?

[mharky]

That's a longer version of the post I just submitted but somehow got logged off and so didn't post, but it read like this...

Stupid people can also do sensible things, so...

Neil, sorry, I should have written "board" not "work group". The board are the stupid ones.

I have actually gone through all the minutes. Noting that the question of what other nations did for eligibility came up in November 2006. Eligibility wasn't mentioned again until 2009, but only in passing from the Competitions group.

You probably should have quoted the previous minutes too, if we are going to get the full picture of the decision.

- 4 -
BO Board has
tasked Helen Errington to produce a statement for the next Board meeting that will require a decision regarding changes to ‘Eligibility Qualification’ for British Championship Events – amongst the possibilities discussed by Rules Group were:
(i) That there would be no restriction and that Championship Events would be open to all- comers;
(ii) That those eligible to compete would only be British Passport holders;
(iii) That those eligible to compete shall be either British Passport holders or who qualify by length of residence over a specified number of years.
Option (iii) has been used at this year's events (although this was only following a protest at the original decision not to do so at the Sprint Championships) and appears to be that [sic] most acceptable to competitors.

[graeme]

Those minutes seem to be, at least implicitly, about individuals.

Remember Toni's original beef was about relays not individuals.

I believe that she doesn't think a bunch of English people should move temporarily over to Ireland, beat up on the locals, award themselves Irish titles and tell the locals to man up and deal with their inadequacies. It didn't work out too well last time, despite the best efforts of Field Marshal, The Right Honourable Earl Horatio Herbert Kitchener KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, ADC, PC and his followers.

As a volunteer, I don't much like it when what I genuinely think is best gets called "stupid", but that doesn't annoy me half as much as being told to do something I genuinely think is stupid.

[andy]

Stupid people can also do sensible things, so...

Neil, sorry, I should have written "board" not "work group". The board are the stupid ones.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and we all do/say stupid things sometimes. My guess is that most decisions made by these committees are made by a group of intelligent people who thought their decision was right one, maybe they still do?

Have you thought about joining any of these committees / working groups / whatever so it can be done right?

[ic]

1)

...a "British citizen", when no such status exists...

so what is that supposed to mean??? and

2) there is no need to have different eligibility rules for relays and individuals, whatever those rules might be, and I would oppose any such artificial distinction introduced.

[Gross]

Well this page from UKBA says British Citezen

http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/britishcitizenship/

[EddieH]

QUOTE

"Anyway what is the argument against foreigners competing?
That they might beat you ?
well tough.
man up, or deal with your own inadequacy.


Fine for you.
Try telling that to a 12 year old.
But then again, we don't care about the juniors any more do we."


If your 12 year old is that fickle they are hardly likely to continue in the sport as they are bound to have far bigger knocks later on.

Come to think of it if we bring our children up to be that fragile mentally they are scarcely liely to persevere at anything much beyond sitting on the sidelines and watching.

[mharky]

This should be the rule:

To be a national champion you must be a member of the relevant national federation. You can only run in the national championships for one country in a given year.

Simple.

Long-term residency rules persecutes exchange students.

I have no idea why the board have decided to tighten the entry requirements. It's understandable why Scandinavians have been protective of their champs. They get dozens of foreigners coming over to run in them, some of them even winning. These people fly in for the big races, courtesy of their clubs, and fly home again. That isn't good for the development of the sport.

How many non-Brits have won BOC recently? And how many of them weren't UK residents at the time?

There have been some half-arsed examples of how allowing non-Brits to run would be unfair, but none of them are real. Toumas Tala (FIN) won the nights a few years ago, but he was living and working in the UK. And anyone of us could have gone over and run the Finnish nights.

It's a jobbie rule and there was no need for it to be made.

Perhaps in 2014 and 2015 when we start getting pre-WOC training there may be a need to be a little tighter on BOF membership, but even then it only affects the elites.

How many punters have had British Champs stolen form them by foreigners?

[mharky]

I can understand the need to stop being coming over, running one race, and going home again. But not when it persecutes so many other UK residents. And we don't have that problem.

Individual and relay should be the same, which is why long-term residency is unfair. Uni's have people come over for 9 months, we've had exchange students in JK and BUCS winning teams.

I'd be more worried about relay teams drafting in ringers than someone turning up for an individual champs. I think OD(via GG) signed someone up on the week of the JK, not sure if they got away with it.

[graeme]

2) there is no need to have different eligibility rules for relays and individuals

Of course there is. Relays are club competitions and clubs can't be a British citizen or an individual member of BOF.

[roadrunner]

Well this page from UKBA says British Citezen

http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/britishcitizenship/

And that's what it says in my passport too - though on the cover it says "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" so it's easy to see why people get confused about what we call our nationality.

The criteria for Welsh Champion seems to be being born (or having one parent born) in Wales, or having lived there for a year, and being a WOA member on the day of the competition, and the same seems to be the case for Scotland, so why not adopt it for the British Champion as well? The membership bit is simple to check, and to prove 1 year's residence I should think that having been a BO member at a UK address for the current and previous year would be enough. Anyone who's travelled to the event from overseas must have a passport, and that will show where they were born, so we're only left with those who lived overseas but moved back to the UK in the past year (or joined BO in the past year), and those born abroad of British parents: surely checking those, or asking them to submit some sort of proof before entry, isn't that much work? Remember, it only matters if they win, anyway!

[Red Adder]

[quote="graeme"][quote="ic"]
2) there is no need to have different eligibility rules for relays and individuals[/quote]
Of course there is. Relays are club competitions and clubs [i]can't[/i] be a British citizen or an individual member of BOF.[/quote]

But relay teams are just an amalgam of individuals so you can apply the individual qualification ruling to each team member and they all would have to pass whatever test you apply for the team to be competitive.

[sketchweppers]

The criteria for Welsh Champion seems to be being born (or having one parent born) in Wales, or having lived there for a year, and being a WOA member on the day of the competition, and the same seems to be the case for Scotland, so why not adopt it for the British Champion as well? The membership bit is simple to check, and to prove 1 year's residence I should think that having been a BO member at a UK address for the current and previous year would be enough.

Is is possible to join WOA as a second association without joining a Welsh orienteering club - the rest of my family would qualify then - my husband is a Welshman born in Wales, so my children have one parent born in Wales, and we are going to Croeso this year?

[ianandmonika]

Under current BO rules, you can't be British Champion (in 5 events) if not a British Citizen but you can be selected for Home Internationals if permanently resident in a country for one year. BO says a residency rule was unworkable for British Champ but it appears to be OK for Home Internationals. ?? Help me somebody, I am struggling with this.
Too late for us now, after 37 years of strongly supporting O we've now (very sadly) dropped out of any Committee/admin work.

[LostAgain]

Too late for us now, after 37 years of strongly supporting O we've now (very sadly) dropped out of any Committee/admin work.

I am very sorry to hear this. Are you not being a little hasty?

The poorly worded ruling, and unfortunate "I'm only following orders" implementation should not pollute your view of British Orienteering. You can see that there is a groundswell of opinion than certainly challenges the currently imposed wording of the rule.

You must have access to both employed staff at BO and Directors in SYO, is there no suggestion of a mistake having been made and a redraft/consideration?