These debates on Nopesport are fun, but I suspect the (UK) colour coded system will not change significantly in my lifetime.
However something clubs can do very easily is to offer a score course at all their colour coded events. Saxons have been doing this for a couple of years now. We don't get that many, but it is used by adult newcomers who we spend a lot of effort attracting, so worth the effort. Score is great for this group - if a control's too hard they can just skip, they are guarenteed at least an hours run. The downsides are it's a harder concept to sell, and I think many newcomers do like the challenge of completing a colour coded course (though in practice it can be demoralising for some to be disqualified for not completing a course).
Initially I thought planners would simply offer the 'all controls' map that the planner needs anyway so no extra work needed, but generally they spend a bit of time selecting controls so they are spread out. Also we now often don't take points off if they are late back, so they don't feel hurried when they're trying to learn how to orienteer.
Given the choice of offering a score course for adult newcomers, or a long orange, I would always choose score as I think orange standard is too hard for many (or at least these courses frequently end up with one or two quite hard controls which newbies struggle with and end up not finding).
The best course for the adult newcomer trail runner types IMHO would be a 'long yellow' at least 10K length, with some route choice thrown in. This is basically the 'trail challenges' SLOW and others do. But that is a lot more work for organisers and planners.
Funnily enough, I had a message this morning from a newcomer who's seen our event details on Facebook. How would you answer it at your events?
"Hi, I bet this is the question everybody asks... I'm a reasonably fit trail runner but have no idea how to read a map. Would next weekend's event in King's Wood be good for me? The long route" (Brown) "would be no problem for distance but it says that navigation is tricky.."
Very Short Green
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Re: Very Short Green
At TD1-4 I think there is a lot to be said for having slightly easier legs at the beginning and slightly harder legs at the end of the course. At those stages it is much more difficult to get into the mind of the mapper immediately , and you don't have an intuitive feel for how far you have run, so at the start of a course you can easily mistake animal tracks for mapped paths, misinterpret vegetation etc.
And you are less likely to get disheartened if you have a problem towards the end of a course, having completed the first 90% successfully, than if you can't find the first control.
And you are less likely to get disheartened if you have a problem towards the end of a course, having completed the first 90% successfully, than if you can't find the first control.
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Re: Very Short Green
Unfettered by BOF guidelines, I often plan training courses that increase in technical difficulty and have also seen some good Orange courses that do the same - offering trickier legs towards the end of the courses often when close to the finish so less likely to get badly lost.
SYO Saturday Series require the kids to run easy courses for the schools league and many now routinely run a second course non-competitively for more of a challenge.
Novice adults could be encouraged to run the Orange followed by the Light Green (at a discount).
SYO Saturday Series require the kids to run easy courses for the schools league and many now routinely run a second course non-competitively for more of a challenge.
Novice adults could be encouraged to run the Orange followed by the Light Green (at a discount).
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Re: Very Short Green
SeanC wrote:However something clubs can do very easily is to offer a score course at all their colour coded events. Saxons have been doing this for a couple of years now. We don't get that many, but it is used by adult newcomers who we spend a lot of effort attracting, so worth the effort. Score is great for this group - if a control's too hard they can just skip, they are guarenteed at least an hours run. The downsides are it's a harder concept to sell, and I think many newcomers do like the challenge of completing a colour coded course (though in practice it can be demoralising for some to be disqualified for not completing a course).
I really like this idea. I also imagine there is scope for offering 'suggested controls' lists based on someone's level of experience, but without the need to print lots of different maps.
Do you have an idea of how many adult newcomers who try this then progress to become regulars? And how many times someone will try the score course before successfully tackling a colour coded course?
SeanC wrote:Funnily enough, I had a message this morning from a newcomer who's seen our event details on Facebook. How would you answer it at your events?
"Hi, I bet this is the question everybody asks... I'm a reasonably fit trail runner but have no idea how to read a map. Would next weekend's event in King's Wood be good for me? The long route" (Brown) "would be no problem for distance but it says that navigation is tricky.."
I think this sums up the challenge perfectly. Question is- did they try the score course, and if so how did (s)he find it?
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Re: Very Short Green
Re the newcomer. The event is on Sunday so I'll let you know ![Smile :-)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
The answer to your regulars question - hard to give numbers because we're not really analysing, I'm focusing on getting people to the events and assuming it increases the chances of people coming through to becoming regulars. We have had a few new people join in the past few months.
There's also the question of what is a regular. I do see names of people returning to our events and going to somewhere between 1 and 4 events per year. Sometimes they get really enthusiastic about orienteering, but they do other things as well, and/or they just want to stay local (more local than our definition). Is this a regular?
Plug opportunity. Kings Wood, Challock, fabian4 entries close Thursday.
![Smile :-)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
The answer to your regulars question - hard to give numbers because we're not really analysing, I'm focusing on getting people to the events and assuming it increases the chances of people coming through to becoming regulars. We have had a few new people join in the past few months.
There's also the question of what is a regular. I do see names of people returning to our events and going to somewhere between 1 and 4 events per year. Sometimes they get really enthusiastic about orienteering, but they do other things as well, and/or they just want to stay local (more local than our definition). Is this a regular?
Plug opportunity. Kings Wood, Challock, fabian4 entries close Thursday.
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Re: Very Short Green
spitalfields wrote:I think this sums up the challenge perfectly. Question is- did they try the score course, and if so how did (s)he find it?
Found 9 controls and left a nice comment on Facebook saying he had a great time, was very impressed with the organisation and how helpful everyone ones and would be back. He has bought a compass.
One thing I should say about our 'beginner' score courses is that we don't take points away for being late. You can only score points in the 60 minutes, but you have as long as you want to get to the finish. We find the newbies prefer this and it prevents getting minus points for a misjudgement.
The Kings Wood results** are interesting. There were 35 entries from non BO club members (was actually about 50 people as there were a few pairs and groups). There were 7 entries on score, and 28 on the colour coded courses (mostly yellow and orange, but on all courses right up to brown). One statistic sticks out:
Half the non members on the colour coded courses were either disqualified or took over 2 hours
It certainly wasn't the planning, which was spot on to standard. And if you look at RouteGadget you'll see it's a typical TD4 Southern England type forest.
OK, not all were first time orienteers, or were but still will try again. However overall it's not a good outcome as surely many will think 'this sport is too hard for me/I'm not good enough etc' and won't come back?
In contrast the score course had a 100% success rate - no one was disqualified, and everyone was out for an appropriate amount of time.
Unfortunately I see the common advice in orienteering that "adult newcomers should do orange" (because we know yellow is too short and a bit uninspiring for many adults). I think this is wrong. Adult newcomers should do a score course.*
The score course has other advantages as well. Score can really stretch the more physically or technically able newcomer. At Kings Wood a couple of adventure racers did their first O event and got 24/30 score controls. They might have been one of the rare newcomers who would have found our orange course too easy. Score is also good for some experienced orienteers who have a set amount of time (eg parents who need to be back in a known time to look after juniors).
It would really be very easy for the standard regional event to always offer a score course - and for clubs to steer adult newcomers towards this course, improving retention of these valuable newcomers. I'm surprised I don't see other clubs doing it. Why is that? Has no-one else thought of this? Are clubs resistant to trying something new? Do people fear adding a score course would dilute the purity of classic forest orienteering?
* unless it's an easy park type area, or very small and easy to relocate in.
** Kings Wood results: https://www.saxons-oc.org/results-archive/2019/2019-02-03_Challock_Regional_amended/index.html
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Re: Very Short Green
SeanC wrote:Found 9 controls and left a nice comment on Facebook saying he had a great time, was very impressed with the organisation and how helpful everyone ones and would be back. He has bought a compass.
That sounds like the result we should all be aiming for.
I think your whole post raises some really interesting points, and would be worth a thread of its own. I would be interested to know what people think of this and what the perceived issues may be. For my own part, I have always thought of score courses as events in their own right. Don't really know why. But I can't think of any reason why not to mix the formats at a single event. Especially as you've shown it can be done successfully.
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Re: Very Short Green
That does sound like a good idea. I put on a score course at our last evening event last year, mainly because there was some local non-orienteering interest and it was quite popular. I didn't think of the no penalty idea though and one family who would have been about 3rd equal ended up last because they were 2 minutes over time.
I like the idea of only counting scores acheived within the time instead so long as people know when the course closes!
I like the idea of only counting scores acheived within the time instead so long as people know when the course closes!
Orienteering - its no walk in the park
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Re: Very Short Green
For the score map consider using different colours for your control circles in such a way as to create different challenges. The group of fairly close controls could be orange, with another group further out as red, and then the remainder, much further out, as blue. That way you have three (at least) score events to offer, giving the competitors a choice depending on their ability (Orange, Orange + Red, and then all the controls).
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Re: Very Short Green
SeanC wrote:Unfortunately I see the common advice in orienteering that "adult newcomers should do orange" (because we know yellow is too short and a bit uninspiring for many adults). I think this is wrong.
I agree. I think they should do the white course, then assuming it goes well, take on orange without having to reregister, pay again etc. etc.
White is the obvious way to get familiarity with level of map detail, scale, symbols and have an informed discussion with helpers about what they found confusing. Then they're in really good shape to go out again with confidence. But we not only make it difficult for people to do this, we also get all sniffy about cheating!
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Re: Very Short Green
graeme wrote:White is the obvious way to get familiarity with level of map detail, scale, symbols
Is it? I remember thinking about and looking at nothing other than paths and the next junction. Big shift then up to Orange.
But I agree with your point about people getting sniffy about cheating. Add in grumbles about letting them see the course map and talking it through before they start. It's almost as though some people don't want anyone new to take part...
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Re: Very Short Green
graeme wrote:I agree. I think they should do the white course, then assuming it goes well, take on orange without having to reregister, pay again etc. etc.
Going back to the trail runner who contacted me on Facebook, initially I did advise him to do the yellow course first (we don't normally do white courses at our 'small' regionals), then do the score, but then I realized that there was a 1km walk to the start/finish from registration so changed that advice.
However thinking about Graeme's point, the ideal scenario would have been to have a "round the block" white standard practice course of about 500 metres which newcomers could use before their proper course to get familiarity as Graeme describes. Everyone else could use it to warm up if they needed to. No need for punching, and maybe only half a dozen maps that could be recycled. We have a club meeting on Friday so I may bring this up.
We do also have "meet and greet", which newcomers really appreciate for the friendliness. I've also used Facebook events to drip feed newcomers who spotted our Facebook promotion with information that will help them on the day. They also ask questions - and give positive feedback after the event which I usually email to the organisers and planners to cheer them up... You can see the event discussion for Kings Wood at https://www.facebook.com/events/952403374956766/?active_tab=discussion if you're on Facebook
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