Purple & Black

[seabird]

There has been quite a bit of discussion at times about the desirability to focus more on C4 (District) events/races rather than have so many C3s (Regional) events/races. A theme I entirely support.

It is rather unfortunate that the guidelines have recently seen the demise of the rarely used Purple Course (i.e. long Red). It seems to me that if we are interested in attracting newcomers, particularly runners from other disciplines or the 21s, this was an ideal course to utilise. (Not necessary for all events/races - but something available to focus on if we are using traditional events/races to attract new blood)

In the current climate it may have been the time for the Purple to come of age. Can we still use it, even if it non-existent in the current guidelines?

Similarly if we are serious about also providing a full variety of course distances we should be looking at every District Event at the possibility of providing a Black Course. We need something for the Classic inclined runners, whenever the area will allow.

[mharky]

Yep, there really does need to be a course that caters for the fitter, adult novice, 8-10km of red standard...

[HOCOLITE]

How often do you get any competitors on Red or M/W 21 Novice Courses. They are often offered but usually you are lucky if there is one competitor.

[brooner]

slightly seperate, but is there anyone from SLOW who can comment on whether there has been any conversion of people doing their trail runs (always a lot of IND's on the results) to taking part in other orienteering races?

[johnloguk]

I certainly think this is worth pursuing, but it needs thinking through. When I started orienteering a mate persuaded me to start on blue courses. I could run faster in those days and could certainly read a map, or at least I could read OS maps. But I just overshot everything, got very frustrated and soon lost all interest in orienteering for several years . When I came back it was pure fluke because the event was offering a red course, and it was just what I needed. After a few of those I got more used to the map scales and detail, and then it was back to blues and browns, where I've remained ever since.

Our club has had a few attempts to attract runners by putting on red courses, even a few purples, but I think we peaked at about 8 competitors and then gave it up as a bad job. Looking back we didn't really market it right or target runners as much as we could have done. All down to lack of people with enough enthusiam and "nowse" to push it through.

In recent years our Summer Series has included a "long" course which is basically a 6km red, and it has been very successful, just about the most popular course in fact. With a rough 50/50 split between road runners and orienteers looking to rest their brains.

So yes let's look at it again, but the publicity needs to be right, not good enough just to put the courses on and wait for people to notice them.

[seabird]

How often do you get any competitors on Red or M/W 21 Novice Courses. They are often offered but usually you are lucky if there is one competitor.

In the last 7 years AIRE have had between 5-10 competitors on a Red Course, although sometimes that is really more as there are 2 or more newcomers going round together with one map.

Worth bothering with - even though we've never made a concerted effort to attract M21s and runners from other disciplines. If we did....????

There is precious little effort involved in planning a Red. The Orange is the foundation for the course and the longer technical courses usually provide the odd other control at TD3 level which can be utilised.
Can't recall the last time a red had a control unique to itself.

Yes the numbers are small, but it and Purple are ideal for runners who scoff at the distances but are not capable of handling the more complex map reading.

As for M/W21N - i don't think it's worth the time of day. Newcomers need low entry fees which CC courses offer.

[SeanC]

mmmm, the argument for less C3's is that they take a lot of time to organise so there's less time for the stuff proven to bring in new members (frequent low key events, publicity, coaching newcomers etc). If we make C4's more difficult to organise, we're back where we started.

I'm not convinced a diet of red and purple courses in the current orienteering setup is necessary the best way forward. Isnt it better to have MADO style helpers to get adults skilled enough to do (I hesitate to use the word) "real" orienteering courses. A few years ago a friend of mine started orienteering and his first ever course was a blue course, completed on his own in quite a reasonable time. How? I gave him a quick lesson one lunchtime a few weeks previous, then he did all the permanent courses in his area, then he was ready to go. Going to an event with MADO style coaching would probably have done the job of the lesson I gave him. A red or purple course means less manpower available for coaching newcomers. Red and purple is a nice to have. Help available to coach newcomers is a necessary.

[Nottinghamshire outlaw]

On the Good Practice section of the development pages of the BOF web site there are descriptions of MDOC and SLOW events which were held specifically for runners.
http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/a ... D=GOODPRAC

Interestingly, and others have already pointed out, I think it's fair to say that runners enjoyed their experience of orienteering as long as it was 'racing' and it helped that they were given some tips first. Too much 'stop/start' is probably what puts them off - maybe what they need is actually a long Yellow rather than a red - TD 3 may actually be too hard.

[EddieH]

Moravian is a very small club with very few people willing to do the big jobs. Consequently we put on very few C4s each year.

One thing we do do well however is to provide purple courses. These are successful BECAUSE a number of club members are also members of a local athletic club. Therefore when we put on events near this running base, and as long as the date does not clash with a big road race, we use the purple, and can get large numbers of runners who nearly all love it.

Does it get new members however - doubtful, but we do give them a good day and it enhances our reputation.

[stodge]

If one person does the red, its worth putting on. Its the only course adult beginners who are runners can attempt, without feeling they have been whipped by a 12 year old on an orange. After all its only an orange with 2 or 3 extra controls with long legs.... not much effort....

I fully support the move to less regional events and more and varied district events.
The areas used should dictate the range of courses available. eg there is no point trying to squeeze a brown onto a postage stamp map for the sake of trying to provide one, as long as the range of courses is advertised in advance.

[SeanC]

Its interesting to hear that AIRE and MOR both do regular red courses - they were two of the clubs with higher numbers of orienteers in the 20's and 30's. But I'm still not convinced by the Red course argument.

The typical C4 event is a small miracle requiring tens or maybe hundreds of hours work by many people just to get the bare minimum necessary. Guessing at the timings it could go like this*

Before and after the event:
Mapper: 100 hours (though this could get split between events)
Planner: 50 hours
Organiser: 50 hours
Controller: 25 hours

On the day, all these work for 7 hours, plus another 5-10 helpers are needed, each doing 2-3 hours each.

Plus there's the time spend by club officials supporting the event infrastructure (equipment officer, fixtures secretary etc).

Maybe I'm being unfair, but I get the impression that most C4 events do not have the following which would bring in new members:

- little or no publicity outside of the orienteering world
- no organised help for newcomers (beyond a notice in the event details for newcomers to ask for help)
- little or no opportunity for newcomers to meet established club members after the event
- no organised after event social event - just bumping into people in the car park if your lucky enough to see someone you know
- no provision for families with very young children (ie no string course, no building or tent to shelter in whilst one parent is minding the child)
- no red/purple course for adult newcomers.

All these could be possible with a little extra effort, but organising an orienteering event - unless you have plenty of freetime or are superhuman, is such a massive effort - its an achievement to do the bare minimum! As an organiser, faced with the choice of only being able to do one or two extras, I'd choose publicity and coaching newcomers over a red course every time.

Cutting down the numbers of C3's will release some time, but I'm not convinced it will be enough. The sport might look at other ways to free up time for the extras. For a bit of fun and because this is a discussion forum and not real life, here's some far out ideas that might release time**

Mapping: Double the entry fee to pay for professional mapping of all C4 and above areas by Peel, Harveys etc.
Mapping: Re-use existing areas twice as much as happens now.
Planning: BOF to employ full time planners and organisers for the really big events and a rise in the BOF levy to pay for it.
Planning: Allow armchair planning on C4 and C5 courses for non beginners courses, experienced orienteers to live with the odd bingo control
Organising: no more control descriptions
Controlling: Events with planners and controllers on an approved list dont need a controller.
On the day: Starts and finishes together and near the car park, even if this means a boring start and end leg.

*just a guess, dont give me too hard a time

**Not 100% serious about some of these, just throwing ideas into the air so please not too much abuse.

[NeilC]

IMHO freeing up time for planners (and generally controllers) will not generate much time for additional organisational issues. We will just start thinking about the next event that we want to plan or control. So that just leaves the time saved by not producing control descriptions....

[SeanC]

NeilC wrote

"IMHO freeing up time for planners (and generally controllers) will not generate much time for additional organisational issues. We will just start thinking about the next event that we want to plan or control."

That'll do, clubs are less likely to be short of planners and controllers, leaving more volunteers free for coaching, publicity and social stuff.

I wonder if I'll get my red badge now.

[swat]

A red or purple course means less manpower available for coaching newcomers.

I don't understand this point - surely the only extra effort is for the planner and controller? (Unless you count the marginal additional effort for the organiser of handling an extra set of control descriptions, maps, typing 'Red' and/or 'Purple' on the publicity etc). How does that tie up manpower that could otherwise be used for coaching?

[roadrunner]

I agree with a lot of what SeanC says, but surely he's underestimated the number of helpers required at a C4 event. I think we might typically have, as a minimum:

2 shifts of 2 people on the start
2 shifts of 2 people on the finish
2 people handling entries
2 people handling results
2 people doing car parking
2 people running the string course

i.e. at least 16 (although we often use Emit UK to do the results, so they provide some of the entries and results people). And that doesn't include road crossings, enquiries, helping newcomers ...

Doesn't every C4 have a red course? We always have one, although it tends to attract few runners and even fewer newcomers. We also usually put on a string course.

I agree that cutting down on C3s wouldn't help all that much. We run (usually) two C4s and one C3 in a year, so club members are called on to help 3 times a year. If we ran more events, regardless of their grade, I think we might have a problem getting enough volunteers. As it is, we often forego our C3 for just this reason if our region is putting on the JK or BOC.

We already have professional mapping for our C4 events (as there are no club members able and willing to take on the task any more) - we tend to map an area for a C3 event (which can stand the cost) then re-use it for one or more C4s. The main limit to re-using an area more often is the extent to which the map gets out of date, as most of our areas are working forests.