Discussion: the events before COC

I appreciate is people who attend the events prior to the COC weekend will have short summaries about those events ( we had 4 different areas with 4 different teams that prepared those- 2 of them were brand new areas ). unfortunately for sunday the farsta event had to be changed to score _o , since the land owner did not give his thumbs up. however if that area will get approval the courses are already prepared by Laszlo ( and we'll have a team to put up a good event, area is part of glen haffy but NICER then the Old glen haffy ).
just to let people know we had another NEW area ( which we might be using for a thomass next winter IF land owner agrees with it ). we had lots of new areas , and my disapointement is that some time was spent adding stuff instead of "making better" what we already have. so lets the comments begin ( good or bad )

for the size of our club we add A LOT this last couple of years ( especially in 2006).. too bad that those 2 events made things going ..not the right way. ( gently way of saying )

Okay you asked for some comments on the pre-COC events so here goes.

Fork of the Credits (Saturday) - organisation seemed to hold together well. A tough area (undergrowth) but generally well planned courses. Enjoyable - a good start to the week. Some queries over the map - what were those black lines?? - but not enough to affect fairness.

Glenn Haffy (Sunday) - really appreciated the effort to put something on after the late loss of the planned event (I guess the lesson here for the organising club is to get confirmed written permission rather than relying on verbal permission from 'Mom' !!). To organise the replacement score event overnight was impressive and I thought it was an enjoyable event - except for the 'burrs' (I imagine my legs will recover in time!).

Blythe Hill (Tuesday) - really good evening event. Good format, good area that was well mapped. Never done this type of race before (Thommass) but would certainly like to try again. Good to have head-to-head racing, it adds another dimension to the sport.

Relays - didn't do, but seemed to be well received.

Obviously things went downhill after this. It seemed to me that there were too few people doing too many things. Everyone was trying their hardest but just trying to do too much - I felt genuinely sorry for the organisers who had obviously put a lot of effort into the week. The sprint was great, the other two races no more than so-so - both potentially good areas but let down by avoidable errors.

But overall, despite all this, and having travelled a long way for these events, I still enjoyed the week. There was a very tolerant attuitude to the errors, which was good to see. Everyone was very friendly to an 'outsider' and I certainly haven't been put off visiting Canadian-O in the future.

Tolerance to organisers is to be encouraged. Most organisers aim to do their best. In my own experience, the worst organiser criticism can come as payback from those criticised in years earlier. It can become a vicious (in all senses) cycle. Volunteer burnout is a natural risk in orienteering because the sport is filled with (here we go in gross generalisations) many people with introversion and or obsessive-compulsive traits. This means we have a tendency to make the sport more and more complex with each new set of rules. Many of us are also bad at delegating and thus tend to take on too much. I see the cycle of organisers who take on major events, burn theselves out, and withdraw from the sport for a while. Unhelpful criticism, particularly in finish chutes, can increase the chance of withdrawal. This is all bad news in a sport where we face declining participation rates in many countries.
As to out-sourcing.. I suspect it is very market dependent. At a large event like O-Ringen or Jukola, you can pay for a lot of services. At our national events (800 entrants), a paid organiser will still need to rely on much voluntary labour. But I suspect the experience in other sports might be that volunteerism decreases once an event is deemed to be professional. Any one with any observations to support or disprove this hypothesis?

the saturday, sunday and tuesday events have basically 2 people doing majority of work , and they were at their second ever organized event !!!. I controlled one of them and overall I'm pleased with how all those days went.
the area with the burs on Sunday never intended to be there ( the southern side looks way less burs, if any at all, that will make for a good farsta ) but we have to switch over night.also probably not having the pressure of doing something great things went just fine.

Returning to Nick's question... I did the Tuesday and Thursday events, and they were both well-organized and a lot of fun. Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly things went, because until then, I was concerned that the organizers had taken on more than they could handle with this full week of orienteering. Thus I came into the weekend feeling quite optimistic and was disappointed at how things turned out (except for the sprint, which was great, except that we still don't have results after 4 days).

Regarding tolerance to organizers... perhaps this is one of the biggest reasons to consider paid vs. volunteer event organization. I am always trying to convince crossover athletes to spend more time orienteering. These are people whose main sport is adventure racing, mountain biking or trail running. I am SO glad that we didn't attract many crossover athletes to the COCs, because I'd have a hard time convincing them to attend future events. I'd feel the same way if I went to a trail run that had such big issues - I wouldn't be inclined to do more trail races. Within our orienteering "family", we are inclined to forgive and be tolerant because next time (quite literally in my case) we will be the volunteers running the big event. But if we want the sport to grow, we've got to run it in a professional way that respects people's schedules and provides consistent quality for their entry fee.

I hear some people never found the site for the relay as it was moved to another location without too much warning...that would have been overly frustrating.

Nick, can you pressure Doug and Annette to get the sprint results out? If they haven't figured out the glitch by now then they should be calling in help.

Are there any results posted anywhere?

>Are there any results posted anywhere?

See here:
http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/me...

What are the demographic profiles of entrants to the big adventure races and to orienteering championships? And what are the entry fees? My limited knowledge in Australia is that there is a very big difference in entry fees. My suspicion is this in part explains some of the difference in entry profiles. I know when I was in the early stages of family and mortgage, I would never have considered some of the fees I have heard of for some Australian adventure races. Now, when I am more financially secure, I would. I am just not sure my body would consider the event load.

Family and mortgage are optional individual choices.

Adventure racers seem to be young, poor but educated, and pre-family. Although this might seem to preclude paying hundred and thousand dollar entry fees, their lifestyle seems to allow them to pay these as well as buy $2000 paddles (no that's not an extra zero). (I guess that modern wages seem to allow that kind of thing, even for recent college grads.) But they don't need to allot time for organizing events in addition to work, training and competing (unless they own an AR company, in which case work is organizing), which is one of the trade-offs.

Adventure racers in Ontario are younger on average than the average orienteer, but the majority are over 30, and a surprising number have families and demanding jobs. Many of them need to be very organized to squeeze in events where they can, because the preparation and racing is more time- and money-consuming than many other sports. Races are generally viewed as a product that you purchase, so the involvement with the race organization is different from what you get with orienteering. Most of the adventure racers I know have limited spare time, and just want to pay the race entry fee, not get involved in event organization.

A Canadian AR company owner told me that the average age of his customers increases by one year every year, i.e. it's just the same people coming back year after year, without much young blood. He also mentioned that the majority of his customers come from these professions:
- Engineers
- Teachers/Professors
- Health care

Oh, and where can I find a $2000 paddle? I thought my $500 5-piece carbon fibre Simon River Sports paddle was the best thing going, but obviously I'm behind the times. (I'm one of those adventure racers who got into the sport because I love shopping for outdoor gear - and eating hot fudge sundaes without guilt after races.)

Barbie. I'm pretty sure, the relay info was updated at least 4 days before. at think was long enough ( given what we went thru ..after the relay ).so a good excuse

Brent ( I have not talked to Doug/Annette since ) actrually now I'm on a bussiness trip in Michigan working extremely long hour during the night).for what was it, I hope they'll posted before I talekd to them. we have many issues. I mean many..

good comment from tundra..ha..ha

The Gators are a very capable club - especially when Nick Duca is involved. Nick is a good mapper and course planner as witnessed from the sprint and is good at delegating jobs. And no matter what the situation Nick always has his big smile on his face (you know like Dr. Nick on the Simpsons - "Hello everybody, I'm Dr. Nick").

The Gators have been very active in southern Ontario and have been more active in map development and event hosting and junior clinics than any other club in eastern Canada. In the early 90's this club only had 4 members. Yes 4.

2002 Ontario Championships
2003 Eastern Canadian middle distace
2003 Axis Gear Cup
2004 Jr training camp
2005 Team Trials
2005 Ontario Championships
2006 COC Festival

Add to this that Doug and Annette also run the Ontario office, web site, SI management, THOMASS standings, event administration and more for Orienteering Ontario. OO receives no government funding - this is 100% volunteer work.

All this for a club that is small without much experience outside the few main organizers listed on the COC web site.

I am certain that if the Gators had focussed on doing 3 races (sprint, middle, long) instead of the 7 over the week they had committed to (not to mention the countless other volunteer efforts they do in the sport) that the end result would have been much much better. The Gators did an admirable job 3 years ago with the Axis Gear Sprint and the middle distance race at the Eastern Canadian Champs for example. I suspect the mappers were rushed as well since the club produced 5 new maps for the 7 events (all this spring?). There are over 125 orienteering maps in southern Ontario and they chose to make new maps of new areas instead of re-using an existing area.

In short they bit off more than they could chew and perhaps COF should have noticed that when sanctioning the races in the first place but they were the only club that came forward so the alternative would have been no COCs at all.

But like Nick states the club will learn from this and I look forward to racing in these new areas soon. Nick was already talking about using some of these areas for our winter races series (O in Ontario is nicest in October to June) and that is really exciting.

Wow, all this discussion on the COCs and no still no mention of Attack Badgers ruining the discussion. I can't believe I'm bringing this up in danger of the discussion detiorating but don't underestimate the Gators Orienteering Club. This was the article in today's Hamilton newspaper covering the COCs:

http://www.dontgetlost.ca/raid/gatorbadger.jpg

Well said.

I'll have to ask about the $2000 paddles. One of our orienteering club's adventure races had key organizers who were adventure racers as well as orienteers, and they were compensated by getting to use a small fraction of the proceeds to buy some gear. The $2000 paddles were mentioned by them (as showing how little they could get for a few thousand bucks). Maybe I misunderstood and they were a pair of paddles.

Being an adventure racer means never having to say you're finished shopping!

Hum... I really wonder what kind of paddles you get for $2000 because full carbon super light paddles (canoeing though, not kayak) are as low as $300 for really good ones. Maybe the $2000 ones have an anti-fatigue-kill-the-sleepmonsters mechanism integrated in them?

That might almost be worth it. At night, the steady rhythm of kayak paddling is *way* more effective than counting sheep.

$300 for full carbon super light paddles;

but $2000 for full carbon super light paddles that can decaptitate Attack Badgers.

Swampfox - You may need to declare paddles to be contraband for future 1000-Days.