orienteering in 20's and 30's

[awk]

It doesn't seem to matter much what the distance was (although I rest my case about browns existing at 6km)

I never disputed the fact (that was me by the way - apologies for accidental anonymity), I was merely indicating what they should be, and agreeing that planning had recently been rather off beam on occasions. Indeed, to add weight to your point, I notice that this past weekend the NOC event at Bestwood had "Brown" of 6.2k, w/t=47mins and half the field faster than the recommended range. Definitely not a Brown course!

According to BOF rules Brown should be 0.88 of what an M21L regional would be - therefore an hour on a Brown means I should be doing about 68 on an M21L. I wish. That said, aside from Bulford there wasn't much scope to extend the courses much than there were already.

Just to clarify, there is nothing in the rules about distances: they are all in the guidelines. Subtle but important difference.

There are a number of criteria laid out in the guidelines: distances, time that most competitors should take (so broad as to be almost meaningless admittedly), ratio to M21L. On the first, most of the Browns you highlight are within the guidelines, similarly on the second, most are not on the third. This is one of the problems with the guidelines: they are so full of detail trying to be helpful that they can get self-contradictory. It's why when defining the junior classes originally, we stuck to one set of criteria (range of distances), but were overruled by then Technical committee who wanted to include the kitchen sink.

So yes, a couple definitely too short, the rest on the short side, but still Brown standard. Having said all of that, I think your last sentence is probably the most important. Just a pity that such misleading labels were attached on occasions.

[FatBoy]

Just had another look at the guidelines and it seems you're correct on every count. Without wanting to derail this thread even more than in is it seems very much, as you say, the guidelines contradict themselves. Maybe another thread needed...

Back to the topic at hand (almost) - a Brown course at 60 mins isn't what we'd call a classic. M21L's normally take me 100-120 so as you can see a Brown isn't much of a training excercise (except for short races?). Despite orienteering most weekends I've done 5 daylight M21L's since o-ringen. OK should've been 7 if not for cracked rib, but still not many long races.

Maybe it's not just people leaving the sport who get put off by the lack of long races? Just a thought.

[Kitch]

Strikes me you don't need a creche, a form, a licence.
Just plain old social interaction would do it.

" Hi I see you have young kids, me too, fancy sharing the child minding ? "

[Mrs H.]

Absolutely right Kitch - i've never felt a lack of social contact myself at events either - nor has Mr h. - as anyone who knows him will testify - sometimes it's hard to get away. It sounds trite, but perhaps if people were just a bit more plain out going at times then networks would build up in the natural course of things. A lot of orinteers seem to be insular and not want to be approached - but i have made loads of really good friends hanging round the string course - remember Highland 99 Jeff, Sins, Hilary, and that funny quarry place in the Lakes, Stella. Perhaps the string course is a good place to put some whole family based effort into - get families together.

and everyone else SMILE, you're meant to be enjoyinging yourselves, get chatting round the results and have some banter - just 'cos someone's running the same course as you doesn't make them your enemy does it Liz? Pauline?

[graeme]

Strikes me you don't need a creche, a form, a licence.
Just plain old social interaction would do it.

" Hi I see you have young kids, me too, fancy sharing the child minding ? "

But you do need a warm, dry place to do it. Most of us couldn't fit many extra kids in the car.

Graeme

[LostAgain]

[quote="FatBoy"][quote="Anonymous"]Brown courses should be 7.5-10k. 6k is in the lower half of Blue. [/quote]


HALO Beverley 10/10/04 10.2km 75m - won in 53:56 - me 60:20

Please note the Brown at this event had 2 legs removed due to a hidden control thus distance and time below original plan. Winning time would otherwise have been 63 minutes.

[gross2006]

But you do need a warm, dry place to do it. Most of us couldn't fit many extra kids in the car.

Graeme

Problem with the warm dry place bit is that they are hard to find close to normal UK orienteering venues. It's ok in Sweden where a lot of events will use the local school or club house but in GB there's non nearby mostly.

But I'd prefer to see a school used with a long walk to the start & some dead orienteering at the finish if it would help...............

[FatBoy]

Please note the Brown at this event had 2 legs removed due to a hidden control thus distance and time below original plan. Winning time would otherwise have been 63 minutes.

Yes I didn't remember doing 60 for 10km. Please acccept apologies for this forgetfulness - this therefore was the only Brown I did end of last year with winner > 60 mins.

[awk]

A great thread! Have been reading back through it, and it strikes me that there are some themes. Nothing radically new, but some new perspectives:

**Greater focus on social cohesion needed both at events and in clubs. These are often good at the bigger events, but lacking at more local (food/drink tents, club tents, training, child care network - perhaps tie in with club tent?, team competition). Do prize presentations (not mentioned so far) help here, giving events an end focus?

**More user-friendly events for young families and couples (ties in with above I suspect).

**Stronger focus/structure in planning: comments here indicate that it's all getting middle-of-the-road and insufficiently differentiated - spread it out more (e.g. longer and shorter distances rather than clustered in the middle), and emphasise technical/physical standards rather than chronological age. (This might also make it simpler and easier to understand!).

**Image needs to be addressed (whatever Kitch says!). Sport needs to promote a more modern, exciting image.

I've deliberately put the image thing last, even though it was the first addressed on this thread? I just wonder whether that will follow if we get the other bits right. No point getting image sorted if once people are doing orienteering they don't stick.

Looking at this lot, it strikes me that a lot is down to clubs, although BOF could promote and advise. Where BOF might come in is stronger monitoring of event standards (including stronger willed and better informed controllers?).

Hope that's a reasonable summary so far!

[ejhw]

Very much like the original poster, I have recently returned to orienteering after a gap of about 16 years an have been surprised by the relatively low numbers competing at my age group (M35) compared to the older ages.

There were many reasons I stopped orienteering but decide in my mid 30s that I needed to be more active and within 2 days of deciding to give it another go, found my local club on the internet, had turned up at a local colour coded event, small child in arms, and slowly walked round a short course. Then, a week later, a small informal event and before I knew it, I was being sucked in again....!

That was six months ago and since then a majority of my Sundays have been taken up with this sport. I have tried to get my other half to take part but she prefers the sterility of the gym & swimming pool to the mud and sweat of the real world! This solved the child care problem - child and wife stay at home & I go orienteering - but detroyed the 'family days out' idea.

It seems to me there must be a lot of potential returners to orienteering who, like me, have left the sport due to children, work, Sunday morning hangovers or whatever. As a teenager, it is fairly easy to orienteer; there is often someone else to organise entries, transpost, food and everything else: all you need to do is turn up. Once you get old enough to have to do it yourself, the desire to compete has to be greater otherwise you just won't bother.

Having returned to orienteering, I now remember what it was that I loved so much about the sport: the friendliness - there's always someone to on the long walk to the start (that hasn't changed either); the feeling of freedom you get as soon as you are alone in the woods with nothing but a map and compass; the kick you get from running straight into a control (or is that just me?).

The lack of elitism is also imortant to me - by this I mean the fact that it doesn't matter how good or bad you are - nobody cares. I am currently unable to get much faster than a slow jog - I have had 'perfect' runs and still been 30-40 minutes behind the winner (by 'perfect' I mean that I have taken my intended route every step ot the way, not got lost and nailed every control) but it doesn't matter: I'll get faster in time! Meanwhile, I seem to spend a lot of time running at the same speed as people 20 years older than me with beards: they're people too, you know! Nevertheless, if I want to go to a major event, I can go and compete with the best in the country. I don't want to yet, as I'm not fit enough and would be thoroughly humiliated, but the fact I can I see as being a major selling point of the sport.

Surely the message we need to get to those who've tried oreinteering before is how easy it is to come back. No more having to laminate the control card in sticky back plastic. Pre-marked maps! Even at local informal events! Just turn up with some running shoes an a fiver.

Anyway, sorry for all the waffle. Hope I haven't repeated too much of what's already been said and I hope that some of this makes sense!

[Guest]

I was the guest who originally started this post a few weeks ago.

Thanks to everyone who responded and helped distract me from my work. After reading your responses it would seem that there is a problem retaining new/existing orienteers. Since there is little point spending time recruiting new orienteers if they don't stick around, this seems the most urgent problem to address. I can't pretend to relate to all the possible reasons (I am not an elite orienteer and I have never tried adventure racing) but two reasons stick out, surely both can be solved?

1) No creche facilities.

It does seem obvious that providing a creche would make attending events a lot easier for parents, and give the children a more pleasant experience than a long wait in a car whilst mum/dad finish the course.

I can't see many clubs providing them though, organisers they have too much to do. If my club is typical, the regular orienteers are fully occupied planning, mapping and doing all the other bits and pieces required to keep an orienteering club going. Maybe parents could form an association with the funds to employ people to run a creche at/near events? This seems the sort of thing BOF could help set up and subsidise. I'd happily pay higher BOF fees to pay for them (I am not a parent) and maybe waged orienteers should be prepared to subsidise creches?

2) Lack of atmosphere/social scene at events.

If I'm lucky I will bump into club members after an event, if I'm unluckly I won't see anyone from my club. This feels a bit sad to say the least, but something I can live with for the joys of orienteering (I can get my social life elsewhere).

I guess it's less of a problem for long established orienteers who can probably wander round any orienteering car park and bump into people they know. But the poor old newcomer who needs coaching and moral support to learn a new skill? It's amazing that some carry on.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I would start with:

a) More local events:

I've found the atmosphere at the local saturday league events much better, since the people running a generally from your club or the neighbouring club, you have a pretty good chance of getting to know people. It would be good to see local saturday leagues spread to the parts of the country that they haven't reached yet.

b) Club tents at district/badge events:

District and badge events seem particularly problematic. At multi-day events and relays club members generally meet up but at district/badge events this is unlikely (at least in my experience). All that is needed is a way of getting everyone from your club to go to the same spot after the event. The club tent is the obvious answer. I've not been to that many district/badge events since starting orienteering again, but I don't think I've seen any club tents apart from at the Compass Sport cup at Banstead.

This would be a bit of a bind of course, but the reward is that the newcomer graduating to district events can meet up with the members he/she met at the local event and get the support needed. The rest of us can talk about route choices, course formats and dodgy orienteering kit.

It would be nice if organisers/planners could encourage this by providing good places for club tents (eg field overlooking finish near car park).

Any comments?

[stodge]

Crèche

I know legals and regulations are always rolled out as the reason we dont do it.
Buuuut
Id be happy to pay £10 for my two year old (stodgetini) to be looked after whilst stodgetta ran if it was set up properly.....
eg marquee, warm, qualified staffing etc.

Has anybody really costed it, maybe with an outside agency.
We cant be the only sport with this problem.

[Guest]

The biggest problem in my experience is the complete lack of beginners groups and activities in local clubs. University clubs provide beginners support and without the uni’s I doubt there’d be anyone in 21-35 group at all.
When I left university and moved I initially joined the orienteering club but after realising I was the only person in there 20s. I looked at other sports and took up cycling. The difference in attitude towards beginners between the 2 clubs was massive. Cycling has separate beginners training, socials, and competitions.
In orienteering if you do manage to find your way to an event and work out what the hell is going on with registration then you have the choice of running 3km against kids or spending hours lost to have some guy in pyjamas get ¼ of your time.
Short courses are not enough for beginners. Unbelievable some people in their 20s are already fit. It’s the map reading not the distance that’s the problem. So long easy beginners would be great and call them beginner’s courses. Have a beginner’s league. I compete in the beginner’s league and love it! Club should put more time into beginners.

[stodge]

3km against kids or spending hours lost to have some guy in pyjamas get ¼ of your time.

RED RED RED RED RED
If I hear a planner telling me there is no point putting on a RED course as there are only 5 competitors Ill wind an entire string course string round them.

WCH policy is now to always have a red course -

Guest come and join Chasers if you are localish Stodgetta is at evening training on the chase as I type this - there will probably be 30 people there.[/quote]

[SeanC]

Guest who started this thread here. Since I am becoming a regular I have registered. Hopefully you will see my nopesport name.

I have just been speaking to someone called Debbie who runs a mobile creche company.

The good news is that she can provide a mobile creche for the south east for approximately £250 for 25 children (exact figures depend on childrens ages). She gave me the impression that the price could be negociated much lower if several events were booked. For this you get qualified, security checked staff and the usual bits and pieces you'd expect in a creche - paints, soft play things, sick bags etc. It would be for kids aged 8 and under.

The bad news is that we would have to provide the accommodation that meets health and safety standards. If it's a tent it would have to be a warm marquee with a ground covering, plus a children only toilet. A hall would be ideal, but obviously not always available. The creche would have to be booked weeks or even months in advance. I guess the total cost would then be in the order of £20.

I can't see clubs wishing to risk making a big loss on the creche so parents would have to pre-book.

In my dream orienteering world, BOF would employ a part time creche officer to arrange for creches at events throughout the country (and negociate good deals with the providers). Parents would buy season tickets to give them a number of creche passes per year. Spare places would be left for new orienteers. BOF would underwrite the cost in case a creche at a particular event is not popular. And the rest of us could provide a subsidy.

I'm only dreaming, but if this could be sorted out soon, in case I become a parent in the next few years, I'd be very grateful