Shock Horror two

[mykind]

Can we get back to the point? The old thread having been hijacked into a discussion about the validity/viability of short courses and the necessity for giving Juniors prizes all of which is very worthy but not related to the thread.
Southern champs £15 early £17 late (Juniors £4/£5) Northern Champs £14/15 (Juniors £6/£7)
British champs £25/30 (Juniors £13/15)
So I ask again what do I get for my extra tenner?
And please don't start chuntering on about the cost of petrol, theatre tickets or admission to football grounds

Mike Hind (Claro)

[graeme]

Maybe you got distracted by all the chuntering? BOC is a major income source for the governing body, and BO's take at BOC is about £10/head.

So for your extra tenner, you get BOF.

[RJ]

Well, I suppose the easy answer is that you get BO (in the case of BOC/JK and other majors) and regional structure and main income for specific clubs for the others.

Expenses tend to be higher when planner/controller/map adviser/organiser/mapper (ie. travel expenses) are involved with the higher quality(?) event. That accounts for some of it. Also land access can be expensive for the higher status event because arrangements are more intricate and involved, and the land owners recognise a cash cow when they see one.

I think it would be fair to say that profit (or, the polite term, surplus) is a driving motive in the level of fee. This may not be a bad thing in the long run, because the sport really only has one source of income, and that is from the punter who enters each and every competition. Even at club level, the informal events still have to provide an income for the club so that all the other things can function.

So mykind, what do you get for your extra tenner? Perhaps not a noticeably better set of courses/race at the majors, but perhaps we get a better funded sport which is able to develop, and in the end provide more for us all.

Now if we, as a sport, put far, FAR more effort into informal events and increased our participation levels and opportunities for new people to orienteer then we would be generating very many more £1 levies. That is where we should be..... for so many very obvious reasons!

[The Loofa]

Mike. Graeme's simple answer that you get BOF is just about right.
You only have to look at levy rates and event budgets.
Southerns/Northerns etc work to the £1/senior BOF levy
BOC works to a budget where BOF command it generates £x as surplus.
When the SE did BOC last year, that surplus was in effect a BOF levy of over £5/senior.
And given that actual numbers were smaller than budget - and I suspect this year's BOC budget too - in reality very much more than £5/senior.
So perhaps the debate should not be about entry fees but more about what amount of £ BOF get from what level of event.

[LostAgain]

So for your extra tenner, you get BOF.

If this is the truth, then a protest vote can be registered by entering the colour coded course.

[RJ]

..... or you can cut off your nose........ to........

[lindseyk]

It does look like BOC2014 have shot themselves in the foot by providing Blue and Green courses but maybe there’s a good reason behind the decision.

BOF can get the money they need from membership fees, entry fees or levies but either way it’s the competitors who’ll need to stump up. I’m happy with lower membership fees and levies which encourage people to join local clubs and participate, and a high entry fee for one or two events a year is a small price to pay for these benefits.

[mykind]

Agreed with all of RJs erudite post.Land access is more expensive, planners and controllers may live further away etc. but that is also true (albeit to a lesser extent) for the regional champs.
I also agree with Lindsey K that we are going to have to pay one way or another. I don't mind paying my share ( after all I pay the levy just the same as everyone else) every time I compete but in this instance I appear to be paying considerably more than my share.
My beef is that I don't actually see the need for BOF as it stands. Why does a sport which is run week in week out by volunteers need a significant number of paid employees simply to govern it?
P.S. I'm not sure we get value for our money but having said all that I will stump up the cash and turn up at BOC.

Mike Hind

[Dave]

So for your extra tenner, you get BOF.

If this is the truth, then a protest vote can be registered by entering the colour coded course.

And what would that achieve other than showing off your idiocy?
Why bother going to the National Championships, spending a couple of hundred quid for the weekend and declaring yourself non-competitive to save £10? Why not stay at home, save £200 and let everyone else enjoy a great race?

BOF may be annoying at times and may do some ridiculous things but I don't see any of you volunteering to work at National Office to make things better.

[RJ]

My beef is that I don't actually see the need for BOF as it stands. Why does a sport which is run week in week out by volunteers need a significant number of paid employees simply to govern it?

Yes, we definitely need to question the cost of BOF to us all, but we should have a National Governing Body..... every sport should have an NGB. Its function is to regulate the sport so that we all work to the same hymn sheet.

The NGB is also a conduit for government policy, and here we may have quite a bit of dissent! However, it must be in our interest to follow any policy that might increase our membership, participation and the profile of the sport. You might not agree with the thinking that comes out of university research and the Dept for Sport, recreation etc. Over the years there have been some very sound ideas (open to debate of course!).....

Award for All grants. Our club would have gone under without two grants that helped us develop links with schools orienteering.

CRB checks. Generally a very good idea, and laterally toned down to be very much more realistic.

Club Mark. A very good idea. It certainly focussed our attention on 'being a better club'.

Risk Assessment and general H&S. A thoroughly overblown level of 'surveillance' that has the potential to remove all elements of excitement from the sport. The NGB is the conduit to pass our thoughts back to government.

Coaching Qualification. A brilliant improvement.

Qualifications for all officials. Lets not go down that route; controllers aside. Unless we can do online 'informing/testing?'

Club Nights. Mmmmmm! A lot of effort.......

Mass participation via other providers. Lets give it a go and see.

How many members of staff BOF need to pass on these ideas and keep the sport regulated, and in the public domain is a worthwhile debate. Perhaps there are volunteers within clubs who can do this..... I doubt it. The debate continues.

[roadrunner]

And don't forget the membership system/database (OK, there were some glitches when family membership was scrapped but generally it's pretty good, I think). Road running is only just catching up with this - we have membership numbers now but they aren't universally used by race organisers.

[King Penguin]

It's been said before, but I think the ability for a member to see all their ranking scores would be intersting. Olli plugged this gap wonderfully, until the weekly retrospective recalculation of all previous points scuppered his efforts.

[mykind]

It's been said before, but I think the ability for a member to see all their ranking scores would be intersting. Olli plugged this gap wonderfully, until the weekly retrospective recalculation of all previous points scuppered his efforts.

What has this got to do with what we are talking about?

[Street]

BOF does the International Squads

[Gnitworp]

It's been said before, but I think the ability for a member to see all their ranking scores would be intersting. Olli plugged this gap wonderfully, until the weekly retrospective recalculation of all previous points scuppered his efforts.

What has this got to do with what we are talking about?

Value for money from BO?