Insurers running orienteering

[pete.owens]

Perhaps training courses (safety, controller, coaching etc) all need to be made "open" and added to the fixture list with a "course" code;

https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/trainingcourses

[Big Jon]

But how are the course "tutors" assessed as competent to lead these courses? (and how are those who assess the tutors also checked for their competence?
I'm sure there will be plenty of situations where those attending the course are much, much more experienced than the course "tutor", so who will learn in this situation?

[Paul Frost]

I'm sure there will be plenty of situations where those attending the course are much, much more experienced than the course "tutor", so who will learn in this situation?

Hopefully, everybody at the workshop. That's why the discussion parts of the workshop are so useful, and would be lost by an online course.

Being a good tutor isn't about being the most experienced, it's about having the ability to pass on information in a way that makes it easy for others to absorb it.

[JK]

I think I'm right in saying that if a planner or organiser is also a coach, they have already done the event safety stuff as part of their coaching qualification.

I'm a qualified Level 1 Coach and I do not seem to have any event safety qualifications according to the BO website (but there again I don't seem to have any coaching qualifications either!). if there is any central coordination in all this it seems remarkably occult.

If there is any descrepancy between what you think you have done and what is recorded for you then let BOF know and they'll sort it.

BTW is that an old Level 1, or the UKCC L1, maybe there were different requirements.

As I recall RAs are a key skill for passing the UKCC courses, although attending and passing the course isn't sufficient to become and stay licensed, you must also keep First Aid up to date and do CPD. I don't recall providing evidence of attending an ESW for mine (but I had done one a while back).

Actually, maybe I'm being blind, but I can't see mention of the Event Safety Workshop on the BOF Licence to Coach page:
https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/licenced_coaches

I'm quite happy that level A, B and C event officials should all be trained, but am struggling to see the point for level D and am that concerned clubs will put on "activities" instead of "events" to avoid the issue.

[Paul Frost]

I knew I'd seen it somewhere, Appendix E event safety

2.1.2 The Controller (or for level D events if not by a Controller then either a licensed Organiser who has attended an Event Safety workshop or a licenced Coach) must review the risk assessment and sign it to confirm it has been reviewed.

I can't find any reference to the requirements for an Activity, but you do need a risk assessment to be signed off by a qualified coach or someone who has done the workshop.

I'm not sure of the logic of a level D or Activity being excluded from the safety requirements. I suspect that dangerous situations may even be more common at small events, as there is much less pre-planning and organisation and often it's less experienced people that put them on. Many clubs use Activities and level D as a training ground, so perhaps they need more safety checks than at a level B event which will almost certainly have very experienced people in the main roles.

[mykind]

[quote=

Being a good tutor isn't about being the most experienced, it's about having the ability to pass on information in a way that makes it easy for others to absorb it.

That will be fine then. About as fine as being taught A-level Chemistry by somebody with a qualification in Ancient Greek who has this conveniently undefinable quality of "teaching". I think not.

[graeme]

I knew I'd seen it somewhere, Appendix E event safety

2.1.2 The Controller ...

i.e. the course you went to didn't get as far as appendix E, section 2.1.2, so you looked it up. In the comprehensive, regularly updated and well written* BOF rules and guidelines. Maybe we could use that resource as the basis for some sort of online training?


* for avoidance of doubt, I'm not taking the p*ss, they are comprehensive, regularly updated and well written.

[Paul Frost]

Being an expert or highly experienced/qualified in a subject doesn't automatically mean they can 'teach' others. Frequently those people make the worst 'teachers/tutors'. How many top sportsmen become successful coaches?
Ask many experts how they do something and they can't explain it, 'they just know', or they go into a highly complex explanation that goes over your head.

[Arnold]

Hence the need for a standardised online course!!

We're making a mountain out of a molehill here - the safety stuff is 95% common sense so a quick reminder is OK from time to time, but we really don't need a half day immersive classroom session except for the most devoted. Some of us have other things to do.

As a sport we seem to have managed to avoid any major accidents for 50 years without safety courses, so I think we'll continue to manage in future.

[graeme]

As a sport we seem to have managed to avoid any major accidents for 50 years without safety courses, so I think we'll continue to manage in future.

In which case you think we shouldn't have insurance.
That's not so insane. If we'd pocketed our premiums for 50 years we'd be well ahead of the game.
If BOF is a limited liability company, and takes responsibility, the worst that can happen is the NGB goes bust. It happened to the British Athletics Federation, which you don't remember because it hardly affected anything.
However agreeable/disagreeable spending a weekend drinking tea and eating biscuits may be, this al has more to do with the insurers building in excuses not to pay out than anything to do with safety.

[Arnold]

My understanding is that the insurance is primarily required to get access to some (many) areas. Most professional landowners will ask for it to protect themselves.

So I don't think we have much choice, but of course we can try and limit the impact on orienteering officials (surely the no-claims-bonus principle should apply to some extent, ie we have never claimed on it, therefore we shouldn't have to jump through too many hoops to get it)

Having said that I agree with you on the principle!

[Paul Frost]

I'm sure any underwriter will have looked at the claims history before quoting a premium, so our low claims record will already have been taken into account.

An interesting thought went through my mind at the suggestion we don't bother with insurance and cover it ourselves. Rather than the national body being responsible and just going bust, it may be that it's the individual club or members that are the ones held liable if there was an incident (and they are not limited). Would we all be happy to accept that responsibility / liability? If so, would we then want our club to be very vigorous in ensuring organisers were suitably knowledgeable in risk assessment?

[mykind]

Being an expert or highly experienced/qualified in a subject doesn't automatically mean they can 'teach' others. Frequently those people make the worst 'teachers/tutors'. How many top sportsmen become successful coaches?
Ask many experts how they do something and they can't explain it, 'they just know', or they go into a highly complex explanation that goes over your head.

So far as it goes this is true - being an expert does not automatically make you a good teacher. BUT the converse is certainly true - being an ignoramus certainly makes a bad teacher. An expert will sometimes be the worst teacher but I think that to say that this is frequently the case is somewhat over the top. What we need here is a syllabus (or specification as we say these days) telling us what we need to know, a test which assesses how well we know it and a certificate which says that we reached an acceptable standard. I know BOF doesn't do pass/fail and I've witnessed somebody who had never orienteered in his life, attend a coaching course and "pass" when he was utterly incompetent as both an orienteer and as a teacher BUT he had attended the course and so was allowed to go and coach. If it were not so desperate it would be laughable. This is apparently the chosen model for safety qualifications but I reckon that any half competent lawyer in a court of law would have a field day.

[SeanC]

Currently listed on the BOF website under training courses is a massive total of 3 event safety courses nationally. A 30 minute drive to one of these courses is one thing, travelling several hundred miles to Taunton or Lanark is another.

I know someone will come along here and say there's going to be more courses this year etc etc. But this is the time when there should be the most courses. In 2 years time when most of the experienced organisers and planners have done the course, there will be even fewer.

Clubs and in particular committees need to think hard about their long term strategy here to help their survival. Personally I don't think it's enough to pay for their experienced organisers/planners to just go on a course organised by a neighbouring club or region. IMHO each club needs someone who is willing (qualified?) to deliver the course, and be willing to deliver it to 2 or 3 in their club at a time that suits the course attendees, not the other way round.

Or an online course

There could be some upsides, how many times are inexperienced organisers of even local events told "don't worry, it will be easy, help will be provided", but in reality it really isn't. Organising even a small orienteering event can be very stressful. I'm sure these event safety courses can also be delivered in a way that's also a good intro for an inexperienced organiser.

The other thing club committees could be getting their heads around is how to make the (official trained) organisers/planners job much easier by delegating responsibilities to others (who might not have gone on this course), so that these trained people can do many more events.

[pete.owens]

I'm sure there will be plenty of situations where those attending the course are much, much more experienced than the course "tutor", so who will learn in this situation?

Hopefully, everybody at the workshop. That's why the discussion parts of the workshop are so useful.

Indeed so - this is why they work so well at the moment as the people who attend them are mostly very experienced volunteers who have organised and planned many events with sufficient commitment to make it worth attending.

However, from next year people will be expected to attend before they have any experience whatsoever to offer and all the active officials will have already been through the process - so the usefulness of the discussion parts will diminish. Assuming of course that any club ever has enough members that have not yet planned or organised events, but are sufficiently motivated to attend a workshop aimed at planners and organisers just in case they might become a planner or organiser at some time in the future.