How others see us II

[Jon Brooke]

Did anyone else see the half page article on p18 of the Sunday Telegraph of Feb 12th? A mate just sent me a copy as he said it reminded him of me!

It was about a guy called Arthur Boyt who eats road kill. There is a picture of him tucking into a stewed badger's head. The article paints him as being on the nutty side of eccentric.

Apart from the fact that Arthur's favourite food is Labrador, the article also informs us that he wears open toed sandals in the middle of winter and a bobble hat with "Devon Orienteering Club" written on it. This is no coincidence. Earlier in the article it had already been mentioned that Arthur's (now) wife, first found out about his eating habits when he stopped the car to recover a dead pheasant whilst taking her to an orienteering event.

Obviously, just eating dead wild animals and pets was not quite wacky enough for this journalist. But eating roadkill and orienteering... now that is strange.

[Rookie]

whoah - Mr. Boyt is popular in the newspapers at the moment

[rocky]

whoah - Mr. Boyt is popular in the newspapers at the moment

really? no one's ever mentioned it on nopesport...

[Rookie]

a bit like the article in the times that advertised all the weekend events late last year. The picture was totally random - journalists don't seem to be able to do their job a do a little research (though I havn't seen this article)

Rocky - the point i was trying to make, perhaps should've left out the "in the newspapers"

[Becks]

God, Arthur should be chargin appearence fees for his regular monthly "have you heard about this guy called..." posts.

We all know about his eating habits guys! Time to move on...

[distracted]

Yes we all know about Arthur and his eating habits. However, I think it's important that this time orienteering has been connected in with this issue where it hasn't been before. We all know that Arthur is an orienteer, but Joe Bloggs out on the street may not have, until now...

Links and stereotypes can be formed about all types of people and activities - like the misconception many people have about orienteers and hiking/rucksacks etc. We should be thinking about what this sort of publicity/link does for the sport, whether it strengthens an already too prevalent view of orienteering, or maybe just it's mention could raise some curiosity? We are, after all, trying to encourage people to try out our sport, not outright dismiss it on the basis of a link in a newspaper article.

Sometimes the same thing may come up time and time again, but one small difference can raise a whole new set of issues... Think about it before outright dismassal because "we've heard it all before"

[Jon Brooke]

Ah good, someone took my point.

[Becks]

Can we really get anything other than negative PR out of this though?!! "Mummy, can I go orienteering?" "No dear, that's what silly old men who eat roadkill do."

Don't get me wrong, I think Arthur is a legend, and I'm looking forward to the banter he always provides on the looong coach journey to Interland this weekend. But to try and spin this as a positive PR machine? I think I prefer Q's aproach of planning user friendly training, putting posters all round the SU, and inviting everyone round to tea at my house afterwards. We've got 15 potential new recruits chatting away in my hallway, 6 of whom are coming to BUSA, and it's fantastic.

[Jon Brooke]

I wasn't trying to suggest that there is any positive PR to be had out of the story, or really that this particular story does any real harm to the general view of orienteering.

I just thought it was interesting that this particular journalist obviously has some predjudicial view of O in that he mentions it to make Arthur seem even more (shall we say) 'colourfull'

[distracted]

Agreed that it's very difficult to see any 'positives' directly from the article - it does again raise the question of how we can change this common but misconceived "stereotype" that exists amongst the general public. Many of who probably haven't orienteered in their life, or just had one bad experience. Very difficult to achieve on a countrywide basis, but as you've seen Becks it's possible on a small scale by advertising the sport in the right way. We're back to targeting specific areas (MADO...) and certain groups of people (universities) and letting the word spread that way...

So, in a round-about sort of way, you can get something from an article like this. Just need a bit of effort to start the ball rolling