Dementia in Old Age

[Mrs H.]

RJ and I have been having some fun with these posters - here (I hope ) is my offering - for general use - all permissions in place (can't get it to work - I'll send it to pyrat to post!)

[Ian W]

I think you need a catchy slogan for these posters. How about

'Don't go gaga, Orienteer with Saga!'

I have this image in my mind. I think it is a parking field at the Scottish 6 day. There are all the Scandinavian buses with their occupants clad in immaculate club kit. Then, up draws the 'Saga O Tours' bus, the door opens and everyone gasps as the occupants emerge resplendent in their uniform of fawn slacks and cardigans.

Sorry, it must be Friday afternoon.

[rocky]

mrs h's poster:

[John Morris]

Have just read through this thread, and looked at that terrifying poster.

Why am I not entirely sure that sane outsiders will see orienteering as a complete defence against dementia?

[Guest]

haha i hate to wee on your bonfire but the scandis wear the same kit they run in, round somerfield, its just not called for.

Que? What's that got to do with the price of eggs? The situation's more serious than I thought.

[ifititches]

re-awakening this thread.

Been reading "Coaching Edge", the SCUK mag, today. It's a whole edition on the older athlete AND in one of the articles ("your'e never too old ; fighting the physiological effects a age") one of the three pictures is a very smart looking M >60 complete with d!bber, map and headband! (another of the pics is L Christie, so he's in good company)

Some really interesting articles in there for older orienteers if you can get your hands on a copy

[SeanC]

Rather than just appealing to people's fear of dementia, I think you'd get more joy if you appealed to people's vanity and general fear of ageing. How about a picture of a happy, healthy looking older orienteer next to a lardy, pasty looking non-orienteer.

In the smaller print underneath you could have the dementia fact plus other stuff like

- orienteering keeps you slim
- orienteering helps to reduce the risk of heart disease
- orienteering improves your skin (I guess it does?)
- orienteering makes you more attractive*

I think there are some organisations other than saga that do activities aimed at older people. I think there's one called SPICE that does outdoor stuff.

* OK, this is a bit debatable, but this is advertising

[Jon Brooke]

As usual Mrs H is right (or least-ways I agree with her).

I've been involved in PR for 10+ years and have also written articles for various outdoors mags (including one on orienteering for Running Fitness a couple of years ago).

I'd be astounded if any PR worth their salt couldn't get an article on O into SAGA. Some may think that saga readers are not the right target audience for us. But folks, just look around at one of our events - we are absolutely prime material for SAGA. And why would we not want more older folk taking the sport up? Older people do have kids and grandkids after all.

Having conatacts at the mag is almost certainly irrelevant. The editor will either be interested or not in a good story - I would guess, very interested.

A big mag like SAGA will even have a decent budget to get the story written properly by a proper journalist - they will not want to be fed some anodyne propaganda.

What would be good though, and what a good PR could sort out is some good subjects for a journalist to interview. If we are trying to get accross messages of youth and vigour, then why not the granny who orienteers with her kids and grandkids, or someone who is still athletic and competitive in an older age category.

On the other hand, they will want some great pics and may appreciate being offered these. Maybe it would be good to put SAGA together with the guy who shot the pics at Ilkley, which are way more interesting than most of the O "action" shots I've seen.

Love the latest poster BTW. Very specific, targetted and thought provoking.

[Jon Brooke]

Just read the thread a bit more closely.

Mrs H - do I take it that you are a journalist?

If so, why not just pitch those stories anyway? That's what I did with Runnng Fitness. I'd already done a couple of other things for them and just thought they could use an O article, so I suggested I'd do it for them. Used my own pics so got paid for words and pics same as any other story. I was quite pleased to be combining 2 things I like doing and doing something to promote O, but it didn't occur to me to involve BOF, I just did it.

Too busy at the mo' but maybe I'll try SAGA when I'm at a loose end.

[ifititches]

good discussion going again on this topic.

Abbreviated quote from "coaching edge"

"According to the 2001...census over one fifth of us are over 60.......in next 40 years the number of people aged 65 and over (ie, the generation of current elite, ifit) will increase at 10 times the overall rate of population growth.... Number of people over ... 80 will treble in next 25 years. ..... the prevention and delay of the onset of physical and intellectual frailty..... has implications for national governing bodies of sport."

Go for it journos; old is the new young!

[Niamh]

A quick point - when quoting scientific research in advertising, it's good practice to put in the reference to where it came from/where it was published. Adds credibility because there is so much crap research out there that isn't properly conducted.

[ifititches]

agree Niamh, though the newspaper headline writers scarcely ever get the facts right, even when a careful journalist has written the article and added the refs..

And the research on the dementia/sport link is particularly confusing. The last paper I read on this about a month ago seems to suggest it doesn't have a protective effect against dementia in those that stay active throughout their lives (though they may have extended their lifespan by taking exercise) The group it's currently thought to delay dementia in are those who've been sedentary but take up and maintain exercise in later (sometimes very much later) life

I expect it will get even more confusing. But the good news is that even old, underused hearts, muscles, lungs, and minds respond positively to exercise, often with the same proportion of improvement that younger ones do....