Run Challenge

[Oldman]

Surely we were all aware of the initiative by British Orienteering for this and the similar Xplorer?

Not in Lithuania, it seems!

[Wayward-O]

I think clashes with existing club activities are a mistake but we're not the target audience are we?

We may not be the target audience but these would be great events to take non-orienteering partners, children etc. to give them an experience in a less competitive environment or to promote at Schools' events as a bridge to club events BUT arranging these Run Challenge events on the same nighs as the local club's events essentially precludes such interactions.

[bewildered]

So, would that be Netball Now, or High 5. Both of these are embedded on the http://www.englandnetball.co.uk website, below "Traditional Netball".

Read the Netball Now page to see that they welcome anyone over 16. You don't need to be a member, but you get a discount if you are. If you want coaching at netball - try your local club.

It doesn't discourage proper netball players from going along. It does encourage people to join englandnetball. It has an easy way to find a club if you want to be coached.

All rather joined up, I would say.

Can we say the same about orienteering?

[Sloop]

In Manchester we also have RunChallenge events scheduled against ours, and not very far away. Also, some are scheduled in the same period that we run our "Countryside Score" events, whose format they have pretty much copied exactly. This seems disappointing on grounds of courtesy, at least.

However, given that the best justification for these events would be new members for local O clubs, what is worse is that there appears to be no strategy in place to facilitate that process. [And the web site uses "club" in a way that is different to actual O clubs, so these newcomers may not realise what an O club really is.]

The manifesto for these events demands young organisers, and you get the impression that crusties would not be exactly welcome. So, what is the appropriate response from the affected O clubs? eg.
a) ask all our under-40s to turn up and evangelise, equipped with membership packs
b) stay well away and await new members appearing out of the ether ?
c) turn up and evangelise even though we are crusty

[bewildered]

How about asking Ed Nicholas and Mike Hamilton why they think that setting up a competing sport is what SportEngland wanted? And why they have shown utter disrespect for established clubs in not including us in any of the planning; setting up competing events on the same days; not bothering to have a structured way of introducing those that enjoy the RunChallenge events to the real challenge of orienteering and why, when working with the partners, clubs weren't invited to the discussions? (Having recently talked to one potential provider, they were a bit surprised to find that we were very willing to help out and that there was a big local club.)

It seems that "proper orienteers" are not up to much, as far as the centre is concerned. We "failed" them as far as community nights were concerned. Although you could ask whether the concept was a sensible one in the first place. So they have to "reduce the burden" on Clubs by not involving us at all in RunChallenge and Xplorer. Both of which I think could be very good ideas. (Although why Xplorer control cards can't have a little O sign on them as well as the colour or bunny or whatever, beats me - Oh sorry, links it to orienteering!)

[bewildered]

Even englandhockey (our esteemed leader's sport) advertises Rush Hockey on its website.

It does link to this website https://www.rushhockey.co.uk/whatisrushhockey.aspx, but it is still there, talking about Pay and Play! And the sessions come up when you click on Give it a Go and search for hockey sessions in your area.

[bewildered]

And here's another. British Cycling are widely seen as one of the best NGBs. Where do you find info about their Go Ride offering? http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/go-ride on the British Cycling website.

Rowing promote indoor rowing - on http://www.britishrowing.org/taking-part/indoor-rowing.

And to make matters even worse, the link on the Orienteering section of SportEngland's website that says "Community O+" goes to this page http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/i ... ienteering which contains no information about RunChallenge or XPlorer.

[bewildered]

So, has anyone been to one of these?

[yted]

Far be it from me to defend BOF but a month or two ago they ran a session in York for my local club (EBOR) explaining what these are and when they would start (next summer for us) and we had a long discussion about how they might increase participation in events and club membership and what the club might do to make sure that happened.
So far we've just helped with the mapping (by making our maps available); but we have plans for coaches to go to these events (two sets: one for 16+ and one for families) next summer and encourage those who seem to be enjoying themselves to come to club nights and local events as a series of stepping stones to get more folk into "proper" orienteering
All very positive. It's a shame if this hasn't happened in other areas.

[King Penguin]

I think I heard that the budget is only sufficient to support these initiatives in limited, selected areas. So in our particular "neck of the parks" we had Community O schemes unilaterally cancelled only 2 weeks after they had started, with no communication and no information for those unfortunate punters who had attended the first events and turned up for the next one to find ..... absolutely nothing. I know this to be a fact from talking to one family who suffered exactly this. At least this one family have not been lost, and are now attending some of our local events.

[denbydale]

Looking at the Run Challenge website then clicking on the results pages I can't see any results for individual events - does this mean no one turned up or that the event contact or coordinator hasn't bothered to put the results up?

[King Penguin]

... or that it's an "activity" and therefore cannot have published results ?

[MIE]

Looking at the Run Challenge website then clicking on the results pages I can't see any results for individual events - does this mean no one turned up or that the event contact or coordinator hasn't bothered to put the results up?

Results seem a bit "patchy" but 30th May put on by "Cumbria" was won by a Martin Bagness

... or that it's an "activity" and therefore cannot have published results ?

There appears to be a "league" associated with this "activity" so results would be
needed to compile this league. Although how you compile a meaningful league from
disparate score events is a mystery to me.

[denbydale]

... or that it's an "activity" and therefore cannot have published results ?

So why have a 'Results' tab?

[tropso]

Is Run Challenge harming orienteering? Potentially yes and in a major way.

Having heard murmurings of poor quality I thought I'd check out a Run Challenge event to experience it first hand. By orienteering standards it was dreadful. Only 3 of the 20 controls were accurately marked on the map, another 11 were within the circle (although some were borderline), but 6 were outside the circle, including 1 which was 200m away.

Apart from these major errors it was fun and the Activator (Organiser) was enthusiastic. With a bit of training and more experience undoubtedly her shortcomings could largely be overcome. I'd urge experienced orienteers to give these a try and point out anything substandard in order to raise the standard to an acceptable level. We shouldn't need to but failure to act will be detrimental to our sport.

Run Challenge should be an excellent way to introduce orienteering to fun runners and raise the profile. Currently the low standard will put people off orienteering forever but with appropriate support it could just be what our sport needs.

The concept is great, the implementation including liaison with clubs/members, the website and results, so far, is awful.

Steve