We don't belong here.

[aiming off]

BOF have succeeded in turning BOC into a British Passports Champs. I still like the idea that you are finding the best Orienteer in British terrain for that discipline every year. You can hand separate medals to those who are not 'visitors' to the country but ALL should be welcome at the prize-giving and prizes for the top three whoever they are.

I have said before, for 2012 and 2013, 21E BOC should be with WOC selection races as any clash with something like TioMila (3 years in a row) will mean the best arent there

BOF seem intent on taking away virtually all decision making power from Associations. (eg All the disbanded groups had regional reps on them. Any replacements I imagine wont be constructed in the same way. New Events Committee only has 4 Association Reps on it and the Associations dont decide who they are. And certainly one of those recently announced isnt on his regional committee.)
I wonder when the Associations will wake up to this fact and also, if they will do anything about it?

Spot on on three major issues, Ravinous

So what is to be done?

[Kitch]

Maybe the answer is listen to the orienteers rather than the funding bodies, with their off the shelf, one size fits all, this is the way to run your sport in a box approach.
Just a thought

[DIDSCO]

Eddie H > seriously for a veteran your name on top of the result list should be enough. I cant believe at plus 35 you actually care about getting a prize. I'm 35 now and would quite happily not get a prize for winning, use the money instead to give better prizes to juniors and cash to the 18,20,21 Elites.

[Kitch]

you can never have enough slate coasters / un-useable wholemeal pottery mugs, Dids.

[Gross]

Maybe the answer is listen to the orienteers rather than the funding bodies, with their off the shelf, one size fits all, this is the way to run your sport in a box approach.

Aaaawwwww...... but then everyone at BOF would loose their job.... can't have that, we must do things to keep them all in jobs

[mharky]

Not the first time that has been mentioned...

[aiming off]

I wish to see more of a balance than at present

BO are dependent on Sport England for 50% of funding: a lot depends on securing continued NGB funding in the 2013/17 period. And access to future UK Sport funding has been lost as Orienteering is no longer eligible, not being an Olympic Sport.

And the Board is no doubt under intense pressure to jump through hoops: excerpt from the last Board minutes of Sport England
"The Board noted that in championing good governance among NGBs and its other partners, Sport England needed to be in a position to withdraw funding where standards fall short. There was discussion about the extent to which governance standards which are incorporated into award agreements should be specific and mandatory. It was noted that the current governance standards are very broad and that the difficulty of shifting governance standards across the sector should not be underestimated."

But there now is an impression that there is a dominant focus on meeting Sport England requirements, and the Board are giving the impression of not listening to Members any more, for example on the issues involved in this thread. I believe much more could be done to address Members concerns, WITHOUT prejudicing Sports England future funding. Addressing this eligibility issue promptly would be a start.

[RJ]

The recent Sport England survey carried out by IPSOS(?)/MORI had a question relating to Governance....... I wonder how the answers (Valuation from 1 to 10) will differ for the 'actual' and the 'expected' experience!!

[frog]

I don't understand why being a member of a British/UK orienteering club isn't enough of a test of "Britishness".
If a Swede comes over here to work or do a PhD for a few years and joins a British club why isn't that enough to enable them to win trophies?
After all to vote in the upcoming Scotish independence referendum all you have to do is be on the electoral role in Scotland (plus expat postal votes) to be considered "Scottish" enough to vote.
Isn't being part of the UK orienteering scene at that time enough?
I really don't see why it matters where you were born, how "British" your blood is or what sort of accent you had.
Checking you are a member of a British club would be easy for organisers to do.
You could make it a rule that to be a full member of a club (rather than informal social member that some clubs still have) you have to have an address somewhere near that club, and that apart from students and forces folk you can only be a member of one UK club (for Scottish/ English champs etc).

[NeilC]

You could make it a rule that to be a full member of a club (rather than informal social member that some clubs still have) you have to have an address somewhere near that club

That would rule out Ravinous, DJM, GG et al

[SJC]

But who, in this context is BOF? BEOC can still be separate and not-rubbish if the elites want.

BOF (the Board), will not let this happen.
The one thing they are desperate for is money, and one way they see of obtaining this is through event sponsorship. Hence the ill-fated attempt to steal the Compass Sport cup for their own use.

A separate BEOC, without a thousand age class competitors, isn't particularly attractive to sponsors. Neither is an age class only competition. It needs the profile of the elite plus the numbers generated by the age classes to have any hope of finding a major sponsor for the event. The combined BOC/BEOC is here to stay.

[Mrs H]

Have I not been saying all this for years? BOF is turned into a self financing employment scheme and as such is actually quite successful. But it's got precious little to do with the sport or the members.

I asked a while back if anyone knew the insurance premium was - no one has had responded so I'll try to find out else where as I can't see it singled out in the budget papers - not that I'm good at that kind of thing - can anyone else see it?

Perhaps we should have seen the writing on the wall when they chose to drop the word "Federation" because with the new super-committee set up and the loss of the club-region- board hierarchy to call it a Federation is tantamount to an infringement of the Trades Description Act

[Gross]

But it's got precious little to do with the sport or the members

Not surprising really given that a very large % of the employees are not orienteers.......

[DJM]

Back to the original debate ... the biggest problem seems to be that the same Britishness test is used for BRC as is used for BOC, and that this causes real problems for some club relay teams.

There is some logic in this, but I would suggest that there is stronger logic in the following:

BOC is won by an individual, BRC is won by a club team. Hence, for BOC it should be the individual who meets the Britishness test, whereas for BRC it is the club. And it would be logical to define a club as being British just by the club's membership of BOF, irrespective of the composition of any of its BRC teams (assuming they contain bona fide club members).

So, maybe just changing the eligibility rules for BRC might provide a compromise solution which would be agreeable to the vast majority?

[Meat Market]

After all to vote in the upcoming Scotish independence referendum all you have to do is be on the electoral role in Scotland (plus expat postal votes) to be considered "Scottish" enough to vote.

I would say its a bit more complicated than that:
- What about all the Scots who have had to move to England/Wales to find work? Surely they have a strong opinion on what independence will bring to the job market which has failed them? But they will not get a vote if they are on the English/Welsh electoral register. (I should point out that I have not been failed by the job market in Scotland although I'm working abroad)
- I do think its irresponsible to give votes to 16-18 year olds as proposed by the SNP. What age do we stop at, 14, 12? I know that the big changes in my opinions occurred between 16 and 18 and shudder to think what would happen if a 16 year old me got the chance to run the country. The SNP know that at age 16, young people are more likely to have less of an appreciation of our relationship with the rest of the UK.