Silly Ideas

[PeteL]

Cool? Fashionable?? If that's what's needed we need to control the media coverage we do get better. The S6D got a good bit of coverage, including a clip on the local TV:

http://www.scotlandontv.tv/?channel=Sports&clipid=1380_SMG962

What do you think?

Most of the newsprint coverage I saw stressed the young family angle rather than the competitive, tough, adventurous slant that AR appears to have.

I guess the biggest problem we have is that the sport can be all things to all people - a marketeers nightmare in times where branding and core messages are all.

[SJC]

I guess the biggest problem we have is that the sport can be all things to all people - a marketeers nightmare in times where branding and core messages are all.

This is going to be a very difficult problem to fix when each club has its own local conditions to consider.
For those clubs in the middle of England it is impossible to provide the competitive, tough, adventurous slant that AR appears to have - there simply isn't the terrain to do it on. Hence the focus on the family angle.
However clubs in the Lake District or Scotland can clearly offer AR type adventure in their terrain.

So perhaps the problem is, how do you advertise orienteering events in the Lake District to competitors elsewhere in the country - which is what the Adventure Races appear to be successful at doing.

[Adventure Racer]

For those clubs in the middle of England it is impossible to provide the competitive, tough, adventurous slant that AR appears to have - there simply isn't the terrain to do it on.

What are you describing as the middle of England? There was an AR last weekend in Bracknell Forest, and given permissions there's certainly the terrain to run one here. Or is it not possible to make orienteering adventurous in locations where you can hold AR (noting that there are also ARs in Bristol, Edinburgh and soon London - seems illogical, but works surprisingly well!)?

[Gross]

Like Adventure Racing you can put Micky Mouse Orienteering on anywhere

[Darwin]

The zeitgeist is definitely for the high challenge and extreme, hence the growing popularity of AR, the marked revival of fell racing and amazing numbers doing the naff "tough guy" style events.

Like Fatboy, I'm dubious about what appears to be the conventional wisdom of attracting people into our sport through ersatz experiences such as park orienteering - or even by providing technically easy courses.

As a 30 year old who hadn't run a step for 15+ years, my first ever O event was a M21L course at High Dam. The degree of challenge was itself the attraction - and has remained so.

Competitive orienteering is a tough sport - as anyone at the excellent Spey 6 days will testify. Maybe we should celebrate and promote that reality.

[Oldman]

The zeitgeist is definitely for the high challenge and extreme, hence the growing popularity of AR, the marked revival of fell racing and amazing numbers doing the naff "tough guy" style events.

Like Fatboy, I'm dubious about what appears to be the conventional wisdom of attracting people into our sport through ersatz experiences such as park orienteering - or even by providing technically easy courses.

As a 30 year old who hadn't run a step for 15+ years, my first ever O event was a M21L course at High Dam. The degree of challenge was itself the attraction - and has remained so.

Competitive orienteering is a tough sport - as anyone at the excellent Spey 6 days will testify. Maybe we should celebrate and promote that reality.

Can anyone tell me what "zeitgeist" and "ersatz" mean?

Or could we have a Forum rule that all posts must use the English language?

[PeteL]

The only printed dictionary I posess is the Pocket Oxford, Fifth edition published in 1969. It describes ersatz as being a 'substitute' and zeitgeist as 'the trend of thought and feeling in a period'.

OK, both have a germanic origin but given the eclectic (Greek) origin of our current argot (French), eloquence (Latin) would be sadly lacking in our musings (French again) if were restricted to the vocabulary (Latin) of the tabloid (French) press (French from Latin). Go for it Darwin!!

(Can't seem to find an origin for bullsh*t though - I'm someone will help me out).

[mike g]

I did my first adventure race last month, a Quest race in Wiltshire. I enjoyed it and thought it was very well organised, but the general standard of competition wasn't as high as I expected. Judging from the results, there were a lot of people who had all the gear but not much idea. Of the three orienteers there, Neville Baker and I both won our classes, and Paul Pickering (BAOC) and his partner are the overall series leaders.

Other adventure races may be completely different from this, but the impression I got is that a lot of the market for ARs consists of people who want to do something that feels tough and adventurous, but which isn't really too difficult. A problem with tapping into that market is that orienteering actually is tough.

[Darwin]

I think "ersatz' is the ideal word to describe park orienteering.

Obviously orienteering is not the well-educated middle class sport I thought it was..

[johnloguk]

I think "ersatz' is the ideal word to describe park orienteering.

OOOOOOO NOOOOOOOOOO I can't let that stand without a challenge.

If we agree that "ersatz" is a derogative term, as applied to dodgy Irish cider and those funny pink sausages that shrink and leak water when cooked, then it definitely shouldn't be applied to Park-O. For me a simple definition of orienteering is navigating at speed, albeit a rather slow speed for me personally these days. Park orienteering, City Races, and whatever else you want to call them, do offer that. If you walk round slowly then granted there is little navigation element, but I reckon you could say the same about a TD5 area if you go slow enough.

Let's not turn this into the old chestnut of "it isn't proper orienteering". Park-O is just a different form of orienteering, in the same way that a Midlands forest is different to a big Scottish one, or a sand dune area, or a relay etc etc. Returning to the point of this thread it also has lots of advantages to attract new people to the sport, so long as we are honest with them and explain that it is only one type of orienteering.

Going back to some other comments, I do agree that the fact that orienteering can be all things to all people is both a strength and weakness. It means that almost anyone can take part, but it can also put lots of people off if they only see the elements that they don't like. Such as a serious toughie only seeing a little family run event in a park, or a young family only seeing the tough guy element of a Scottish moor.

It's all down to knowing your market and advertising accordingly I reckon.

[Kitch]

mike g

you've hit the nail on the head.

AR often looks tough but there are all kinds of options, opt outs, short cuts to make it as easy as people can cope with.

Score is the only time you get this flexibility in O'

As you say O is actually tough - both physically and technically. Trouble is that a 20 something newcomer is going to struggle with the navigation and get little sense of achievment from a standard course. I'm sure there is a "macho" element of wanting to do the "main" big course - Its a put off to be told to do the easy orange course or if as a beginner on the Brown you end up far off the bottom of the list .

The Orientator actually hits the spot here.
Score event - everyone does the same competition and does as much as they are capable of.

For orienteering to tap into the AR buzz I think a good approach would be Long Score on open fell. Have a range of technical difficulty controls; distant easy controls vs closer difficult ones, allowing people to play to their strengths /try the difficult bits.

If people enjoy an easy course they'll come back for more, then gain confidence and technical ability and all of a sudden they'll be competent orienteers

[Oldman]

Another approach would be to have an "escalator" course which starts yellow then becomes orange and ends up light green. This lets people see there's more to O than track following after giving them an initial feel for the map and distances etc (both issues that often confuse newbies).

A further approach would be to have three or four loop courses with each loop slightly harder than its predecessor, enabling someone at the start or finish to answer questions or assist before the beginner sets off on the next harder loop. It would also satisfy people who feel 2 or 3 Kms is ludicrously little distance as they could go for as long as they like (2, 3, 4 or more loops).

[EddieH]

I remember BASOC putting on an "escalator " course as Oldman calls it. It certainly reduced the planning requirement and was pretty good fun. There were about 3 controls at yellow standard, then three at orange, 3 at light green, and then a blueish course following on. They just had to make sure that the route back was appropriate from each of the end points.

[ifor]

On the Score event theme, there is another lesson you can learn from AR where the Open Adventure events have the scores the oposite of a traditional O event. The bigest scores are for the easiest closest controlls and far away hard to get ones are worth bugger all. Personaly I hate it, but it flatters the back and middle of the field when you look at the results which I think is the main perpose.

[Guest88]

Well, there may be a lot of contributing factors, but I believe the most serious factor is the age profile and gender mix of some clubs... Most 20s / 30s who are not married are most likely conciously or subconciously to be affected in their decision on whether to take up a sport on this basis as ultimately at this age, we don't just do activities for the purpose of the activity itself but also the people we are likely to meet. If you look at the newsletter for the local club and it has the recent results from the british champs and there is a few kids, and then some results from people aged 40 and up, and a lot of photos of people aged 40 and up, then it's a big psychological block to your chances of taking it up.

There may be ways to try and resolve this, a real focus on how we can catalyse and promote the emergence of school and university clubs is probably the most easy opportunity... Unless you go to a select few universities, a web search for "XXX University Orienteering" is unlikely to find anything and I guess you will give up and try something else. The most difficult factor for a university orienteering club might be minibuses and drivers. How difficult would it be to organise to put up a general web page that has a different page for each university that doesn't have an "official" orienteering club, and a links to a few young-ish people with cars in the local area who might be able to help out with lifts to get things moving.

If you miss out on the chance to pick them off at university, unless they are very lucky and happen to live in South London, or a few other places with vibrant clubs with a less dispiriting age profile then not so likely to see them again until age 40 I guess...