The Franchise Model for major events

[Arnold]

The conclusion does seem to be what BOF has advocated for a few years now (not that I want to particularly defend them):

Lots and lots of "easy to organise, easy to participate" level D events
A few really excellent level A events - JK and BOCs
And not a huge amount in between. At least a lot less than there is today.

Which makes complete sense to me, because it's the many "in between" events - your standard badge events and colour codeds plus assorted championships - that take up so much cumulative volunteer time.

[Arnold]

And to graeme's point, nowadays it's really not that hard to organise a "proper" level D event. Indeed I'm doing one tonight with SI and the extra effort vs pin punching is really tiny. Maybe an hour in total to fiddle with the computer setup? Plus it means you have results ready made.

Of course it depends on your club to have a great "kit bag" all set up with the right programmes and instructions - thanks Chris.

And for waterproof maps I email the PDF to the printers and get the maps the next day in the post - easier than printing at home!

[graeme]

Which begs the question..... why are YOU staging that event? Who are you doing it for? I think you have your aims rather jumbled up IMO!

I have the same level of clarity in my aims that MikeShires does, but those aims are different. I work full time and I have a family so my time is the absolute premium.

I know the areas well, so planning is simply rerouting one of my training runs (i.e. costs me zero time). I have chalk at home so collecting kit costs me zero time. Fiddling with condes probably takes me an hour. Setting out the course is a kind of sub-optimal training session, then two hours in the evening written off registering and doing starts, maybe an hour logging on, typing in the results on our website.

I'm doing it for about 30 people, typically experienced orienteers from 4-5 different clubs, but open to all. Feedback is good, it takes about 3 man hours effort, total, above my normal routine. It meets the requirements of level D and I regard it as highly efficient.

Of course level D can be good for training. I used to regard level C events as a training exercise*. Serious athletes treat level B as training.

arnold: no way would I do pin punching!

* Now I treat almost everything as a leisure activity.

[awk]

The conclusion does seem to be what BOF has advocated for a few years now (not that I want to particularly defend them):
Lots and lots of "easy to organise, easy to participate" level D events
A few really excellent level A events - JK and BOCs
And not a huge amount in between. At least a lot less than there is today.
Which makes complete sense to me, because it's the many "in between" events - your standard badge events and colour codeds plus assorted championships - that take up so much cumulative volunteer time.

Well, that model would see me pack the sport in almost overnight, especially as RJ and others are suggesting slashing the very Level A events that have seen a resurgence of interest in our household (Sprint and Middle). Level D events are fine, but they don't provide the quality of event I'm after, either in terms of technical interest or competitive interest.

One of the reasons we've done less and less terrain based orienteering in the past few years has been the increasing dearth of decent middle ranking events. May just be a perception and other parts of the country may be different, but that's how it seems.

Yes, there is a danger of overload from higher level events, but there's a need for a clear and attractive gradation, and to my mind there's a large hole is in the middle around about where the 'colour-coded' event used to be.

[SeanC]

Awk - I think those 'Olite' events up your way are ripe for the kind of intensive promotion that MikeShires and TVOC do. The events are already in a relatively small area and in groups of 3 or 4 - just like the Oxford series. Possibly a bit of a change in philosophy in that more volunteer effort is needed for publicity and to handle the larger numbers of newcomers on the day and some rebranding towards the non orienteers market.

Olites used pin punching the last time I did one. For new orienteers electronic punching definately impresses and probably worth it if a club is going after big numbers of newcomers, but for a training type event then they are fine I think, Olites got members of my family back into orienteering.

[King Penguin]

.... it all evolves into planning the technical course for the experienced runners and the novice/easy course becomes the add on, once an area is chosen. And often the easy course is compromised because the area chosen is not really suitable or the start/finish sites are not suitable.

Whenever I plan D or C events I start with the White and Yellow courses and they (and parking) are the strongest influences on the start and finish location. There's plenty of distance in a Brown to still get them into the best of the area.