Focus and new staff

[EddieH]

I am really disturbed by my understanding of the thrust that BOF is demonstrating.
[i] "In 2014 British Orienteering will be working with many new and exciting partners to deliver orienteering"[/i]

Under this are 3 new employees none of whom have any background in orienteering and all of whom seem to be employed exclusively to promote (on a very local basis) "explorer". Thus there seems to be no reason that any of them will ever discover what the real sport actually entails

Despite a claim on P 20 that explorer has been very successful, we are given no evidence for this, nor any that there is any likelihood of it increasing numbers in the sport as we know it. As far as we were told before participants in explorer are shielded from the word orienteering, (and in many ways I hope thi is so as I am not convinced it is a good representation).

So is BOF trying to create a new activity to justify its existence? I simply don't get it

BOF was deliberately set up with a requirement that ALL officers were ACTIVE orienteers specifically to avoid the blazer brigade that administrate most sports. Times may have changed but I do not believe that what we have now is an improvement.

[awk]

BOF was deliberately set up with a requirement that ALL officers were ACTIVE orienteers specifically to avoid the blazer brigade that administrate most sports. Times may have changed but I do not believe that what we have now is an improvement.

They certainly have changed: almost half of the current Board of Directors (40%) have pretty much no experience of orienteering. (I say 'pretty much', because one or two might have done a course once upon a time).

Despite a claim on P 20 that explorer has been very successful, we are given no evidence for this, nor any that there is any likelihood of it increasing numbers in the sport as we know it.

That's been an issue before: the 'local club' project has always always been short on hard facts, particularly numbers in mainstream sport.

[PhilJ]

Would I be right in thinking the new chappy Craig Anthony is the new Steve Vernon AND Ed Nicholas? 1 for the price of 2?

His credentials look very good but I hope he does not get disillusioned by the red tape and box ticking from Sport England. In a previous life I constantly tried to get funding from Sports Wales but without mentioning Rugby in every second sentance somehow it was like banging your head against a wall. Wales are not even that great at it!

So maybe Craig needs to work with the FA - assuming Football is the big sport in England, maybe get the england team to do a Maize O and get Wayne Rooney to dribble a ball around an O Maize - to develop his skills and decision making, then again seeing Rooney trying to work out his left from his right might be a bit much (though he can't be that daft on 300K a week !).

There you go - you can have that one Football Maize O.

[Sunlit Forres]

Man U are getting used to being associated with the "0" character - so an asociation with the "O" character looks like a logical progression to me.

[Kitch]

per the BO website news item
I'm disturbed by the reference to the "company"
and his patter is shocking (i.e. the generic blurb that presumably came from his CV - films, books, travel and keeping up with curent affairs - good gracious !)

[PhilJ]

The greatersport website is worth a look, very participation focused. Craig still appears as a staff member.

[aiming off]

The main problem British Orienteering faces is quite eloquently summed up by Mike in the AGM part of the Chief Execs Update in Focus.

Essentially Mike is saying that BO is a company which has obligations to members and contractual obligations under what are essentially consultancy contracts.

He then goes on to imply that because the income to the company from consultancy contracts is four times that derived from the membership, the needs of these customers are more significant than the needs of the membership, (if there are any conflicts). After all only 4 of the 15 paid, primarily non orienteering staff in the company, derive their income from the members.

This, I'm afraid, is where I part company with his logic. Unless I'm missing something, the dominant accountability of an NGB should be to act in the interest of it's members.

[graeme]

It was quite revealing.
People who moan about BOF are often told "we are all BOF". The £200k figure quotes reveals that Mike thinks that the millions of pounds of turnover in of all the events we plan, organise and attend is somehow not "part of British Orienteering".
Choosing the word "consultancy" is interesting too. One expects a consultant to behave in an even handed way, rather than promoting its particular interest. The implication being that BO doesn't promote member's interests when dealing with SportEngland.

It's a fair point that folk will do what they benefit from. So if the 'consultancy' is independent of the membership, the members have no incentive to agree to consultants demands, as Mike found out with the "gender balanced" board.

[MIE]

It's a fair point that folk will do what they benefit from. So if the 'consultancy' is independent of the membership, the members have no incentive to agree to consultants demands, as Mike found out with the "gender balanced" board.

However, we should note

7.
Sport England Update (MH)
MH reported that dialogue with Sport England over the matter of gender
balance on the Board.
Sport England had been informed of the Board discussion that had taken place
in December and that a contingency plan is in place should the balance on
the Board not meet government requirements

Suggesting in the current climate that what the members want will not necessarily
be what the members get.

[EddieH]

Thanks for highlighting the important points I don't have the stomach to trawl for. Good but desperately sad to know where MH's commitment is.

I am not convinced that the BOF we have is the BOF we want. Sack the whole professional lot and revert to an amateur body? Probably not, but get rid of all the non orienteering decision makers I'd vote for that.

I really dedspair about the current set up.

[Arnold]

I think what we need is some sort of "constituent assembly" of members which redefines what BOF is for, and should do. Maybe offering a few options for everyone to vote on?

I equally despair at the current BO priorities, but there are no easy answers. If you go back to an "amateur" set up with say one paid officer, then you will definitely lose the Sport England money but also struggle with insurance, Forestry Commission access and so on. Some other things might be less professional too, say the JK website or thge fancy flyers. You might be able to replace some of that by volunteer effort but not all.

Or maybe there's a middle ground, like a BO version of the Scottish 6 Day Company.

Personally I think it'd be really helpful to work up some real, feasible alternatives for discussion. But it would take some time to do.

[bewildered]

There shouldn't be a need to go back to an amateur set-up, so long as the board does its job, which is to oversee and challenge what is being done for the benefit of the whole sport.

At present, in England, the main targets are ones set by SportEngland. These are around participation numbers. They are simply interested in meeting their targets, set by government. They want more people do regular sport - any sport. They have decided that orienteering is a sport that might provide that, so have invested money through our governing body. (In Scotland I believe the main aim for SportScotland is to increase membership.)

Unfortunately, our CEO and Board have decided that they do not also need to consider targets for converting participants into club members, as far as I can tell.

SPortEngland have invested in XPlorer and RunChallenge. However, the CEO and Board have decided that the xPlorer and RunChallenge need to be presented as something different from what we do as orienteering. With Xplorer using different maps from orienteering maps, there is already a small barrier to conversion to orienteering (my experience is that kids can cope with grass being yellow and trees white - if it is explained). Clubs have not been informed when these events might be on, lest we infect the participants (although it seems that when we do find out about them we do participate). These are all areas that have been commented on before.

This disconnect is one of the major issues for me. I don't know if SportEngland said that under no circumstances should anyone be told that what they are doing is orienteering, but I doubt it. But that doesn't preclude the Board making the link.

If this link is made and insisted upon by the Board, then we might to start to get somewhere.

Of course, it is possible that people working within BO HQ actually don't know what it is that we do, or do know and don't really like it.

[SeanC]

I can't understand the negativity towards Xplorer. It's aimed at infants/junior school aged children so of course it should be simpler/different. Using that analogy we should get 6 year olds reading James Joyce instead of 'The Gruffalo' as reading simple fun language is clearly a barrier to their learning?

By and large this age group is catered for really badly by mainstream orienteering. But occasionally we produce our own simplified maps and simplified courses - string courses, and little children love them.

If you've got an Xplorer group in your local area, why wait for BOF, just go along and speak to the motivators/activators/wotever they're called on the night and see what can be done. If you've got a junior league or a club junior group it's a natural progression for the older juniors, in the same way scouts follows on from cubs.

But since 95% of events don't have a suitable course for junior school aged children (by this I mean white or string) it's a real cheek complaining about BOF putting on something instead outside the club structure. Good for them. Kids running around a park and having fun. How can you complain?

[Red Adder]

The reason BOF should care is simply that it was created to look after the interests of people who go orienteering, not to provide entertainment for 6 year olds.

[King Penguin]

Still waiting for my Focus and AGM papers.
Has anyone else been disenfranchised ?