Silly Ideas

[SYO Member]

Going back to Gordon's observation about the number of elite runners at the Scottish, the explanation is surely that because on virtually every weekend from 11th February to 10th June, there were significant events that attracted the masses (3 Nationals, CSC, JK, 6 Sundays with more than 1 Regional, British Sprint/Middle, FCC, BOC, SINS, Harvester, Twin Peaks), and for many non-Scots at least, it was one event too far.

In addition, as Graeme says, the UK Cup did not include the Scottish Champs. this year, so again no real incentive for the M/W21E's to go. However, like most events nowadays, it wasn't just the M/W21's that were low, but M/W20 and M/W35 too along with the usual relative high numbers of M/W40+ but more pleasingly, a reasonable number of juniors.

We have discussed on here many times the fact that there is a dearth of 20-40 year olds in orienteering now and the usual reasons given are family commitments, pressure of work, other activities etc, but to link with the other thread about 'Making orienteering more accessible", we're also told that there is no problem getting this age group doing Adventure Racing, even if an event like the forthcoming 'Orientator' is really a glorified Score o-event (incidentally, my favourite type of orienteering). But although that thread ran to 6 pages, nobody was really able to explain why, and of course nobody knows whether the problem would have occurred with the previous generation of 20-40's if Adventure Racing and its derivatives had been in existence 20 years ago.

Although I have to admit that I've never done Adventure Racing, after a bit of online research, am I correct in saying the following?

* The events are professionally organised but there aren't multiple events every week
* The fees are usually more than double those for orienteering
* There are no Adventure Racing clubs, just teams
* There is no governing body and presumably no rules that apply to all events
* Sometimes Juniors are not permitted to enter
* The maps aren't as detailed as o-maps
* Events take place with official permissions and insurance

So for certain 20-40's with loadsamoney (or so the advertisers tell us) and keen on outdoor adventure, not much spare time and certainly not enough time to map/plan/control/organise o-events, and who aren't too bothered about complex navigation, orienteering is a no no.

And yet, as we all know that orienteering is really adventure racing by another name, do these missing 20-40's see orienteering as a highly regulated sport with a name not conducive to outdoor adventure and where many club members are expected to give up great chunks of time every few weeks before they even put on an o-shoe?

I have said before on here that one reason why orienteering is unique is because you don't have an active 20-40 period of competition only before choosing to become an official (for want of a better word), as occurs in other sports. Many, if not most of us are perpetually competitors and officials, irrespective of our age.

This may seem like going over old ground again, but this time there's a slightly different perspective, or have I overlooked something? Anybody care to comment, particularly the Adventure Racers who post on here?

[Kitch]

Don't think that orienteering is the only sport missing a generation

Fell running is the same and so is Scottish cross country.

I wonder what cycling is like?

One difference I see between these running sports and adventure racing is that they are explicitly competitive, whilst from what I have seen of adventure racing many people are taking part for the challenge - a weekend / 24hrs / 8hrs. many aren't actually racing.

[Gross]

But look at the Men elite classes at O Fest... about 150 covering E1 & E2... howcome they get the numbers & we don't?

[Mrs H]

I think SYO makes a lot of interesting points here - which he begins to provide the answer to himslef.

My perception is that the major part of the problem is caused by the fact that the sport is run by the older people who are frquently not in tune with the younger generation - something which is perhaps particularly true of orienteering because of the type of people the sport tends to attract (remember that map reading thread and the lack of emotional response).

this was brought home to me at the last committee meting when we were discussing the club's 40th birthday celebrations next year. I have no doubt this is going to be a very backwards looking event - and perhaps that is understandable - but when it was suggested that we should ask the junior captains how they would like to mark the occasion - we were warned that "We might not like their ideas"

One of the reasons why I thought nope was the best thing to happen to orienteering in recent years was because of where it was coming from - i refered then to the "youthing of the sport". We are moving forward with that - Purple Thistle, UK City cup etc and must keep it up.

I try very hard to provide events and elements of events which will apeal to young people and it is obvious to me that the social element is as important as anything in keeping young people in the sport (I'm not talking necessarily about the aspirational here who have an agenda to follow but the bubbling under ones who might be tempted to take on other roles in the sport).

The problem is once they leave the regional junior squads and possibly the universioty clubs, what is there to keep them together? clubs run by people who are probably too old to be interesting and too few other young people to be attractive and form a viable social nucleus.

I can see it happening already in my household where one member will only go to the big events where she knows her friends from all parts of the country will be there - she not interested in anything less and yet she enjoys her outings, is a very useful orienteer and potentially an excellent organiser,

I'm not sure what the answer is - but it's got to come from the young people themselves , even if "We might not like their ideas"

[SYO Member]

I take your point about the social element of whatever format of orienteering being a factor for juniors (of a certain ability?) Mrs H, but would this 'social nucleus' still matter when the juniors reach their middle 20's or 30's though? I would have thought not, but nobody knows.

Kitch made an interesting point in that he reckons many people in the missing orientering generation with an outdoor nature take up Adventure Racing just for the team challenge and presumably not for the competition factor and this got me thinking.

Should we be surprised? In the last fifteen years or so we've been fed scare stories telling us that children at many schools have been indoctrinated to believe that in sport there should be no winners or losers and when a 'race' occurs, it doesn't matter how long you take, and everybody gets a lollipop at the end. I have always taken these stories as a bit of a joke and assumed or hoped they weren't really true.

But if they are, and this generation have now become the potential new M/W21 orienteers, they're not interested, because they find it is competitive and they're on their own. I've also noticed now that at most o-events, whether Regional or on the longer District courses, the spread of times is much less than before. It used to be that for a typical Light Green for example, you'd get a few people taking up to 2 hours, but now virtually everbody is home in less than 75 minutes. On Blue now, you can be half way down the results, but less than 15 minutes off last place. So today's plodders or those there to make up the numbers are either doing nothing or moving onto non-competitive group activities.

Fortunately this horrifying scenario could change. The government and local authorities appear to have finally realised that there are too many obese children not doing any exercise and along with the build up to the competitive Olympics in 2012, the various school development initiatives currently taking place in orienteering and the new formats of
orienteering, we may well find that the current missing generation of M/W 20-40's are soon replaced.

[jenkinstoby]

With the Orientator i'm hoping to digress my hard core running customers to try something a little different. I tried my first O event a few months ago and loved it so much. I guess i'd just never thought of doing one and nor would i know where to go or what to do. I think it's the mental barrier that stops many people trying tsomething new.
So the Orientator is a simple map reading exercise that is predominantly a running event.
No fancy maps, no compass, 'a bit of a laugh' and a good hardy 10k run across exciting army trinaing land.
I'm not entirly sure how sucessfull the event will be but it's my attempt to get the runners involved in something different.
Please come along, if not take part, and support the event. We're setting this up using proper O equipment, Spanish score system, mass start, manadatory 10 ten points.
toodle dooo
http://www.allabouttriathlons.co.uk

[Gross]

We're setting this up using proper O equipment,

That'll be the map then:)

Good luck.... the more the merrier:)

[jenkinstoby]

ident

[Adventure Racer]

You mean dibbers?

[roadrunner]

SYO and Mrs H make some very valid points here. SYO asks whether the social aspects are important to people in their 20s and 30s and, although I'm not myself in that age group any more , orienteers I know who are tell me that it does. Maybe that's one of the factors that makes adventure racing more appealing - that you compete as a team?

The fact that orienteering events are generally "time trials", with a wide spread of start times, is always going to make the social aspect harder to include (except at the multi-day events). I know that many foreign clubs organise both entries and transport on a club basis, which must help, but that doesn't seem to work here for some reason - a (Swedish) member of my club tried it some years ago but there was little support.

[SeanC]

I think the social aspect of the sport must be offputting to people of all ages. Maybe 20 years ago with less competition from other sports and activities it didnt matter as much.

The problem with making the sport more sociable is that, from the stereotypical orienteer's viewpoint, it can detract from the competition. Take the typical classic colour coded event. With reduced numbers we could compress the start times to say a 45 minute block with competitors starting at 10 second intervals. That way people are more likely to finish at similar times and therefore find someone to talk to. I suspect that such a move is influenced by "market forces". The stereotypical experienced orienteer would rather have spread out times and less bunching/following during the race and would simply avoid the event if made to do otherwise. And if you've been orienteering for a zillion years you're probably going to find someone to talk to in the car park whatever time you finish.

Personally I think a certain amount of bunching makes orienteering harder and more exciting and I prefer it.

One format we tried at a recent training event was a handicap race where the slowest were started first and the fastest last. The aim being for everyone to finish at roughly the same time and there to be an obvious handicap winner (I'm sure this is re-inventing someone else's wheel). It really helped the sociability because a) people had to wait before the race and therefore chatted before the start b) competitors were called up by name individually when they were due to start, so names were put to faces publically c) people were actually racing each other so naturally felt like chatting to other competitors at the end d) everyone finished together so no-one had drifted off home.

I dont know if this would work for a bigger event. Something worth trying where the numbers are less than 100? But would it survive market forces?

[jondub]

One problem with Sean's suggestion is that it basically rules out parents who have to have split starts in order to look after small children. A lot of the people in the target range (20-40) will be in this category.

Now if it were only possible to provide childminding like on the continent .........

From our point of view, if we can't both run, we won't go to an event.

As far as adventure racing goes, I wouldn't worry too much about the competition. Our experience has been that by holding navigation clinics in association with the organizers of several race organizers, we have actually been able to recruit new members who find orienteering offers some of the same challenges, but without the cost or time commitment.

[SeanC]

Too late mharky, we'd loose the context. Though if someone reading this has the power to split the topic ....

Fair point about about families jondub. Re childcare this was debated a while back where I think it was Mrs. H. suggested that families group together to provide childcare. Maybe parents could take it in turns to look after a bigger group of kids (though this sounds kind of scary) missing out on their runs every few events? This would help those families where there is only one adult orienteer with the child.

For an event where competitors finish together, this could be engineered so that different courses are run at different times, so Mum and Kids cheer Dad when he finishes, Dad and Kids cheer mum, then everyone cheers the kids. This would be a lot of waiting around of course, but more time to socialise...

[jondub]

Sean - The Mums cheering on Dads and vice versa is a brilliant idea. I'm planning an event next month so I'll try to incorporate it into that and see how it goes.

[SeanC]

Thanks Jon, please let us know if the idea turned out to be brilliant, or just silly

A logical further step would be a (optional?) team competition open to all which might encourage more than just families to cheer the other competitors on.