Making "orienteering" more accesible

[SeanC]

Good luck jenkinstoby, please let us know how you got on.

It's tempting to ask how you would describe a d!bber, but probably best not to go there

[ryeland of doom]

The TGO editor is Roger Smith, formerley of MV and agent of the original Sweatshop trader. Ought to be able to get him to do some articles!!

Cameron McNeish now. Does he sound the sort to share a wild place with a few fast folks (and me) in bright coloured clothes every couple of years?

[Becks]

I've written to Trail magazine three times in the last year to attempt to get them along to something, especially as their "How To Navigate" features are generally teaching skills every orienteer used every time they get out on a map. They quoted me once on the letters page but have never got back to me. Maybe on onslaught from others would get it somewhere?!

[Carnage Head]

How about the Guardian Weekend Magazine's 'All you need to know about'... articles (on a Saturday)? For example:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,2087567,00.html

If hulaaerobics can get in, how about orienteering?

[graeme]

Lest we forget. "Then, simply start walking. Bingo. "

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/stor ... 43,00.html

Remember the surge in interest?

[PeteL]

[quote="ryeland of doom Cameron McNeish now. Does he sound the sort to share a wild place with a few fast folks (and me) in bright coloured clothes every couple of years?[/quote]

Providing we don't build cairns in order to create control sites, I don't think he'd object.

I vividly remember a TV series he did on Scottish hills in which he is shown kicking **** out of waymarking cairns - his view is that if you can't navigate without them you shouldn't be there - so he he should be in favour of orienteers who at least have some rudimentary navigational ability!

I think he lives in BASOC territory (Newtonmore) and so maybe he should be invited along to Scottish 6-Days this year?

[ryeland of doom]

Providing we don't build cairns in order to create control sites, I don't think he'd object.

Eeek - I have done that. Bits of Ailsa Craig collected in blank bits of a Shropshire forest. Unlike a certain infamous orienteer of old, I did not spell out my name.

[johnloguk]

For the last few weeks I've been involved with some sports mad guys who set up the http://www.mysportstream.com website. The site is still under construction and they want more content before they officially launch it, but there is already some orienteering content on there from me which has been well received.

It strikes me that we should make the most of general sports websites like this to spread the word about orienteering, as well as continuing to target walking magazines, running clubs etc. And even if we don't get many more people to events we will at least have made more people aware of what orienteering actually is, which is something of a soap-box of mine

[SeanC]

Are you talking about emarketing?

I agree, there is a lot the sport could do to promote itself for example by providing free content, or by ensuring that google searches like say "families sport fun" will list relevant pages from (the new?) BOF website.

I would imagine that to do this properly needs a specialist. Many medium sized companies with turnovers equivalent to British orienteering employ such specialists and give them a budget for online advertising. But I seem to be back to giving BOF more money for such things and suggesting that we all pay BOF £5 a year more (which only Gross and I have said yes to).

[EddieH]

Last night Moravian put on one of their annual forest runs in conjunction with a local running club - Roseisle Forest.
All runners were offered a free map with a red course on it which will be run next week. I believe 100 maps were printed and they all went with those that I heard saying they'd come and give it a go.
We'll see the result next week.
Then a week and fortight later the same thing will happen in a different wood.

[johnloguk]

[quote="SeanC"]Are you talking about emarketing? /quote]

I think what you refer to as "e-marketing" is a bit more professional than what I was meaning Sean, but I would hope that it is something BOF is onto or at least looking at. Making sure that search engines turn up suitable orienteering links more often would be a great advantage.

Maybe there is a connection to my suggestion though? If more orienteers contribute articles, blogs, photos etc to generic sports sites like mysportstream then maybe they will start turning up more often on search engines anyway, I'm not exactly sure how these things work.

I was really thinking though that if more orienteers contributed to generic sports sites it would potentially expose a lot more people to what orienteering is really about. I'm using mysportstream as the example because its the one I'm involved with and the guys are so enthusiastic they deserve to do well with it. By putting articles on the web that better reflect the orienteering experience, especially with the great photographers around orienteering, we could make it such an attractive sport to the outside world.

Governing bodies have a role in marketing their sport, but personally I've always been more motivated by a passionate punter than a slick PR guy. We've probably long bored to death all our mates down the pub, now there's a whole world out there that we've barely got started on

I suppose that on Nopesport we enthuse each other , preaching to the converted etc, we need to do a similar thing further afield.

I do like Eddie's scheme to give runners O-maps by the way. Especially an area like Roseisle, one of my all time favourites. I couln't run for long down a track there without the irresistable urge to get into that stunning forest. Maybe when they have run round a few times at their own pace, interpreting the map as they go, they'll ne tempted to try the real thing, fingers crossed, great idea.

I had been thnking of adapting some of my local O-maps into leaflets to sell to running clubs as "off the beaten track running guides", maybe we should just give them some O-maps and let them get on with it.

[Ravinous]

I think, if I get Ryelands of Dooms reference, the orienteer in question was mapping a very boring open area with few features, so he built some cairns with some of the scattered rock that lay round about which in fact spelt his initials, two letters, rather than his whole name. I think they did not last too long on the ground, but I think the practice of putting on, eg, hides, which may or may not have been there in the first place and the planner sticking 3 branches together when the next event comes along to hang a control beside, is not uncommon...

[johnloguk]

and the planner sticking 3 branches together when the next event comes along to hang a control beside, is not uncommon...

Ah the beloved tripods. I usually adopt the traditional method of arranging the brashings in situ, but I rememeber a new planner a few years ago making a whole set of them in his garage out of proper timber and nailing them together. They didn't last any longer

[graeme]

You soft southerners and your tripods - here's the right way to do it.

http://www.roxburghreivers.org.uk/rroar/?page_id=101

[johnloguk]

Yes Graeme very impressive, but wherever you place it the TD must be diminished by the ruddy great muddy track leading to it