FOCUS magazine (for the elite?)

[LostOldTimer]

Why does this expensive? magazine seem to more and more concentrate on news of the elite?
Around 80% of the coverage is purely how the 'elite' have performed. Reviews of past events - from the viewpoint of the elite - Junior 'elite' - Reports of foreign 'paid' 'holidays' the elite have been off to.... paid for at least in part by 'ordinary' members.
At least let members opt out of receiving this expensive publication, and reduce their membership fee by £10 a year.

[RJ]

Sorry L.O.T. but I don't agree with you at all. The magazine is a great 'shop window' for orienteering, and in particular it shows that we are a REAL sport with top class athletes. As for cost..... how do you know it costs £10 a year? There is a significant amount of sponsorship and advertising, so I doubt your figure is anywhere near being correct.

It is bright and cheerful with loads of smiling, happy competitors..... a great advert for the sport!! I think it is a good job well done..... congrats to BOF!!

[mike g]

I agree in part with L.O.T. I have actually read Focus this time - often it goes in the bin - and I acknowledge that it is well produced, but nonetheless I'm not happy that BOF is spending a big chunk of my membership fee on producing something I don't want, and would opt out of it if I could. My objections are not to do with excessive coverage of the elite, more the following:
1. I don't enjoy reading Focus as much as Compass Sport because of the "propaganda" feel to some of it.
2. As Mrs H has previously commented, it is questionable whether it is a good use of resources for BOF's marketing manager to spend a large part of her time producing a magazine which is preaching to the converted.
3. We already have, in Nick Barrable, someone who is committed to producing a quality orienteering magazine on a commercial basis. BOF should be encouraging him, not competing with him. If they drive CompassSport out of business because enough people decide they don't need two glossy magazines, they will have done the sport a big disservice.

[Patrick]

Around 80% of the coverage is purely how the 'elite' have performed. Reviews of past events - from the viewpoint of the elite - Junior 'elite' - Reports of foreign 'paid' 'holidays' the elite have been off to.... paid for at least in part by 'ordinary' members.

I'm not sure that this is any different from publications in other nations, and those relating to other sports. Indeed, I'd suggest that orienteering media in general focus much less on the sport's elite than do, say, athletics or cycling media.

In relation to "foreign paid holidays":

1) They aren't holidays.

2) I understood that the World Class programme was funded primarily through a ring-fenced grant, and hence tours were not being paid for through BOF fees. [Feel free to correct me if I'm out of date, or just plain wrong.]

3) Given that these trips are funded BOF activities, does it not make sense for BOF to inform the membership, via Focus, as to what they involve?

I have much more sympathy for Mike's position. I quite enjoy the event reports, though they are somewhat redundant in the Internet age. I have no interest in the welter of child protection policies, Clubmark accreditations and similar bureaucratic nonsense which makes up much of the rest of Focus, and I suspect they hold limited interest for most BOF members. It would be cheaper, and a lot more eco-friendly, to create an online Focus and email us the link every 3 months. Perhaps the number of people accessing the various sections could then act as a guide to what type of material members are actually wanting to read.

Cheers,

Patrick

[EddieH]

Mike G you could not have expressed my feelings better.

I would suggest that the glossy maps and pictures are actually less thought out than CompassSport, and the coverage much more limited. For example there is a photo of the Elite Sprint final map, but only a limited part of the course, and not the bit that relates to errors mentioned in the text - compare that with route analysis in CompassSport - which actually gives us more?

[DM]

Without access to the FULL details of the cost of the magazine, ie printing costs netted off against advertising revenues no-one can make a sensible statement about value for money. I for one don't want to know the details as I accept and expect this is being managed by those whose job it is.

As for content, who wants to be part of a sport (either as a competitor or a sponsor) that does not highlight the successes of their elite of whatever age? From the feedback I have been getting in my efforts to publicise more around Manchester there is still a LONG way to go to change the image of the sport to one that matches what we know it as. Many people have the image of us a shuffling around in big boots rather than running....Pictures in the recent FOCUS dispel this image.

And please don't bin Focus after you've read it, leave it at a doctors surgery/vets/hospital anywhere that has magazines for people to read when waiting around - increase the readership for your sport and your sponsors....

Patrick raises the point about an on line version which has it's plus and minus sides. I would say the web is the place to put the bureaucratic type stuff and let people find it if they want to. Analysing who reads which web pages is easy to do with free software which I hope is already being used.

[harry]

I felt obliged to comment here since I object so strongly to LostOldTimers ridiculous comment about paid holidays that elites go on!

First of all if he thinks training camps are a holiday he should go on one and see how relaxing it is! I haven't had a proper holiday for at least a couple of years and then about 5 years before that.

Do you know how much it costs to be an elite orienteer? It costs thousands of pounds every year to travel to all the training camps and competitions. The little support we do get is a drop in the ocean, I am not complaining, I choose to do this but comments like these paint the wrong picture. It is basically a balance between earning enough to live and pay for orienteering and working little enough to fit in adequate training and rest.

Like Patrick said the squad's activities are funded by UK sport and not membership fees.

[Barny of Blandford]

LostOldTimer - did you get out of bed the wrong side this morning

As another OAP - surely the one thing we do need to do is promote the image that Focus (and many other magazines of other comparable sports) is trying to do which is that we are a sport that is interesting to the younger generation and will show them that perhaps is is worthwhile trying. They are the top of the pyramid and set the standards for the future and dictate whether the sport will survive or wither away.

I, along with many other old F.A.R.T.'s, am not an elite but I hope that I am realistic enough to realise that as I get slower and older and need to walk more and more that I am not the future of the sport. I do enjoy reading how the youngsters (and the elite) do. What really saddens me is that we have so few youngsters in the sport.

We are lucky to be in a sport where older competitors are welcome to compete and in recent years the growth of veteren sport in many sports has been a welcome and long overdue trend. However please do not forget that the elite will be organising our playtime for us in our retirement years as we fade over the horizon.

Be interested in them!

Encourage them!

Finally be positive (as I am sure you are when you compete)

[LostOldTimer]

DM Wrote:
As for content, who wants to be part of a sport (either as a competitor or a sponsor) that does not highlight the successes of their elite of whatever age?

Me, and many others I know of do not think that we should highlight to this extent the successes, or non-successes of the elite... and it's only recently we have had elite at other than age 21, we do not need elite 20's, elite 18... etc...
It is the majority who are important, and it is a very, very small number who are elite... and many of these do not care about the 'ordinary' orienteer, so why should the 'ordinary' orienteer care about the elite?
For example, at a separate prizegiving for the elite, followed by the prizegiving for the 'ordinary' competitors, NONE of the elite stayed to cheer them on, so why would we want to support them?

[J.Tullster]

LOT....I have to disagree with you here on many points!
I suppose you have spoken to the "many" elites who "do not care" about the ordinary orienteer? I think you'll find that most elite orienteers do actually care a lot about orienteering and the "ordinary orienteer", they also happen to care a lot about elite competition...
Elite orienteers aren't primadona footballers! They're amateur sports people who give up a lot in their lives to pursue a sport they love, often putting their careers on hold for a few years to do it. Most of them I know are involved a lot with a club and put on and help at events like "the ordinary orienteer". I don't see it like a them and us that you are making out.
In terms of publicising the sport...Barny is right, young people are the future of the sport and articles about the elite will attract them more than articles about the masses.

[andy]

Me, and many others I know of do not think that we should highlight to this extent the successes, or non-successes of the elite...

BOF think this is a good way of promoting the sport to their members and I'd say the majority are either indifferent or agree wholeheartedly with their approach (only talking about the 'elite' aspect of focus, not the 'propaganda' aspect...)

I sat down and read most of the new focus last night and enjoyed every bit about the elite competitions. I skipped all the bits about club awards and such like as it doesn't interest me in the slightest. I actually thought 'this has improved a lot' while I was reading.

Each to their own, if you don't want to read it - fine, don't! but others do want to read it.

[Gross]

I must agree with LOT.... the elite are a bunch of money wasting useless primadoners:) I have never met any of the 'elite' who want anything to do with real proper ordinary orienteering. Elite orienteering has nothing to do with me as a fat M50S and the majority of BOF & should not be the 'focus' of or National Magazine:)

[Mrs H]

Gordon go back to your pit!

I think there are elements of back slapping and propaganda in Focus but I think we all are capable of seeing through a suitable filter. Perhaps there could be more articles on what clubs are doing - after all there was no expansion on the winners of the Club of the Year Awards and what they did. The elite stuff is okay.

But as Mike says, what worries me is the amount of time Caroline must be spending out of her part times hours to produce a magazine of this callibre - anyone who's ever edited a club magazine knows it's not a 5 minute job.

I think it used to be edited voluntarily before it became quite so glossy, if that was still the case it would free up Caroline to market the sport to the outside world which is what I think she should be doing - the off chance that a copy might be read in a doctor's waiting room hardly covers that. (although i think it's a good idea).

[Guest88]

Well I would agree with Mrs H on this, I would like to see all events advertised in time out - other major listings magazines, wherecanwego.com for example...seems like easy opportunities being missed.

[roadrunner]

Coming back to LOT's original point, one thing which did annoy me about the JK coverage, not just in "Focus" but on the BOF web site, was the reference to a "Sprint Event", "Middle Event" and "Long Event". The first and last - fine - but for 90% (or more) of the competitors, the second day was another "Long Event". I haven't read Focus in detail yet, but the web site made no mention of this. It's fair enough to give plenty of coverage to the Elite, for the reasons others have already said, but the JK is supposed to be for everyone, so it seems unfair to describe it in this way.