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A week or two ago I signed up for this weekend’s 12 km race in the Forest of Dean. This is a race where I don’t have to run 6 km to get points for my club, and inspired by the long-O antics of Marian White I thought I’d go for the good-value option of entering the longest course possible. Big mistake?
My downfall started – literally – on Sunday at Bentley when I tripped and landed chin-first on a rubble-strewn path, injuring my hand and chest. Then last night I was bitten on the elbow by a dog while putting controls out for a race in Haden Hill Park. And now today I’ve twinged my left thigh playing basketball in totally inappropriate clothing…
On Sunday, Droobers are hosting a regional event at Bentley. I’m sure it’ll be a great event, but entering for it was a bit of a leap in the dark. (Sorry for picking on this event – the problem it illustrates is true for more or less any regional event you care to mention.)
To be fair, this was partly my fault. I noticed the event when I was on fabian4 and entered it there and then. There’s a box on fabian4 where you put your default course and in my case it’s Blue. I left it at like that and paid. Then I had a look at the flyer and realised – duh – this is a regional event, and I ought to have entered my age class. But should I enter 45 long or 45 short? Which one does Blue correspond to? And how long are the races anyway?
I emailed the organiser and now the info has been added to the website, a day after entries have closed. Notice that the age classes have been left off the final details, so they’ve had to add them on the webpage. But I still don’t know the answer to my first question. M45L is Brown and is 9.8 km, so that’s out. But how to choose between Blue at 6.9 km and M45S (Short Blue) at 5.4km? Blue sounds better but then I’ll be running out of category…
This nonsense of colourising regional events was caused by BOF. I do understand that a few orienteers want to only enter races by colour, but the confusion this has caused has resulted in a degrading of the regional event. A lot of orienteers are entering by colour when they really meant to enter by age class and they are missing out on competing with their peers, and their peers are missing out on competing with them. And some courses are artificially overfull or underused because if you’re going to enter by colour you’re more likely to enter Blue or Green than the mysterious Short Blue or Short Green.
So whose fault is this shambles? Partly BOF’s, partly fabian4′s, partly OD’s and partly mine. What can we do about it?
1. For Regional events, initial event info must show that this is an age class event, show what the correspondence is with colours for people who want to enter by colour, and give some idea of course lengths. (The traditional, simplest and best system is to list the courses by number, with the corresponding age classes and colour.)
2. For Regional events, fabian4 must have age classes as the default setting, although with a clearly indicated option to change to colours.
p.s. Checking the event info for Beechenhurst the following weekend, things aren’t much better. The final details say: 14. COURSES AND MAP INFO
N.B. Courses and Age equivalences: This event will be using the age categories as outlined in BOF Guideline 3.3 NOT as stated in the flier (3.4). You are asked to check your age category and course choice and amend online if necessary before April 26th. And then the courses are listed only by colour!
Just a few weeks now to one of Harlequins’ big events this year. On Saturday 10 March there’s the first-ever Malvern urban event, and the day after it’s the Midlands Championships at Foxley & Garnstone, near Hereford. If you haven’t registered yet, why not do it now before you forget? 
The Championships area was used for the JK in 1994. 
I wondered what this could be, but I think it’s just a problem with calculating distances to Ireland. By the way, does the site look the same for other people using it in Internet Explorer?
The latest of my biannual Queslett events is coming up on Sunday week, the 25th. Start times 4.30-5.30 pm. This one is designed mainly for kids and beginners but there’ll be a cobbled-together course for the old hands (about 4km). For a change we’ll be using the Asda car park and all the money (£3/£1.50) will be going to Children in Need.
Meanwhile (cue fanfare) Community O arrives in the West Midlands this week with the launch of the Wednesday night sessions in Sutton Coldfield. Dave Ellis and co will be running these at Clifton Road Youth Centre (between Wyndley Leisure Centre and Town Gate) between 6 and 7.30, and your first two visits are free.
Above is my and Dave’s little bit on the back cover of the September issue of Families Birmingham and Solihull, which I think I did well to arrange. 
(Thanks, Wendy!) Thousands of copies of each issue are distributed free via schools, libraries, etc.
In case you’re wondering about the wisdom of putting on a seemingly random and potentially exhausting series of events, some planning has gone in to the enterprise. First of all, the week chosen is Love Parks Week. Secondly, the Parks Department are putting on tours of Witton Lakes and Rectory Park on Tuesday and Friday. Thirdly, Wednesday is Birmingham’s Be Active day. Fourthly, Cannon Hill Park is the venue for this year’s Community Games. Fifthly, the schools are breaking up and parents and children are looking for things to do. Sixthly, it’s the week before the Scottish. Seventhly, it’s an opportunity to advertise the club nights that are starting in Sutton in September – which is one reason why the events are more on the north side of the city. (The other being it’s where I live!)
In a moment of madness I said I’d devote the first week of the school holidays to a series of informal events in local parks. (Even though BOF isn’t paying me to do it!) Dave Ellis and I have organised it and some kind folk from COBOC and HOC have volunteered to help. The events will take place between approximately 2 pm and 4 pm, and each afternoon there’ll be a 1 km and 3 km course and a short score. We did think about using SI but our experiences at Aston Hall have put us off – if there is SI it’ll be limited to the 1 km course.
Programme (subject to final permissions):
Sun/Mon 24/25 Cannon Hill Park
Tue 26 Witton Lakes
Wed 27 Handsworth Park
Thu 28 Pype Hayes
Fri 29 Rectory Park, Sutton
The events are free and there’ll be prizes (dunno what yet!) for children who attend on more than one day, as well as for the Adult Of The Week. For more info, or if you’d like to help, email coboc1@gmail.com
Now that BOF’s plans for England-West have been published, I need to add a couple of points to my earlier post.
Firstly, Walsall hasn’t been included but Sandwell has. In fact, I think Walsall might be a good venue. There are two schools in the area with active O clubs, and if weekly orienteering nights started in the town soon (rather than in 2013) we might be able to build on that. Sandwell is also a good target for increasiing participation, but perhaps not by the club-night model. What would work better there, I think, is an initiative based on a programme of events, such as the park-race series I’ve mooted.
With these regional plans, BOF seems to be putting all its eggs in one basket. Everything, and all the money, seems to be geared to building participation through club nights. Why can’t some of the target areas follow the successful Malvern model, building participation through a series of events? Is that because it’s easier for BOF to justify spending the money on coaches than on organisers?
British Orienteering is taking some stick at the moment for its centralising tendencies. Depends on your point of view. Has BOF got nothing to do with local clubs? Or might one say that if local clubs didn’t exist, BOF wouldn’t exist? Whatever your feelings, it’s clear that BOF is asserting itself and wants to use its money** without giving local clubs and regional associations too much say in the matter.
Is this a big deal? The people at BOF are nearly all orienteers, and the board is democratically elected by the membership, but there is certainly resistance to the idea that regional representatives shouldn’t automatically have a seat on the various boards, groups and committees.
At the latest West Midlands committee meeting two BOF staff members were present and fielded questions that they couldn’t answer on these issues. Significantly, they were sitting there with a draft document in front of them about the future of orienteering in our region. They didn’t show it to us and we weren’t allowed to read it. They did allude to certain things that were in it, but suggested that they really shouldn’t have told us anything (yet).
One of the most contentious aspects of the regional plans is “Community O”. This initiative has a short but interesting history. Ironically, Harlequins was one of the first exponents of this kind of thing*, the Hartmanns having started the Malvern project (MADO) six or seven years ago. Other clubs have started similar projects* and BOF started funding them. Some clubs have been particualrly willing and able to start satellite clubs, a famous example being DVO with its satellites in Buxton, Chesterfield, Matlock and Derby.
*Edit: MADO was and is actually a different fish from most of the other clubs’ initiatives, since it’s always been based on monthly events rather than on monthly training sessions.
At some point (I missed the exact day) satellite clubs morphed into community O, and this was more significant than I realised. The change of name portended a change in methodology. In future, BOF won’t hang around and wait for clubs to start satellites, it’s just going to say where they’re going to be, funding them centrally with or without local-club support.
In some ways this makes sense. It’s their money**, they have to increase participation in the sport, and this seems to have a proven track record as a way to do it. And in theory, if they can find coaches to run the sessions (and that could be a big if) it doesn’t matter if the local club doesn’t have the time, peoplepower or willingness to get involved.
In practice it’s all a bit naive. Take Walsall for example, which by some process known only to a few illuminati has been selected as a target.* BOF will pump (at a guess) £4000 a year into Walsall to pay for a venue and a coach for weekly O training/coaching. (I hope they ask me to do some of the coaching since (a) I’ve hardly ever been asked to do any in the two years since I qualified, (b) I need the money and (c) I want there to be more and better orienteers.) But surely there will have to be some, er, orienteering as well, to go with the club nights? BOF is, in effect, asking HOC and WCH to divert some of its activities into the Walsall area. Diverting activities is not a no-cost exercise.
*Edit: At least that’s what I thought! But it still serves as a generic example.
(**if you don’t agree that they wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for local clubs)
Just a few days now till the park-O event at Aston Hall, and I’ve received the good news that we can use the grammar school car park after all. That should reassure some people who didn’t seem as confident as I was that it’s perfectly safe to leave your car for a couple of hours on an Aston side-street!
More good news: online registration will stay at the lower entry fees till Friday night.
As I’ve already pointed out, my digital camera isn’t reliable enough any more, so if you have an old but reliable digital camera (3 or 4 mp is quite adequate) that needs a new home, I’d be happy to provide it with one! Meanwhile, if someone could lend me a camera to take photos of the competition and prize-giving on Sunday, that’d be great.
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