Series Score Awards

[SeanC]

On Saturday SAXONS were giving out really neat awards to the juniors at the Kent Orienteering League prize giving. As well as the usual prizes for top 3 in the league on the different courses, juniors got a certificate for how many controls they visited in the series. Different certificates for 25+, 50+, 75+ and 100+ controls. What a great idea for increasing participation. This works on a number of levels:

- it motivates those who don't have much chance in the league because they can't get to enough events, or don't have the speed to get into the top 3.
- It encourages juniors to try longer courses (with more controls) or 2 courses on one day.
- It gives some reward for juniors who mispunch one control, and encourages them to continue if they just can't find number 1.
- It recognises that just finding a red and white flag is an achievement worth a small clap.

Any other clubs use a similar system?

It got me thinking though that finding a control is rather like scoring a run in cricket - for experienced orienteers no big deal - as scoring a run is for cricketers, but cricketers seem to be motivated by getting headline scores in their careers - 1000 runs, 5000 runs blah blah. Would this work in orienteering? With results being uploaded onto various websites perhaps it's possible for adults to aim for 5000 controls? 10000 controls etc?

[Derek A]

I am not sure it is still operating but BSOA have had such a scheme for a long time and there are details on their website

[King Penguin]

Easily countable on Ollie's excellent athlete stats site - as are total course length & climb. I have just discovered I have visited over 1,000 controls and more than climbed Everest in the last 12 months, and that's excluding local level D events where results have not been uploaded to BOF.