BOF CEO

[graeme]

Do they exist?

British Orienteering Club Talent Squads' Project was launched in 2010. Five clubs were selected, and as far as I can tell have been left to get on with it without further central help/interference. Several talented juniors have emerged from these clubs.

[awk]

Do they exist?

British Orienteering Club Talent Squads' Project was launched in 2010. Five clubs were selected, and as far as I can tell have been left to get on with it without further central help/interference. Several talented juniors have emerged from these clubs.

Thanks Graeme. Which clubs, do you know?

[DaveK]

Finally BOF is also committees of volunteers, and these people may think it's hard enough getting agreement on changes with just the people on committees without involving dozens more via forums.

Personally, I've always wondered who/what this 'BOF' is/are, that some people complain so much about. Essentially 'committees of volunteers' then who run our sport, including the Board to whom the CEO is responsible. Do we really need (and can afford) a new governance structure?

[graeme]

Which clubs, do you know?

Um,
Consults the best online source for information about BOF
CLOK, CLYDE, DEVON, LOC and OD.

[Tatty]

Being a southern I can certainly say it has worked for Devon. Originally they had very few Juniors and now have a very strong group. Whether this is down to the help I don't know. I do know they have a very keen teacher who takes a big group of them everywhere, but it is mainly boys.

[mykind]

Essentially 'committees of volunteers' then who run our sport, including the Board to whom the CEO is responsible.

Well no- not really. Other groups of volunteers run the sport week in, week out all across the country. BO administer the sport and there are several paid employees so not all of the organisation is volunteer labour.
I believe that the "beef" relates to what we get for our money.

[RichT]

In respect of Lakeland, our Club Talent Squad was aimed at ALL ages to improve people physical and technical skills. It ran for two or three years and then attendance at sessions gradually diminished.

Latterly we've tried to provide support for our "Talented" group of athletes in the M/W16 - M/W21 age group through encouraging more self-help with support from the coaches within the club - bewildered being one of them.

The source of juniors continues to centre around involvement with a single secondary school, Ulverston Victoria High School, although there has been a lot of Primary coaching recently which will hopefully feed through into a variety of Secondary schools over the next few years. I believe I am correct in saying that Devon juniors are based around Torquay Boys Grammar School.

As for JROS and the Performance & Talent Squads then clearly there is no meeting of minds. The BO Talent Squad resistance to taking 18s to the Junior European Cup despite JROS offering to provide team management is but one example. How do you give kids competition experience if you never take them to competitions? I note that the latest Board minutes again suggest that the Talent Squad will be taking athletes to the Europeans this year . . . . perhaps . . .

[awk]

Which clubs, do you know?

Um,
Consults the best online source for information about BOF
CLOK, CLYDE, DEVON, LOC and OD.

Again, thank you, and to others for your insights.

So, given this has been running for getting on for four years, does anybody know if there's been any development? Review? Success criteria? Value added (the LOC/Ulverston group seem to have been around and feeding into the NW and National Junior Squads long before the Club Talent Squad programme was set up)? Number of athletes being moved forward (sounds as if a few might have done)? Extension to other clubs? Development of the Regional Talent Squads? Again, I'm really more interested in the value added to the pre-existing structure of regional junior squads (e.g. M/W20s and over-21s, as stated in the 2010 blurb on the BO site), rather than simple relabelling of work that was already being done.

Going back to Oldman's comment, I'm just interested in how consistent and national British Orienteering's development programme at this level actually is (as opposed to the work being done through JROS), but have not had much joy trying to find out from the British Orienteering site, and know of no other forum where I can ask these sorts of questions.

[bewildered]

You can't find up to date information about the Performance Department page on the website because it is wrong, and has been for years.

I sent this on 15/12/2011

Sarah

Nice to see you again the other day.

The Talent Programme and other parts of the Performance website are very out of date. The programmes are still showing for 2010.

I reported this to Gareth on 17/06/2011.

I have checked back many times and they have never updated.

Perhaps you can get this updated?

I did get a reply, but nothing much changed on the front page.

[Gross]

The Performance pages on the BOF website have been cr*p ever since before the www was invented.

How on earth any organisation can claim 'transparency' in its policies with that kind of public information beats me..... but, hopefully, the athletes get better communication than the punters (and if the athletes are happy then that's a start!)

[Paul Frost]

Returning to the original question, as to if a CEO should be "out and about".

From my working years in electrical retailing, the Managing Director, as they were then known, used to have regular days out visiting stores, sometimes unannounced. They would chat to store managers, staff and customers in an informal manner whilst wandering around the store. This kept them in touch with all areas of the business and the differing levels of management, rather than just the level below them. They would often pick up on a comment/criticism/ideas from a customer or member of staff and take that back to head office to be investigated or shared with others.

If you set up a "meet and greet" tent at a major event you are probably only going to get the actively involved, experienced orienteers turn up to ask a question or complain. If you wandered around the start area or hung around outside the download tent and just chatted with people you would meet and hear the thoughts and questions from "Joe Bloggs".

Most orienteers don't have any clue (or care) about the political and technical issues that need to happen to enable them to take part in the sport. So they don't have a question to ask British Orienteering. But they may have observations and views about things that affect them individually. If they have views about coaching opportunities, the number of events available to them, the rules, if they would prefer pictorial descriptions or how hard/easy it is become a member, good or bad they will likely blame or praise their club.

That's why I agree that the CEO should be (and seen to be) talking to participants at all levels of event/activity. This is the only way to gain a full understanding of what is in the mind of orienteers and what are the sorts of issues that concern them, rather than listening to what Sport England thinks orienteering should be. This doesn't have to be in his personal time, if he doesn't want to actually partake in the sport he is managing, he could visit a few events or activities (or even club AGM's and committee meetings) every month outside of office hours and take the time off in lieu.

[Oldman]

Personally, I still find this discussion rather distasteful on a public forum with innuendos and implicit criticism that the person concerned may be unaware of and not able easily to address. How many Nopesport readers would like one aspect of their job performance (which may or may not be relevant) discussed publicly?

And I restate that in my opinion an NGB CEO's objectives are not at all like those of the MD of a private company.

[Paul Frost]

British Orienteering is a membership organisation, so I think it's quite reasonable that we the members should be able to question the performance, and direction, of the people that we pay to manage our sport.

The objectives of an NGB CEO may be different to those of a private company, but having a full understanding of the "thing", and the people involved, that you are managing should still be a priority if you are to manage it successfully and carry the support of those involved.

Don't forget, that for most of the ideas and actions proposed by the CEO it will be volunteers that will actually do the work. If they are not convinced that the actions are what they or the sport wants or needs they won't carry them out in the way directed. I would say that you need to win the hearts and minds even more so than in a private company, where the CEO could just sack the people that didn't agree with him.

[andy]

How many Nopesport readers would like one aspect of their job performance (which may or may not be relevant) discussed publicly?

In my opinion, public discussion is the best way to solve anything like this otherwise it invariably gets swept under the carpet or, worse, solved badly. BOF have been criticised recently for their communication and this is one branch of it. Perhaps the initial posts weren't as diplomatic as they could have been, but hey, it's being discussed now isn't it?

[Mrs H]

that the person concerned may be unaware .

If I was the BOF CEO then the first thing I would do each morning with my first coffee and custard cream is scan nope sport to see what's generating some heat - you know like the Queen reading the papers in bed.