M/W21s not interested in Forest Orienteering?

[alanbrett]

Data suggests that long established competitions, such as the Mitre, which have abandoned age-class competition and moved to colour coded courses have suffered a huge decline in participation.

Long established competitions such as the Scottish 6 day event, JK and November Classic that have retained age-class competition, have not suffered anything like the same decline.

I sympathise! But, we are following the South East League Guidelines as to what must be provided in terms of courses.

In particular, it has been evident for a while that Black courses have not always attracted sufficient competitors.

Re Age Classes - there is one way to look at the results (kindof) in that the South East Galloppen (now renamed I believe) does rework the results into an Age Class based league using ranking points. All rather complicated, seldom very timely and difficult to know where to look to find the results.

I missed the last SEOA Committee meeting, but will mention this next time round - although I think the SEOA website is getting a revamp which will include better information on the regions competitions.

[NeilC]

I sympathise! But, we are following the South East League Guidelines as to what must be provided in terms of courses.

Don't pass the buck. The Mitre only has to follow the guidelines as it chose to be included in the SE League. It could have run outwith the league and put on whatever courses/classes were deemed appropriate.

[alanbrett]

The priority for a smaller club (like us) in the SE at the moment must be surely to attract newcomers to orienteering, so that the sport (and in particular our club) does not disappear in 20 years.

We have started to add to our event calendar with our North London Street Orienteering League (first event of 3rd season this Thurs), the Saturday Parks League (pilot project to test the event format started 2 weeks ago) and making sure we had a Long Orange course at the Mitre. It is quite possible that we will have more M/W21s at many of our Street-O's this season than at the Mitre.

But at the same time, who is going to put on those event that regular orienteers "expect"? Forest orienteering is an integral part of this expectation (and rightly so).
We are following the South East League Guidelines partly to meet this "expectation", to ensure that contribute our fair share to the SE League to make it a viable competition, and ...

... to get a chance to run a technically challenging course on a recently remapped area of ancient forest close to us in Epping.

[Arnold]

Following this discussion I feel a bit bad for CHIG.
Clearly you've tried to make it attractive for punters (including but not limited to 21s)with terrain, map, event centre, string course and even publicity.

But it hasn't really worked as you'll barely have 200 runners. Why?

For me the main reason is the sheer number of events throughout the year, and the fact that Epping East while nice has been used lots of times. It's one event among many and no guarantee that "everyone will be there". So it's not *that* special even though you've tried really hard to make it special.

As much as BOF bashing is a sport on Nope, I think they're onto something with the idea of having fewer bigger events (so only one Mitre every X years let's say) but more smaller, local, easy ones.

[SeanC]

Looking at the entries, there is a decent turnout from adjacent clubs near to M25/M11 (DFOK, HAVOC, CHIG, HH, WAOC) but not from other clubs a little further away in the South East, or who have to bash across London (SAX, SLOW, MV, SO, GO, SN). Perhaps the catchment area of such events has shrunk, because of competition with other events, or transport prices or other factors?

South East League: 2 years ago there was a really big turnout of HH competitors at the DFOK South East league event at Mereworth, despite it being the other side of London in their attempt to win the league. Their club captain really pushed the event within HH. This sort of thing is just what we need in orienteering to make it a more friendly, sociable and welcoming sport, especially important for new M/W21's I suspect. However I think this was unusual and I suspect that much of the time the SE League is ignored. A team competition that is ignored is worse than none at all as it inhibits the growth of a new one that might be more successful.

Part of the problem is that many orienteers aren't very teamy and not that interested in team competitions, but also many orienteers who might be interested in team competitions don't know much about the South East competitions in particular... when they are, what the rules are, who won etc. Part of the problem is communication, there are many different avenues now and it's difficult for such a small organisation to get an effective strategy. Some clubs have active captains, but many don't have the time or motivation to push every competition. Some clubs have captains that aren't very active or have a post unfilled.

With this in mind I produced a paper outlining some ideas to help promote the SE League competitions directly to orienteers, mainly involving cleaning up the SEOA website and using push communication (ie email) to communicate directly to orienteers ... the SEOA already has a popular mailer which mails SEOA events weekly, so could be used for promoting competitions (eg a yearly email listing the league events in September, email of league results etc). Now facebook could be added to the mix. Some of this could be automated to reduce workload. Dave Moore, the SEOA webmaster, is interested in building a content management system for the website and the mailer, and where we got to was that the paper I wrote needed to be turned into some firmer requirements though discussion with clubs, competition organisers and Dave.

If you're still reading this then I'm hoping you are genuinely interested in the South East League and other competitions, and in helping it. Where I got to was that I didn't have the time to take it further so I asked the clubs, through the SEOA committee, if they could find a volunteer to take on the project. No-one came forward, but since you're still reading this I'm hopeful that you might be that person. In which case please send me a PM or contact your SEOA rep/club chair etc.

[DavidJ]

Looking at the entries, there is a decent turnout from adjacent clubs near to M25/M11 (DFOK, HAVOC, CHIG, HH, WAOC) but not from other clubs a little further away in the South East, or who have to bash across London (SAX, SLOW, MV, SO, GO, SN). Perhaps the catchment area of such events has shrunk, because of competition with other events, or transport prices or other factors?

And BKO have a SCOA League event on this Sunday as well on Yateley Heath (near Farnborough) which has attracted entries from SE clubs: SLOW (5), SN (11), SO (6), GO (10). Also we have 19 TVOC entries which might have opted for the Mitre if there had not been a clash.

Incidentally, on-line entries will remain open until tomorrow night!

[King Penguin]

I know they are in different regions, but the Epping clash with Yateley is extremely unfortunate, and I believe both will be losing out significantly.
I am going to Epping, was intending to enter Black (I am M55), but the numbers are so low I have reluctantly opted for a shorter course where there are more people to gauge myself against. I would love to run more Blacks, but sadly there just don't seem to be the takers.

[roadrunner]

Out of curiosity, I compared the numbers against some old results I had for the same events (albeit on slightly different areas):

Mitre 1988 Epping S (colour coded, including London champs): 326, of which 37 on black (32 of those M21)
BKO Swinley 1996 (colour coded): 561, of which 73 on brown, the longest course offered (26 of those M21)
Mitre 1998 Epping NW (badge): 423, of which 49 on M21L

Compare to:

Mitre 2013: 196, of which 5 on black (only one M21)
BKO Yateley Heath 2013: 165, of which 11 on brown, the longest course offered - and only two of those M21

Even allowing for the clash and transport issues, it does seem to support the view that M/W21s are less keen on forest orienteering than they were in the past.

[Gnitworp]

I am going to Epping, was intending to enter Black (I am M55), but the numbers are so low I have reluctantly opted for a shorter course where there are more people to gauge myself against. I would love to run more Blacks, but sadly there just don't seem to be the takers.

Bit of a Catch 22: nobody enters Black because nobody enters Black.

[ifititches]

Isn't some of the M21 decline just due to demographics? There was a dramatic slump in fertiltity rate from 1964 to 1976, and it's bobbed along at the low levels until just recently. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13809280
Simplifying it hugely and ignoring those born in years in-between (though I'm sure some of you can instantly calculate the effects)the big 1964-born cohort would have been going into the M21 class around 1985 and might have stayed in it until 1999, or longer if they were very keen. They'd have barely overlapped in M21 with the 1976-born ones who would have turned 21 in 1997 and 35 in 2010, and the numbers born each year behind the 1976 cohort remained low.
Add into that lots of other sporting activities on offer, the need to work weekends because of the opening up of the working week to Sundays (and just to make ends meet as a student) and it doesn't have to be anything like colour coding or age-grouped courses for numbers to be so much lower, though that might have some effect.
Apologies if soem-one's pointed this all out already, but am a bit too tired to plough through the whole thread.
But by all means try to make sport in general more popular/easier to participate in for the few 21-35 year olds who everyone wants to attract!

[graeme]

Isn't some of the M21 decline just due to demographics?

Fertility isn't demographics. There are about 10% fewer 21-35s now than 41-55s. So the vast majority of the decline (and increase at 60+) has other causes.

[ifititches]

I knew it was too late at night to get my terminology and possibly my thought processes entirely correct! Respect, Graham.

On a totally unrepresentative sample of one (me),I think my 24 year olds have far more pressures on their weekend time than I did in the heyday of orienteering. They won't be able to afford their own transport for the forseeable future, even if they wanted it. So if orienteering was going to hook them back in as individuals (they still come if they're around when we're going) it would need to either be on the doorstep (ie urban/close to town) or within fairly rapid cycling/public transport distance, or offer the opportunity of group transport (as in Carol's experience). It would need to be cheap(ish) too..I don't get the feeling that it's a predominance of older orienteers that puts them off at all, and they both love being out in forests, so it seems to me that it's the the practicalities which need to be overcome.

And these 24 year olds are part of the committed minority from junior athletics who've gone on to compete and organise at senior level in that sport. That's because, for them, athletics offers all of the above (and they enjoy running).

I've been doing a project which has involved me listening to a lot of coaches and athletes from Birchfield Harriers recently, and (substitute athletics for orienteering) their tales of the twenty-plus years olds and their involvement are pretty much a repeat of the posts on this thread.

[drobin]

And only 5 m21 out of 25 entries (open course) for the previous day urban at Guildford, and 2 of those have no club.

[Happy]

Also Junior entries for both Mitre and Guildford are affected by the clash with the JIRC's over the same weekend.

[SeanC]

It's obvious to me what we should do with Epping Forest. I might type it out later if I get time.