Discussion: Experiences & lessons learnt from WOC 2015 in Scotland – Jørn Sundby

Well, the presentations are online with highlights:

Experiences & lessons learnt from WOC 2015 in Scotland – Jørn Sundby

Practical challenges and solutions in Organisers/SEAs working together. Case
studies & discussion. (Jørn Sundby)

http://orienteering.org/hles-2016-presentations/

I see the middle/relay map is criticised. As mapper I never heard anything directly from Jørn Sundby (never had any communication at all from him). I had some vague comments about the map "not be adequate" from Tony Thornley - when asked for specifics, nothing. Planners and controllers sent several sets of notes and amendments which I visited. These comments were sometimes contradictory and my attempts to improve the map in places received more criticism (sometimes implying the original version had been better...).
Eventually I found out that I had been replaced as WOC mapper - another mapper was used for final checks. I was never formally informed of this. When I mentioned to Tony Thornley that I wasn't happy with this he stated "it wasn't my fault".
I will never ever get involved in any WOC mapping again, it wasn't worth the hassle and shit it generated.

Slides online is like MTV without the soundtrack.

But anyway, my guess is that the criticism of the map is from what Thierry and worldofo wrote -
http://news.worldofo.com/2015/08/07/the-second-las...

which has nothing to do with your fieldwork and everything to do with the courses using areas and sites that hadn't been checked in summer conditions.

The last I heard from you, April 20th, during the SEA visit, then suddenly it was all Steve Barrett, pretty well mapping from scratch. After that, the map quality went "sideways" as it changed from your cleaner style to Steve's more detailed one. Then, later on, we took a lot of the detail off since it was obviously impractical for Steve to do a detailed summer vegetation map based on springtime guesswork.

Jorn came across to me as kinda an ass. Everything that went wrong was either the previous SEAs fault, or the organizers fault for not listening to him.
He did have a lot of good comments about where things worked well, and where they didn't and suggestions about what can be done differently, but I felt his whole presentation was tainted by his disrespect for the organizers, and his inability to understand a non scandinavian event structure. There was a lot more that was said that isn't in the slides.
If his views are consistent with how the IOF treats their event organizers (and I think in major foot-o events they are) then I am happy to stick to high level ski-o event organization and stay away from foot-o events. We haven't even had a foot-o WRE in North America in a couple of years. Whats the point?

Very perceptive of you. When he first appeared we were impressed by his knowledge, and you can see how he would interview well. Only later did his complete unwillingness to communicate or take responsibility become evident.

The refusal to let anyone from the WOC2015 team speak tells you all you need to know.

I would be interested to know what was said. Probably I should just walk away like OUSA has, but I appear to be organising two WREs this year.

Which two are you organising?

I warned the OC and (original) SEA in 2012 that Affric would be a nightmare for lots of reasons, I was completely ignored. At least the athletes liked it.

Think that presentation is really unfair to the IT team in places. Link from IT->TV especially, I thought it worked really well? Also slating TV quality..

Anyway, Jorn was a bit of an ass. Apparent during the discussion about the SI Air finish...

SEA approved use of SI Air finish
SEA says after middle final 'finish must be 3m wide'
we said 'well fine but then it won't work'
he said again (and again) 'it must be 3m wide'
So we made it 3m wide for relay, it didn't work, we had to do finish times manually, then he says in presentation 'a number of finish times missing'
Yes Jorn, that's what we told you.

"Communication skills of a signpost" (c) DaveR

Given the inability of the IOF Mapping Commission or Scandi event advisers to see past Scandinavian practice maybe its time for a "Forest World Tour", where instead of IOF WREs there is a "Tour" of elite races at good events like the Scottish Six Days. Then you could map to the terrain and organise events with an emphasis on "navigation at speed through unknown terrain with the aid of a map". GPS carry allowed of course, and use them if you want to waste time. If IOF go ahead and introduce the woeful ISOM 201X then the Forest World Tour can fall back on ISOM 2000 - but with no 1:15,000 scale imperative.

I like the idea Eoin!