Event structure review

[Mrs H]

Yes what I should have said is "the course - or event - they wanted"
To have some "standard" events ranking and some not is just falling into the same old trap f making some events more "desirable" than other.
People whitter about how they will know which event will have the competition and courses they want. It's simple - look on the fixture list - find an event you like the look of (be it near or far) check which courses are on offer and if there's one for you then go to it - don't think - well it's a crap sounding event but at least I'll get ranking points


speaking personally i'd rather do a whole season of NGOC mini-league events save up my carbon credits and blow them on the Purple Thistle or Edinburgh city weekend - none of which will give me any ranking points - and i will probably attempt to do both those events in Scotland next year rather than BOC - because they suit my timetable better - unless Easyjet start giving away flights from Bristol then i'll consider it!

[awk]

the new format brought in and a new system of ranking introduced afterwards if required based on all the 1st and 2nd level events. to suggest some events would be ranking and others wouldn't - just takes us back to the point we started from - on our way to oblivion.

Completely agree Mrs H. This is part of what I proposed in light of the partial feedback we received from conference, and circulated to Event Review Group. Unfortunately (and in my view completely unacceptably) Event Committee gave us no time to discuss this or anything else in the light of that feedback, and came up with a knee jerk decision which, as Rich T has identified, more and more looks simply like a renaming exercise and falls into the very traps that you, and several of us on the review group, have identified. I emphasise that what is being sent forward is not an Event Review Group proposal, and I am fairly certain that I'm accurate in saying that everybody on the group has expressed "disappointment" in one form or another (most somewhat milder than me!).

I'm pretty gutted with what Events Committee have done, particularly the way they have done it, and have informed the chair in no uncertain terms. I'm fairly certain it will get things nowhere, as some leopards really do seem unable to change their spots. However, as Graeme says, Management Committee are yet to look at Event Committee's proposals, as have Council, so maybe, just maybe, it will get sent back. I'm not holding my breath though.

[DJM]

Mrs H wrote:
It would be very disappointing if the ranking list was allowed to dictate any direction in which the review went.

It didn't. In fact we devised a new way of ranking which means that, if necessary, you can get rankings points from a much wider variety of events than before - almost any event bar score events could qualify.

At present it is a hopelessly inaccurate barometer of ability and is merely a selective league table rewarding the people who travel to the most ranking events and says very little about the best orienteers in any particular age group.

A bit of a generalisation methinks! "hopelessly inaccurate"? Well, this maybe true for the S classes but those at the top of the L classes seem to be pretty good orienteers to me. And one could also argue that the rankings list is doing a good job if it encourages people to travel to events!

It should be discarded completely - the new format brought in and a new system of ranking introduced afterwards if required based on all the 1st and 2nd level events. to suggest some events would be ranking and others wouldn't - just takes us back to the point we started from - on our way to oblivion.

A new system of ranking is being brought in (assuming that confirmation from Management Committee is given) and one which those who have looked at its detail all agree will be a big improvement on the current system in terms of its accuracy. [Yes, the current system is not perfect, but it's still not bad]

I wonder what would be the effect on the sport if we abolished the ranking list all together? the very best people in their age groups don't give a toss about their ranking points and seldom run in their age class anyway. Perhaps if there was no ranking list people would embrace the new proposals more enthusiastically as there would be no reason not to run the course they wanted.

As awk has pointed out, the new ranking scehem means that you can choose the course you want (within reason) and obtain rankings points - you're not forced to run a course just for rankings reasons even if the race is an age class one. The reason for this is that there will be one single rankings list and not the current 44 different lists.

Finally, some of the very best may not care about rankings points but I know that a good many do, and they don't all run out of class either - but this won't matter under the new rankings scheme. The main problem is that there has not been enough time in which to explain the implications of the new scheme, e.g. no time was available at the recent club delegate conference for any sort of explanation.

[distracted]

This all harks back to what the event structure review aims to do. I still don't think this has been adequately stated.

From the discussion that has arisen so far, there seems to be a need (a) to keep those already in orienteering happy and (b) allow those new to orienteering an easier progression through the system, making the sport appears more accessible. There also seems a requirement in managing the relevant qualities of particular events - surely this could be far too subjective though... The ultimate question therefore should be: how do we address these aims?

The only change that I can see between the 3-level suggestion and the current 4-level idea is the splitting of the "standard" event into ranking and non-ranking. However, the basis of these events will still be on course. If the "oldies" want their age-class competition/direct ranking then they enter the relevant course if one is suggested for them. The only difference between ranking events and the new 'regional' tag seems to be that one is ranked. If the new 'regional' type event wants to put on a black course, there's nothing stopping them from doing so; similarly a 'ranked' event could be a city sprint. The other thing that no-one has mentioned so far is what seems to be a change in allocation of the relevant levels of events through the hierarchy of the fixtures allocation - my hope is this will mean that the clubs cannot dictate they put on a certain type of event on a particular area, because it may not be allocated that way.

Irrespective of the proposed changes, I hope people will agree with the following statement. Ultimately, clubs should make best use of the areas available to them - that is the area dictates the type (and level?) of event, rather than vice versa, as unfortunately seems to be the case in too many instances. I don't want to do a Brown/Black/M21L course on a tiny area where I have to visit the same bit 2, 3, 4 times, or in a flat featureless boring forest with no technical challenge, or in an area which would support a very good middle distance course. If it will only act as an area for a local/club/introductory event, use it as such. Perhaps this should be another aim of the event structure review group in their considerations.

[SJC]

To have some "standard" events ranking and some not is just falling into the same old trap f making some events more "desirable" than other.

But some events are always going to be more desirable than others.

Scotland will presumably select a number of 'Standard' events to be the SOL races.
East Midlands will select a number of 'Standard' events to be the East Midlands league.
In each case this will make certain Standard events more desirable than others.

All that giving some Standard events ranking status is doing is providing a form of league at a national level.
I see nothing wrong with that for those who do want to take the rankings seriously.

[graeme]

Mrs H wrote:
It would be very disappointing if the ranking list was allowed to dictate any direction in which the review went.

It didn't.

Although strictly that's true of the review, the revisions of the EG certainly are dictated by the rankings: its the basis of the split between level 2 events (Nationally approved) and level 3. So now (I've been told) if a UK cup race like, for example, the JOK Chasing Sprint http://www.jok.org.uk/chasing_sprint/ wants to be level 2, it has to construct a fair method for inclusion in ranking lists. This is exactly the sort of constraint we were trying to ease.

There will be a ranking list. A minority want it, and there's no good reason to deny them.

All that giving some Standard events ranking status is doing is providing a form of league at a national level.

Well, that was the review group's original idea. A minority of people like attendance-prize ranking lists, and would make such a league their "target", which is fine (slightly to my surprise, this group also enthusiastically embraced the single list). What I object to is introducing an extra level of complexity just to formalize ranking-list competition as a higher level than others, giving it national fixtures protection, and denying this level to other events which either cannot sensibly fit the ranking scheme, or don't especially want to.

[Mrs H]

Yes of course some events will be more 'desirable' than others but that desireability should be based on the quality and suitability of the event - not whether it has ranking points attached. and I certainly can't agree with DJM's arguement that

the rankings list is doing a good job if it encourages people to travel to events!

How can it be right to encourage someone like me to travel to some god foresaken East midlands branble patch when i could find a much better quality local event closer to home. Irrespective of any enviromental issues - it hardly shows the sport off to any advantage - and who is to decide what will be ranking and what won't? Market forces should be allowed to prevail so that clubs strive to put on good quality events whatever their size, not artifically enhanced by the awarding of ranking status.

The only equitable solution is to make all standard events ranking - or abolish the list altogether.

As to whether the ranking list is unified or not I have no particular views on - that's for the rankers to determine

[greywolf]

i'm still rather confused about what criteria will be used (and who by) under the various proposals to decide which "standard" events will be "ranking" and which not. and i'm not sure how these critera can or will be applied fairly across the country.

for instance, the recent INVOC event at Craig Leach had high quality terrain, one international star and some national champions - but only 36 finishers on Green + Blue + Brown, and I'd assume this would not be a ranking event. on the other hand theres lots of events (badge and cc) down south on much easier terrain with lots more finishers, some of which probably will be ranked.

so will it be left to clubs to decide? or will BOF or the regional associations set quotas? or will there a requirement for clubs to demonstrate that their event meets quality + numbers criteria?

[redkite]

Safe to say that we do need a ranking list (a lot of competitiors would be upset if there wasn't one) and on reflection I think a single list is probaly a good idea, assuming it can be sorted by age group, club etc by anyone looking at the BOF site.

Is it also safe to assume that results will soon be submitted to BOF in electronic form (pretty sure they still ask for paper copies). If so, assuming that there are sufficient competitors at an event to make the results stack up statistically, why not simply pump all the results into the ranking system. Keep it simple!!

Some regions would suffer on the peripheral of the country, where competitor numbers are low. I am sure that there must be a simple results format that would meet all the requiremnts of the different interested parties for results(BOF, Rankings, Route gadget etc) and stop organisers having to send different formats to differnt parties.

At the end of the day, the quality events will normally attract more competitors than poor quality events. Thinking about this last sentance, it should say, if potential competitors realise which are the quality events, they will attract more competitors. I can think of a few top class events where numbers are less than " a average badge event in a brambly east midlands forest"
(Oxford, British Sprints and Middle, Purple Thistle).

[King Penguin]

I trust that whatever the outcome (and I'm more rather than less confused at the moment), pre-event details will contain sufficient information for people to decide which course to enter. It's not unusual for course lengths / estimated winning times not to be available, so all you can go by when entering is choice of colour / age class, based on what you think this should mean. Those of us who have been competing for some time can make some form of judgement from this, but what about those new to the sport who have no such experience on which to base their decision ? I usually run my "official" course of M45 and not infrequently wish I had run up, but there are occasionally events at which I'm very glad I didn't run up. However, more often than not the information is not available for me (or others) to make an informed decision until the final details come out after the entry closing date.

[greywolf]

the quality events will normally attract more competitors than poor quality events

well this might be possibly true regionally, but not nationally - as I pointed out above, there's plenty of "quality" events up here with relatively few competitors.
E.g. if you look at the fixtures list for next weekend (25th November) - there's 1 badge event, 1 regional score champs and 7 district events. Will attendance figures at each reflect quality of terrain, or geographical convenience? if the former, then EddieH had best print a lot more maps

[roadrunner]

At the end of the day, the quality events will normally attract more competitors than poor quality events. Thinking about this last sentance, it should say, if potential competitors realise which are the quality events, they will attract more competitors. I can think of a few top class events where numbers are less than " a average badge event in a brambly east midlands forest"
(Oxford, British Sprints and Middle, Purple Thistle).

And I think you've hit on a key issue there. If I've run on an area before, I have a pretty good idea whether an event there is going to be a "quality event" or not (although even a good area can be spoilt by poor planning, while good planning can get interesting courses out of a poorer area); but if it's somewhere I haven't been, which is quite likely if it's a long way away, how do I know it will be worth the journey? (Obviously, there are a few widely-known top class areas, notably in Scotland and the Lakes; I'm not thinking of these.) I'm not suggesting that the present scheme where C3s may be expected to be on the better areas (but often aren't) is any good either, but we need some way of finding out. How about some sort of forum, like Runner's World, where orienteers can rate the area, as distinct from the single event?

One of the reasons proposed for moving away from the traditional age-class events was that many classes were too small to offer decent competition, and there's no doubt that this is true. To see which classes these might be, I took two very large events in the South of England; this year's November Classic (983 runners) and BKO's NE1 in 2006 (1197 runners). Both were in areas which I think could be considered good for that part of the country. How many runners do you need for realistic competition? Before looking at the numbers, I chose 10. On that basis, the following courses shouldn't exist:

At C2 Events: All the M and W B classes plus W10A, W12A, W20L. OK, you probably want to keep these last three so that everyone has a class they can enter, but it strongly suggests that junior B classes aren't worthwhile, since none had more than 3 competitors at even a very large event.

At C3 events: JM1, JW1, JM2, JW2, JM5S and JM5L. On the same basis, you probably want to keep the first four, but it does suggest that three lengths of JM5 is too many; JM5M was by far the most popular.

At C2/C3 events: Taking as the criterion less than 10 runners at both events, the classes that would go are M65S, M70S, M75S, W35S, W60S, W65S, W70L, W70S, W75L, W75S. All the colour coded courses on offer at these events (White, Yellow, Orange, Red and in one case Light Green) got enough runners at at least one event.

Putting all this together, it suggests that, if we have age-class events for juniors, the B courses should be scrapped, and if we don't, the number of JM5 courses should be reduced from 3 to 2 (as for JW5). For the adult categories, it would seem that the S courses should be scrapped from M65 and W60 upwards, and that W70L and W75L are of questionable value.

I was therefore surprised to read in the Event Committee minutes that:

It was agreed that a M85 class will be added if and when it is confirmed that there are 3 or more members in the this age class

Is three runners enough to warrant a separate class? Both the events I looked at had only 13 runners in M75L, and no M80 class.