Ranking Lists

[Atomic]

Not sure that capacity limits will work. Event sizes (at all levels) vary significantly across the country: parts of NIOA, WOA, SOA and SWOA will be very different to say SEOA or YHOA.

but does the requirements for a parking, an arena, toilet facilities etc scale with the number of people of the type of officals and map your require? If you don't know how many people are likely to turn up - how can you work out plans, resourcing etc.

Attendance also varies depending on time of year, weather, what else is on that day / weekend, etc. And SYO can have 400 at their schools-targeted Local events - which we should be applauding, not limiting!

I don't think saying "you need to treat a 400 person event like a 400 person event" is limiting, I don't know if SYO run those as level D and if their operation is the same for that as a level D used for club training in midwinter with 60 people - I suspect not. But there are clubs running 30 person level D's and those running 120+ person level D's - I'm not sure the organisation / planning / impact on other land users etc is comparable.

[SeanC]

Some interesting points here.

I guess my first thought is that if national events are becoming less popular to put on because some of the requirements are too restrictive, that doesn't really matter so long as there are plenty of high quality regional events. The Oxford City Race, Thamesmead Urban event and 'Coasts and Islands' event in Harris last year were all registered as 'regional', but attracted orienteers from across the UK and many positive reviews. Basically national events might wither and disappear and we would have 3 levels after all.

But if we want to keep national events, the trick would be not to make lots of 'must' requirements and not to make them specific. Ie insisting on level B controllers at all times, or there must be catering, or 1 minute preallocated start times. The problem with specific rules is that they might be OK when such rules are written, but they then need constant changing as the sport changes through technology changes, numbers of competitors, clubs etc, Also it's hard to make specific rules that work across the whole country.

The only specific rule I think is necessary is to specify that there must be a controller. Beyond that a national event could be defined in vague terms, such as:

'The area chosen should be one of the higher quality areas available to the club'.
'The facilities provided should be appropriate to the standard of event and needs of competitors'.

Perhaps the controller providing guidance of what these definitions means in practice, with the ultimate sanction of dropping a national event to a regional event status if for eg Saxons moved their National event a week on Sunday from Eridge to Trosley Country Park (blatent plug ).

So for example if Sportident produced a new fancy SI Card that did live tracking and automatic integration with Routegadget, a National event would be encouraged by controllers to use such an innovation if that becomes a thing expected at a 'better'/'important' event, but not necessarily a blanket requirement if there is some barrier making it challenging for the organisers.

[awk]

Event sizes (at all levels) vary significantly across the country: parts of NIOA, WOA, SOA and SWOA will be very different to say SEOA or YHOA.....And SYO can have 400 at their schools-targeted Local events - which we should be applauding, not limiting!

It's even more localised than that. Our last but one regional event (in YHOA) attracted all of 95 competitors (on an excellent, high quality area). But, it was in North Yorkshire, not South Yorkshire. Get out into HALO or eastern Ebor country, and it could be even less. Indeed, we tend to get more at our 'local' events - and even if less, certainly far more numbers proportional to the effort of organising. Just as well as this sort of regional event needs their financial support.

[rf_fozzy]

I agree but perhaps a level D controllers course could be very light touch. It might even be a way to lure people into the controller pathway. If we want the sport to be sustainable that means new blood coming in and enjoying it at level D events - which means controls in the right place, fair competition, well thought out courses etc.

From my experience of "controlling" about 40ish Level D events in the past 4 or 5 years and about a dozen Level C events is that really a Level D controllers course would look like a Level C course - perhaps not going into the rules in the same depth (but you can always go away and read them yourself).

In the same way that a Level B controllers course looks very much like a Level C course....

The things that I concentrate on for a Level D are the same as in a Level C - are the courses safe and fair (whether score or linear), is the map broadly OK and where's registration and parking. Then the risk assessment of course.

The major difference is that for a Level D I've told our controllers don't bother visiting all control sites or checking on the day as this is the time consuming part. For most of our Level D areas, it's either close enough or the first person round tells the planner/organiser (same person for Level D for us) it's wrong and it gets moved to the right place. In the end it's a level D event and we treat it as such.

I always do offer advice on the quality of courses if I think it is necessary, but (and I think this is a misconception), it's not necessarily a controller's job to control quality - certainly at Level C/D. You are looking at if the courses are safe and fair and that the control sites are 'good' in the most part. But I won't totally replan an event.

For a Level C, obviously I'd check all control sites and agree with the planner and spend more time on the organisation side. But clubs are now v experienced - most of the extra stuff (toilets, parking etc) is already organised by the time I come on board and it's literally just a thing to check off my list when the organiser sends me the event details. It's unusual I'd have to go back and ask many questions or change these sorts of things.

For a Level B, there's a few more bullet points to check, and I'd spend more time checking the map and the area, but it's not that much extra work.

From my planning and organising at Level A, it is then my impression that there's then a bigger step up to Level A controlling as there's more to check (and more rules including the competition specfic ones).

Maybe I'm v lucky in that we've had until recently 3 very experienced Level A controllers in my club who have been kind enough to offer me advice and the fruits of their experience, but I think (as with most things in orienteering) we can overcomplicate what it is we are trying to do. And I've learned the hard way that trying to make everything perfect is often the enemy of good. Others may feel differently of course.

[rf_fozzy]

Some interesting points here.
I guess my first thought is that if national events are becoming less popular to put on because some of the requirements are too restrictive

I'm not sure this is the case - as I said above I think it's the Level B controller restriction and the clubs not seeing much benefit for it being a national level event.

So for example if Sportident produced a new fancy SI Card that did live tracking and automatic integration with Routegadget, a National event would be encouraged by controllers to use such an innovation if that becomes a thing expected at a 'better'/'important' event, but not necessarily a blanket requirement if there is some barrier making it challenging for the organisers.

This is not a barrier for organisers probably, but it *would* be a barrier for some competitors. Requiring all competitors to have a specific piece of expensive kit is not good for access.

You can see that in the fact we've had contactless cards for a long time now, but there are still a significant number of people who use normal SI cards. And most clubs don't have contactless ones for hire, so any new super-card would probably have a barrier in terms of cost.

[rf_fozzy]

Not sure that capacity limits will work. Event sizes (at all levels) vary significantly across the country: parts of NIOA, WOA, SOA and SWOA will be very different to say SEOA or YHOA.

but does the requirements for a parking, an arena, toilet facilities etc scale with the number of people of the type of officals and map your require? If you don't know how many people are likely to turn up - how can you work out plans, resourcing etc.

Attendance also varies depending on time of year, weather, what else is on that day / weekend, etc. And SYO can have 400 at their schools-targeted Local events - which we should be applauding, not limiting!

[/code]I don't think saying "you need to treat a 400 person event like a 400 person event" is limiting, I don't know if SYO run those as level D and if their operation is the same for that as a level D used for club training in midwinter with 60 people - I suspect not. But there are clubs running 30 person level D's and those running 120+ person level D's - I'm not sure the organisation / planning / impact on other land users etc is comparable.

I would imagine all clubs know within ~10% what attendance they will get at most of their events. Certainly for Regional and National level events. We have a spreadsheet with the attendance at all events on all our areas and on all courses going back to at least the 2000s. So we have a pretty good idea how many we get for most of our events.

For our Level D, it's a little more guesswork, but it'd be highly unusual for us to plan a Level D and expect say 30-35 people to turn up and then suddenly 150 do. The biggest challenge is in knowing how many maps to print and have delivered to also allow for EOD, but we're usually reasonably accurate and we usually always order 4-5 more than we think we'll need.

[rf_fozzy]

Event sizes (at all levels) vary significantly across the country: parts of NIOA, WOA, SOA and SWOA will be very different to say SEOA or YHOA.....And SYO can have 400 at their schools-targeted Local events - which we should be applauding, not limiting!

It's even more localised than that. Our last but one regional event (in YHOA) attracted all of 95 competitors (on a cracking, high quality area). It was in North Yorkshire, not South Yorkshire. Get out into HALO or eastern Ebor country, and it could be even less. Indeed, we tend to get more at our 'local' events - and even if less, certainly far more numbers proportional to the effort of organising. Just as well as this sort of regional event needs their financial support.

I think I've said before, but it's possible that the model for orienteering needs to change. As a sport, we might think about whether we need a lot more local events (perhaps making them a little more like Level C, but not quite so stringent) and fewer bigger events. But make the bigger events more like the JK or even bigger...

(yes, this has implications about what volunteering levels would be required...)

Then there is room for an intermediate level - a bit of mash up of Level B/C event level - but should there be an event at this level somewhere in the region every weekend as is the case now?

Don't know if it'd work or if I'm going down the wrong path, but I do feel the balance between what we currently offer and what we perhaps should be offering isn't quite right.

[awk]

I always do offer advice on the quality of courses if I think it is necessary, but (and I think this is a misconception), it's not necessarily a controller's job to control quality - certainly at Level C/D. You are looking at if the courses are safe and fair and that the control sites are 'good' in the most part. But I won't totally replan an event.

True, but all too often at Level C there have been occasions where I wish the Controller HAD focused more on quality. I'm afraid, when I'm controlling I'm rather more 'heavy' touch on this front than maybe I should be. I do try to make it clear the difference between a 'suggestion' on quality and a 'requirement' to ensure that it's safe/fair/technically appropriate. There may not be a requirement for a controller to control quality, but I think that's a 'moral' imperative to do so. Interestingly, I went on a controller's course last year as a refresher with 2 of Aire's Level A controllers, and the majority of it was focused on course quality (excellent course BTW).

[awk]

I think I've said before, but it's possible that the model for orienteering needs to change. As a sport, we might think about whether we need a lot more local events (perhaps making them a little more like Level C, but not quite so stringent) and fewer bigger events. But make the bigger events more like the JK or even bigger...

Depends what you mean by bigger events. The vast majority of our events are local (weekday evenings, Sat morning intros etc), with 4-5 other events per year. The past 2 years we've stretched ourselves for the Northerns (terrain) and Eurocity (urban), both bigger than anything we've done on our own before, but otherwise it's level C, which I wouldn't have described as stringent.

Personally, we are both less and less enamoured with events the size of the JK or bigger in this country. It's all about the car park then, not about quality.

[Scott]

And yes, generally all events are planned significantly in advance. We planned our entire 2025 (actually Feb 2025 to Mar 2026) local events a few weeks back (we have flexibility about areas if required), and we have an outline plan about our regional events until early 2027 and the YHOA has just had it's 2026 Regional fixtures meeting to finalise dates (I believe they usually try to flag up national events for e.g. 2027 now too). 2027 and 2028 major events will also be being discussed if YHOA is holding any. I'd be amazed if other regions weren't doing something similar. There *is* some flexibility to allow for permissions and other issues arising.

As a club fixtures sec, I'd say the planning horizon varies quite a lot between clubs. Certainly my experience is of living much more hand-to-mouth, both in terms of permissions and the availability of event officials. I have a plan for Level C events through until mid-2025, but the idea of trying to pencil in anything beyond that seems faintly absurd. But then, we're a very small club, a lot of our areas have private landowners who (in my experience) can be trickier to pin down than big institutions, and with only one neighbouring club clashes of date tend to be less of an issue.

[Scott]

If we want the sport to be sustainable that means new blood coming in and enjoying it at level D events - which means controls in the right place, fair competition, well thought out courses etc.

I think this point is crucial and often overlooked. Of course, it depends who the target market for your Level D event is. Experienced orienteers will, to a certain extent, tolerate Level D events with the odd misplaced control, no toilets, being required to pay in cash etc.

But if you berate a newcomer on arrival for not having £3 exact change for the parking fee, ask them to form an orderly queue to poo in a bush beside a dual carriageway* and they then spend a frustrating 20 minutes unable to find a control that's been hidden at the bottom of the wrong pit, they're probably not coming back next week.

*True story, happened at a Level D Saturday event that I was at several years ago. I won't name the club!

[MChub]

But if you berate a newcomer on arrival for not having £3 exact change for the parking fee, ask them to form an orderly queue to poo in a bush beside a dual carriageway* and they then spend a frustrating 20 minutes unable to find a control that's been hidden at the bottom of the wrong pit, they're probably not coming back next week.

But on the other hand, if there is no event at all to come to next week, then they are definitely not coming, even if the first event they attended was of a very high quality. I mean, if your club can afford to have high-quality events every week, with a controller, an excellent map and courses, toilets, and with separate people taking care of entries, great, but if not, then perhaps it is reasonable to ask where to compromise. Otherwise, if people are interested, but need to wait a month or more for the next event, then you've probably lost them.

[Scott]

For a lot of experienced orienteers, quantity of events does indeed appear to trump quality. Fair enough. But I'm not convinced that frequent unpleasant experiences are better than less frequent fun experiences for attracting new people to the sport.

Someone at their first event and for someone who's been orienteering for 20 years are going to have different needs and expectations. "Quality" will mean very different things to each of them, so staging a Level D that is going to be equally great for both is very difficult. Most clubs are going to have to choose who to target.

Some clubs seem to be having a lot of success with Level D events that are specifically targeted at newcomers and are tailored to their requirements. Others seem to be targeting their Level Ds at experienced orienteers almost by default, rather than as a result of a conscious choice. That's completely understandable, but it's not surprising if they find that those events aren't attracting and retaining newcomers.

[Atomic]

I guess my first thought is that if national events are becoming less popular to put on because some of the requirements are too restrictive,

oh thats putting 2+2 together and getting 5. Are there actually fewer National events? The assertion further up the thread was that some regional events should be Nationals and people were shying away from that due to lack of Level B controllers.

Basically national events might wither and disappear and we would have 3 levels after all.

or at least be rebranded! it feels to me like a regional league should not be a national event.

'The area chosen should be one of the higher quality areas available to the club'.

I appreciate that you aren't trying to create rules on the fly but that would be a bad rule. The range of areas available to a club is irrelevant - all that matters is it either is, or is not, suitable.

'The facilities provided should be appropriate to the standard of event and needs of competitors'.

Vague statements like that don't really help organisers, clubs or controllers. We currently have something similar for first aid and it seems to be interpreted by different organisers in different ways - potentially a race to the bottom until something happens and an official dictat says everyone misunderstood the rule. An approach which may work (and I have seen work in other non-sporting regulations is where most things are a "SHOULD" rather than a "MUST" but there is a requirement that the organiser MUST document in advance when any item described as SHOULD is not being followed and the reason for it.

[Atomic]

they then spend a frustrating 20 minutes unable to find a control that's been hidden at the bottom of the wrong pit, they're probably not coming back next week.

Sorry about that - people were using the correct pit as a latrine