Peter Palmer Relays 2013

[RJ]

WCOC are hosting the PPs this year, on Sunday 9th September. The venue is Hawse End on the shores of Derwentwater, with accommodation at Hawse End Centre. The woodland is mature oak and other broadleaf species together with some Scots Pine. It is all very open and runnable, with a network of paths and tracks for the Yellow and Orange courses. The area is ideal for this type of competition and hopefully will produce some fast, close and exciting racing. Details have already been circulated to Team managers, and we would love to hear from you soon that you are intending to come with a team or two.

Hawse End is fairly close to Keswick, so is little more than 25 minutes off the M6. Overnight accommodation is luxurious with bedded rooms for the early registrations. Later teams may have to use floor space, but there are a couple of very special 'tents' for two or more clubs!

The WCOC team hope that we will be able to meet your expectations and that you have a great time in Cumbria. It is the premier junior team competition..... and we intend to make it a memorable one!

[graeme]

Looks fantastic, and for once handy for Scotland. When we got the invite, our juniors were incredibly excited at the prospect. Unfortunately, now we've read the small print about eligibility, we've had to disappoint them.

[Homer]

Looks fantastic, and for once handy for Scotland. When we got the invite, our juniors were incredibly excited at the prospect. Unfortunately, now we've read the small print about eligibility, we've had to disappoint them.

I assume you're referring to the minimum age requirement of M/W12?

Having taken our team for the last 3 or 4 years I think this is a reasonable restriction. The older kids are excited enough and get little sleep; younger ones could be a real handful.

Our (2) teams entries are in the post. They (if not me so much) are looking forward to it.
Thanks to WCOC taking on the organisation this year. It's nice to have a change from either Sutton Park or an Army training area.

[SeanC]

Having taken our team for the last 3 or 4 years I think this is a reasonable restriction. The older kids are excited enough and get little sleep; younger ones could be a real handful.

I don't get this. My son got invited to a Beavers overnight camp in Mereworth Woods last week and he's only 6. Surely it can be up to the team captain to decide?

We have this debate every year about rules.

The fact is the rules effectively exclude juniors from 70% of clubs.

The question is, are the rules wrong or are the clubs (or their junior sections at least) too small?

[Big Jon]

Surely 6 juniors from 12 to 18 is possible for any club to arrange (or even neighbouring clubs - BOF allows neighbouring clubs to join forces). Realistically its only 3 or 4 families.

[RJ]

We realise that the event is quite a long drawn out affair.... well, over quite a few hours anyway! We will be making some food and hot drinks available during the whole event. We are also doing our best to plan in some breakfast for the teams. Final details to Team Managers will outline what we manage to organise but at least hot drinks will be available. Hawse End is an outdoor centre and caters for large school groups all the time.... so the place is ideal for our relay, especially as it is at the north end of a lovely piece of woodland. Fingers crossed for the weather.... but hot showers will be available for the muddy runners if needed!

[SeanC]

Surely 6 juniors from 12 to 18 is possible for any club to arrange (or even neighbouring clubs - BOF allows neighbouring clubs to join forces). Realistically its only 3 or 4 families.

Well that might be true in theory, but in practice it isn't happening. It's not just the small clubs, it's also big clubs, some quite near to the event. Below is a list of clubs that did not go to last year's relay (I've left off the Scottish, Northern Irish and uni clubs, apologies if I got one or two wrong here).

The obvious answer is to have regional teams and regional captains, helped by existing club captains. Then no junior is denied the possibility of a run. With the exception of NW most regions were only represented by 2 clubs last year (also see below).

Clubs that didn't enter a team last year

BADO
BARRO
BKO
BL
CHIG
CLARO
CLOK
COBOC
DFOK
DVO
EBOR
EPOC
ERYRI
GO
HALO
HAVOC
HOC
KERNO
LOG
LOK
MV
NATO
NGOC
NN
NOR
NWO
POTOC
QO
SAX
SBOC
SELOC
SLOW
SMOC
SN
SOC
SOFA
SROC
TVOC
WAOC
WAROC
WIGHTO
WIM
WRE
WSX

Clubs that did enter a team, broken down by region.
Yorkshire and Humberside
SYO
AIRE

West Midlands
OD
LEI
NOC

North West
LOC
MDOC
WCOC
DEE
PFO

South East
SO
HH

South Central
SARUM

Wales
POW

South West
BOK
DEVON

East Anglia
SUFFOC
SOS

[Big Jon]

Maroc has a policy of sending a team every 2 years as it is expensive and a long way to travel (even when in the Lakes
We'll keep this up as long as the juniors are interested.

[SteveE]

.....Clubs that didn't enter a team last year

.....

Clubs that did enter a team, broken down by region.

West Midlands
OD
LEI
NOC

Just like to point out that LEI and NOC very much EMOA and not WMOA.

[graeme]

BOF allows neighbouring clubs to join forces).

Nope: if you have a stack of grown-ups and a handful of juniors, BOF won't let your juniors run. So our natural combination with a couple of ESOC kids is also verboten on account of pensioner-overload.

It's just nuts to put on a great event, then write some byzantine restrictive rules to stop perfectly competent groups of six children from taking part. Is it really that important who "wins"?

[babs f]

If winning isn't important to you, then enter a combined team as a non-competitive team.

From the Peter Palmer Relay rules:
1.4.5 Non-competitive teams may be allowed to take part at the discretion of the event organiser

In 2009, HOC's second team only had 5 runners, all boys, so were non-competitive. In order to get them a complete team, a W20 (i.e. too old) runner volunteered to run the Green leg at the end. Come the day of the event, one runner was unable to compete due to injury. The same W20 therefore offered to run the Yellow leg and then the Green leg. When the organiser briefly muttered that one runner could not run two legs, his wife agreed with us that the team was by this time non-competitive on so many counts that one more didn't matter.
What did the team achieve? Four boys had the whole "Peter Palmer experience", who otherwise could not have done.

[LostAgain]

BOF allows neighbouring clubs to join forces).

Nope: if you have a stack of grown-ups and a handful of juniors, BOF won't let your juniors run. So our natural combination with a couple of ESOC kids is also verboten on account of pensioner-overload.

It's just nuts to put on a great event, then write some byzantine restrictive rules to stop perfectly competent groups of six children from taking part. Is it really that important who "wins"?

Are you sure about this Graeme? Check with the organisers, I'm almost sure you are able to put a club alliance team in, the only condition is that if you put 2 teams in then the 1st team has to be made of all the same club, i.e. you cannot have a club alliance to strengthen your 1st team.

If you are entering only 1 team for the PP Relays then I think you can have an alliance between clubs. Not sure whether there is geographic restrictions, neighbouring or regional?

I've found the PP to be inclusive and would welcome additional teams.

[Spookster]

1.4 Combined teams
1.4.1 Combined ‘small club' teams can only be made up from two ‘small clubs' that are either from the same association or are geographically adjacent.
1.4.2 Two 'small clubs' should not combine if either of them is able to enter a complete team from their own club. However, if the first club is able to enter a complete team and the second club cannot, they may then combine to form a second competitive 'small club' team.
1.4.3 Two clubs, large or small, may combine to enter additional teams provided that the large club or clubs have already entered a complete team or teams in the competition.
1.4.4 In circumstances where combined teams are formed it is assumed that clubs will pick their best runners for their own club team or teams before seeking to combine with a neighbouring club to give their 'spare' junior orienteers the opportunity to run in the competition. Any attempt by clubs to do otherwise will lead to their disqualification. The spirit of the competition is, therefore, that clubs form teams from their own members
and are encouraged to develop their own club juniors. It is not the intention for
Regional 'elite' teams to be formed.
1.4.5 Non-competitive teams may be allowed to take part at the discretion of the event organiser.

Those rules all seem sensible, and aimed at getting as many teams to compete as possible.

But there is also this rule, which I assume is the one Graeme has an objection to:

1.3.3 A 'small club' is defined as one with 100 or fewer members of British Orienteering.

So if you are in a club that isn't quite 'small', but you don't have many juniors, or at least can't get enough for a team, you have a problem. One which you would hope could be accommodated by the Organiser, for the benefit of getting more teams and juniors a run.

[graeme]

Are you sure about this Graeme?

Er, no. This is actually a second-hand rant on behalf of someone else.

I'll investigate some loopholery when the kids get back from, er, camp. There are certainly parts of the rules which show (what I regard as) the right spirit:

"It is not the intention for Regional 'elite' teams to be formed."
"Any attempt by clubs to do otherwise will lead to their disqualification."

And there are already strict rules about who can win trophies. Having yet another tranche of rules to distinguish "non-competitive" from "not-eligible-for trophies" is ... well ... only in orienteering

Homer summarised our position best, we have a group of six kids who are all friends and would like to be a team. One of them is W10. I'm sure supervision is non-trivial, but Homer's argument that teenagers are easier to deal with than ten year olds is somewhat unconventional.

[SeanC]

I think you can't combine with ESOC Graeme unless they need to fill their second team.

To make a competitive team you need to find another club who wants to field more than one team but INT's juniors needs to match the other clubs requirements (you need to have not just the right amount, but the right age and sex combination).

However broadcasting on nopesport might make it possible. Good luck Graeme.

In theory any junior combination of any club and age could be entered as a non-competitive team if two or more captains were sufficiently motivated to sort it out, but that would be a hard sell to juniors. 'Non-competitive' has an emotional meaning = not in the competition = just playing at it = they don't really want us here = we shouldn't be doing this should we? =why are we travelling half way across the country to do this?

And the organiser could just say no anyway.

Look at the statistics for 2013.
Numbers of combined/interclub teams = 0
Numbers of non-competitive teams=0
Clubs in England and Wales who entered a team = 18
Clubs* in England and Wales who didn't enter a team = 43

It might be a great competition for a large minority, but as a national competition, it isn't working. Time to change the rules?

*I've excluded uni clubs.