British

[Kirstin]

There may be some mertit in elite competitiors using 1:15000 maps but why are they given to less experienced orienteers like my mum who runs W40s and has only been orienteering for a few years. This does not encourage inexperienced people to run in major events.
...and she says there is one good thing about reaching age 45:P

[Nails]

DXF OS data available through the local council for free.

[SJC]

There may be some mertit in elite competitiors using 1:15000 maps but why are they given to less experienced orienteers like my mum who runs W40s and has only been orienteering for a few years.

The only valid reason for the two scales of maps is that of eyesight. Vision deteriorates with age, and 45 is judged to be the time when everyone needs a larger scale to have any chance of reading it.

If the map is illegible due to too much detail then it has been badly mapped. It is time that mappers got back to mapping everything at 1:15,000 as standard, then enlarging to 1:10,000 when appropriate. i.e. old people's courses, and the short junior courses where otherwise the control circles would overlap.

[Crispy]

i.e. old people's courses

Not sure many M/W 45 would appreciate being called old!

[Gnitworp]

Obviously not when M60's don't either

[Red Adder]

I've just spent half an hour reading this thread and I'm afraid to say we come over as a very whingey lot, demanding the very highest levels of perfection and professionalism whilst prepared to pay the minimum price. The sport depends mostly - even at the highest level, on volunteer effort. If those volunteers get alienated (and threads such as this don't help) then our wonderful sport that is sadly not in the rudest of health will soon go in to terminal decline.

So lets stop moaning - if you really feel you have to make public criticisms as a minimum make them constructive - far better make positive suggestions backed by offers to help. If you don't like the standard of mapping get yourself trained up and help map. If you think organisation was poor offer show off your management skills by running a team or take pressure off the organiser by helping as their dogs-body at your club's next event.

Remember. S**t happens. Orienteering is only a sport and its meant to be fun. Look at all its positives and enjoy it while you can!!

[Gross]

I've just spent half an hour reading this thread and I'm afraid to say we come over as a very whingey lot, demanding the very highest levels of perfection and professionalism whilst prepared to pay the minimum price.

Remember. S**t happens. Orienteering is only a sport and its meant to be fun.

Bollocks... two points...

1. The number one event in the UK should not be prepared to accept mediocrarcy ... it should offer as close to perfection as it can

2. Orientering at the highest elite level is not a hobby or a weekend pass time... it is a job. Those elite athletes competing at the BOC are running for part of their livelihood... selection is determined by results... unfair results = unfair selection.......

Imagine a civil engineers response to their livelihood if the local council to;d them the road they were building was 100m out because of out lack of experience......................

[EddieH]

It's laughable that peole seem to think that other sports are so fair. Football is usually won by the odd goal, yet there can hardly be a game where a penalty should or should not have been given that could have changed thew result. In cricket a batsman can win a match having wrongly been given not out, or vice versa. The FRA champs used to be a "who wishes to travel to the remotest races?" competition, and is still biased that way. I cannot see 2 legs being reoved as worse than any of these in determining a champion, even though not satisfactory.

[Guest88]

The problem with removing the legs in my view is that of unintended consequences for future races.

Once it becomes the accepted norm that this is what is done for a "missing control" situation then after hitting a missing control, people can slow down on the leg to the next control, stop, plan the rest of their course, wait for some good people to turn up to follow, all using time that will be deducted from their time at the end of the course using the missing legs rule.

[Adventure Racer]

Those elite athletes competing at the BOC are running for part of their livelihood... selection is determined by results... unfair results = unfair selection.......

Are you suggesting the selectors are too incompetent to be able to take issues like this into account when making their selections (given there is no "first past the post" selection in orienteering)?

[Gross]

Yes

[awk]

If you don't like the standard of mapping get yourself trained up and help map. If you think organisation was poor offer show off your management skills by running a team or take pressure off the organiser by helping as their dogs-body at your club's next event.

You seem to be assuming that people here don't work as volunteers. Many, if not most, do! (Although the British map was actually not done by a volunteer).

If you don't want whingeing here, then there needs to be an alternative and effective method of getting comments back into the system and acted upon. (I don't know whether Nopesport is effective in this sense, but it's been useful to hear what others think and for me as a volunteer to learn from).

[RJ]

Throughout the sport volunteers put on hundreds and hundreds of events every year. Some mistakes are made at some of these events. Mostly these events are at club level and the criticism is fed back accurately to the planner and controller (if there is one). Some events fail because of shortcomings in all sorts of ways.... but the majority of events provide excellent competition for the people they are aimed at, and for the competitors that turn up. Most people go away happy and pleased with a morning's fun, or evening's fun!

With the major events, and they are MAJOR.... they represent the top of the sport for us all.... the effort and the checking should be more thorough. And by and large it is..... they are usually great events where the only disappointment is with our own performance! Maybe we just need more (wo)man hours of input into the production of the event, more care with all aspects of the race. Possibly we expect too much from the small band of people who take the main roles. Extra support for the planner and controller!

[Gross]

I remember planning a BOC at Craig Mhic near Oban some years ago... we never put a single tape out in the terrain because of worries about cattle... but we wern't worried because we knew we had the knowledge & experience that it was ok................

That is what is missing today.......... confindence

[SeanC]

I always end up making a similar point but here goes again.

If there is an issue with the quality of the major events (and I'm not saying there is - it may just be nopesay* on this thread) .....

then an easier short term solution might be for us to pay more money, to pay for professional organisers/planners for major events - perhaps as part of the permanent major events committee Jon Brooke suggested.

In the long run event quality cant be helped by a decrease in numbers putting pressure on the economics of major events. So we need more local events, publicity, coaching etc to increase our numbers. Professional organisers/planners for major events would free up the volunteers for such grass roots development.

The question is, would anybody be prepared to pay extra for this, or shall we just keep increasing our expectations of BOC officials and hope that people keep volunteering?

* a bit like hearsay, close relative of nopegrief