Urban League Guidelines

[andypat]

As SOUL coordinator a few people, parents mostly, have asked me about guidelines for the junior courses in particular, at SOUL events.

The current guidelines

http://www.scottish-orienteering.org/soul/urban-league-guidelines

are pinched from the NUL site and are pretty basic.

BOF has a pretty comprehensive (credit where its due!) set of urban event guidelines here http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/images/uploaded/downloads/events_guideline_e.pdf

I'm wondering whether just to direct organisers/planners of SOUL events there, or if there are any other bits of wisdom anyone has picked up?

My thoughts are:

I think the BOF guidance on TD (3 for everything apart from 12-) ignores the possibility of mixed events where some TD4 or even TD5 controls may be possible in patches of terrain. That being the case should 16- be TD4 max?

I think up to 3.5k seems a bit long for M/W12-, given 50% of the competitors seem to be M/W 10

I think the guidance should have some sort of statement on shadowing but I'm not sure what.

Any other salient thoughts?

[graeme]

Out in the JK terrain, in the park, in practice, everyone was using careful bearings and/or contours to find the park controls.

It was obvious that these would be TD4 - I tried to get a straight answer about TD3 in Livingston, I really tried. But nobody would actually give me one, preferring to demand examples then finding bizarre reasons why everything was really TD3 rather than actually answering the question. Especially the exact question you ask "should M14 be easier than other courses". Using TD definitions based on forest was never a good idea.

Eventually I concluded that the powers-that-be are embarrassed by the TD3 designation, but weren't quite willing to omit it. My approach now is to make it as hard as possible while ensuring that its possible to run full speed to the control without having to slow down. i.e. No undergrowth and no tucking in the flag.

[Spookster]

I think the guidance should have some sort of statement on shadowing but I'm not sure what.

The new British Orienteering 2013 Rules of Orienteering will cover shadowing. In simple terms, shadowing is allowed at events, unless a specific Competition Rule says it is not (e.g. at a British Champs). New rules info will be published soon.

[graeme]

I think andypat means whether the organiser remains "in loco parentis" when a child is actually with their parent.

[DaveR]

I have really enjoyed the SOUL series, and have persuaded my family along to most of the races. For the senior courses I would not want to be too prescriptive - some guidance on course length and make them as technically hard as possible without silly tricks with control descriptions. I think the BOF guidelines are pretty spot on here.

I think any difficulties there are are in the junior classes. My view is that ideally there should be 2 separate junior courses, one for the older juniors which is as technical as possible given the U16 and road crossing problem, and a second which is shorter and technically at "urban yellow"* standard. This second one would be suitable for the competent M/W 10s. I would also suggest that for this course the maps should be given out beforehand so that parents can judge whether the course is suitable for their little darling. I would really like to avoid the situation of starting a child on the junior course on her own without seeing the map and being told 15 minutes later that "that was brave letting her out on her own!" The difficulty of the course for older juniors will be determined by the area used, ideally it should be separate and harder than the young junior course, but there may be occasions where it is combined with the younger junior course.

As for shadowing, I should declare an interest as I have shadowed a competent junior round senior courses at a few of the races. This was after we had both run our "proper" courses and was a way to give her a better technical challenge than was sometimes available on the U16 course when it was limited by road crossing rules. In this case I, as a parent, was present so was responsible for her safety, not the organiser.




*"Urban yellow": The guidelines on technical difficulty do not work well in most urban areas. Any reasonably technical urban area would be impossible to plan a white or yellow to strict TD 1 or TD2 guidelines. However it should be possible to plan to a yellowish standard so there are not too many route choices or decision points between controls

[andypat]

I think andypat means whether the organiser remains "in loco parentis" when a child is actually with their parent.

Actually I didnt quite mean that but thats also a good point. My son is 8 but not quite yet at the stage where we let him walk to school on his own, so I'm a bit uncomfortable with any statement on shadowing which would encourage parents to put their kid out on unknown urban terrain (I also like the idea of getting the M/W 12- map beforehand) if they wouldnt normally do this at home.


If what Spookster is implying is that kids can be shadowed and still feature in the results then that solves any issue there.


Like Dave R I should indicate an interest in this issue - up until very recently I've always indicated that he would be shadowed by me when I pre-enter events, and I always tell the starter, but this has never been indicated in the results. Somewhat embarrassingly he finished top of the M12- class essentially by virtue of being the only M12- to be dragged to more than 4 events by his Dad. I did have a think about whether he should get the prize, but the second place was also an M10 who was shadowed...

[Roger]

My view is that ideally there should be 2 separate junior courses, one for the older juniors which is as technical as possible given the U16 and road crossing problem, and a second which is shorter and technically at "urban yellow"* standard. This second one would be suitable for the competent M/W 10s.

Agreed. I think that adding the Young Junior (12-) urban league categories this year was a good decision: thanks to whomever suggested that we should do it. (And to the author of BOF Guideline E, if the suggestion was based upon that.)