Discussion: VOA proposals

so what are we planning on doing?
I understand it is intended that we flood the next meeting with our youthful enthusiasm and outrageous ideas.
But what are the main items which we are attempting to propose?

As on 'old fart', I will only contribute some comments on process.

0. Read Ian Dodd's president's piece in the latest OVIC news. (As an aside... magnificent job on OVIC Dion!!!! )

1. There is a council meeting on the 28th October. Well the nearest Friday I think. OVIC was ambiguous... anyone with confirmation?

2. There is a good list of questions spelt out by Ian. Ian is pushing the question of new fixtures and formats with enthusiasm.

3. My understanding of process is that each club has a delegate, as well as chairs of the various committees. I'll be there representing Bendigo (and missing our first twilight event..). I suspect Blair will be there as chair of bush committee... unless that's still me. Blair.. we need you there so its you.

4. How can you influence this? Well, first you need to contrubute to your club's position. In the past I got the impression a number of club delegates came with no club position and went on their own instincts/predelictions.

5. I would think a squad of keen young observers at the meeting would be great. What do you think Blair?

6. Don't just think about Ian's questions. Think about what type of event you would like and what you might like to help organise. Have you seen any good ideas on attack point?

Over to you.

The key message you need to get across is what sort of competition you want at the the present courses 1-3 level, which is where most participants in this forum seem to run. The majority of Council and the club delegates do not run at this level and will be reluctant to change if they don't know that is what you want. A strong show of interest to Council will help your cause.
At the same time you need to address the present issues which are the 2007 program, and how we are going to arrest the declining participation levels in bush-o, and State Series in particular.

As I see it, there are 2 key issues that need addressing with bush orienteering.
1) The growing reluctance for clubs to volunteer to organise enough good quality races to fill the calendar.
2) Despite good membership figures in recent years, the decline in attendances at state series races (now regularly about 120 people for 10 courses!)

If we are going to make a change, we need to co-ordinate a proposal and submit it in writing at least a week before the council meeting. Then attend the meeting to support and defend it.

A couple of things have been tried this year. We should also evaluate these and review their success. These included double header weekends (Albury, Kooyoora, Vic Champs) and lower quality terrain/maps closer to Melbourne for State Series races at You Yangs and Carrolls Springs.

Put some thought into some realistic proposals that you are willing to help drive, and post them here. We can then consolidate the best of them and co-ordinate a formal proposal.

Let me get the ball rolling...

More and more Melbourne people are reluctant to travel over an hour for orienteering, except for the very keen ones. They will do it occasionally, but not every week. Currently there are so many bush events, that the bush orienteering appetite is dispersed and only around 100 people attend each event.

We have good terrain and population centres in Bendigo and Ballarat where there are existing low key bush series. We should utilise these more, and encourage clubs other than BG and EU to help occassionally.

I suggest a 4 pillars approach to bush orienteering fixturing, with one of each pillar scheduled each month.
1) State Series bush events - including events such as championships and badge events on the best maps, terrains and high quality technical courses. There may only be 7 or 8 of these (1 per club).
2) Bendigo Interclub* Series - one event per month near Bendigo as the only bush event of the weekend. Simple format with few courses. Good maps to attract both locals and those from Melbourne who want to travel.
*Bendigo club series could still operate on other weekends of the month if they wish.
3) Ballarat Interclub Series - similar to Bendigo Interclub, but in the Ballarat/Daylesford region. Other clubs to help EU run this on a bare bones format.
4) Metro Sunday Special series - parks and bush closer to Melbourne to attract newcomers to bush orienteering and transition from park/street orienteering.

I think this still provides plenty of opportunities to run on all of our good maps, but reduces the number of complex events and the overall organisational load.

Any thoughts?

Comments on Bruce's pillars.

1. Do we need to have 8-9 SL style events. An alternative. SL consists of Middle, Long Champs and badge events. That leaves another 4-5 events that do not have to follow the fixed format. Make them SI standard, but not necessarily SL. What else is worth running? Jymbo has an idea.. tell us.

2. The Bendigo -InterClub sounds like our 'Championship' events. Better maps, better setters and hopefully on weekends when there isn't competition. We try and avoid SL, Maxis and rogaines. We are happy to clash with MTBO. Our events are on a Saturday anyway, so you can do the ride as well. Our events would remain on Saturdays.

3. Sounds like a 4 week cycle of SL, Bendigo 'Champs', Eureka local, Metro. Quite a few of the SL events will be double headers so it may not quite work out that way. If it did work out in that sort of cycle, we need to be careful with rogaines and potential clashes. I have been told by someone that rogaining isn't orienteering and so we should ignore that. But there is a significant participation overlap, particulary for 6 and 8 hour events. I did the sums for last year and found that its more important to avoid a clash with shorter rogaines than with MTBO events.

Proposal must be submitted by 17th October to be considered on the agenda, so get cracking!

Where has all the enthusiasm for change gone?

yeah!

This is a very disappointing response so far. It looks like it will be left to young Bruce to push the MFR barrow at Council.
I'm personally opposed to turning either the Bendigo or Eureka club series into de facto state events. I'd rather they stayed as club events, and encourage the other clubs to run their own club events. Too bad if there is a clash!
So let's just schedule one state level programmed event per month and require the clubs to produce their own programs. MFR can put up its 10 club events for the year and put the onus back on the other clubs to do the same. Not workable? Too many clashes? OK - make it 5 club events.
These do not have to be the classic length cross country events.
So how about some volunteers to organise/set club events?
And does anyone have ideas for other types of events?
How about some large team relays? a la Tio Milo or Jukola? But with shorter courses to suit the size and ability of our membership.

I though the Tio Mila was a Swedish coffee and brandy mixed drink....

I'd like to have a bush-O committee meeting on Vic Champs weekend - probably on the Middle Champs afternoon - so we can discuss some of this stuff. The issue of the scoring structure for 2007 State Series events is already on the Council agenda, so no worries there about the deadline.

OK Blair. If I come in one car with Evan and Julie and possibly Ilka, they will just have to stay until the meeting is over. Just don't let Ev know.

No problems - Big Ev will want to go to the meeting as a part of the insurrection.

Has anyone seen the draft 2007 bush fixture list yet? We are supposed to approve it at the council meeting, but I've no idea what the planned structure is and how complete it is.

Responding to yahoo: I don't think more events is the answer. We should reduce the events (and workload) and make more use of the existing club events. There's no reason why these have to be run by BG or EU, but their existing format are simple and popular, and seem sustainable for the number of bush orienteers that turn up.

I have been corresponding with Steve Peacock about it. Blair has indicated a probable bush orienteering committee meeting after the middle champs. Blair does this indicate you are convening or you are hinting to me to convene. I have informed Steve so he can arrange to be there.
The draft I have seen looks pretty much like last year and the year before etc. There seems to be a 'problem' in getting clubs to volunteer SL events. I don't see that as much of a problem as others.
Bendigo has volunteered for n event on Korong on QB weekend. I am hoping we end up with three events on that weekend. If all are SL, then I think the Bendigo event might be on the Saturday and be a middle distance SL. I was assuming MFR might like to run a SL on Kooyoora on Saturday or Sunday. In discussions with steve (email discussions) I have also floated the idea of thinking differently about the Korong event at least. It doesn't need to be SL. Could we do a middle and a sprint.. or a try at MicrO.
The other problem we have had is some gentle pressure to run another SL event in April or March. Jim is keen to organise a Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday evening format in Februrary as a season opener. We are probably going to go with that as a club fixture whatever is in the state fixture.
Bottom line, there is some interest in thinking laterally about our events, but the fixture seems a bit inflexible.

I'll convene - will try to send something out today.

There are a few words I don’t like here; fixed formats and standards are some of them…

Why not try to think a bit outside the box instead? As far as I understand we have a problem with declining numbers at bush events. –Why is that? What is it that the runners want that the organisers fail to provide them? Another problem is that fewer and fewer people voluntaire to organise events, so the same people end up doing it over and over again.

Can it be that these issues are related? Does it become less interesting to run events in the same format, on the same maps with the same course setters year after year? –I don’t even know if this actually is the case; I just made an assumption here…

I don’t know what other runners think, so I can only comment on my own views. Here are two different weekend scenarios:

1. A one-day training camp where we drive 90min to do 2 different runs on 2 different maps with no controls in the forest.
2. A state event we have to drive 90min to get to, in the standard format on a map I’ve been on before where we still have to mark our own map with less than 5 competitors and no prices.

Both scenarios will take more or less the whole day, but I will prefer the first one to the last one any time!

I don’t think the main problem is how many events we have or where these events take place. The problem is the lack of variation of the content of the events. I love the suggestions here about an Australian Jukola! I think one of the most important issues here is to figure out some strategies on how to make our sport more interesting in general. Instead of focusing on making norms and standards for events, why not try to make each event unique and different from others?

Bruce did it with the turkey traverse, Neil did it with the ironman, and now Jimbo are suggesting a Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday evening format, just to mention a few events from the top of my head.

Personally, I much rather go away for a whole weekend to run 2 (at least) events in different formats that to just run one in the same old format. This seems to be the way the national league always are organised; we had 3 races (sprint, middle, long) in NSW in March and heaps of variations over Easter as well for example. Why do state-events have to be standardised when the national races don’t? Even Warren’s version of the Easter relay this year was different from the years before…

In summary, encourage creativity instead of creating more rules. And don’t be afraid of changes or something new and different like small Scandinavian countries are afraid of joining the European union!

BTW, do I have to pre-enter for the state champs next weekend? Would be great if someone could offer me a lift as well!

I take Torgeir's comments to heart. Don't forget the Bendigo Skins - I like that format too.

If we must have an ongoing competition, how about 4 sprints, 4 mid distance and 4 longs as a State Series. (Numbers of events are arbitrary)
e.g. Sprint events at Ballarat, Bendigo and a couple of other venues; and similar for the other formats.
Could we include the street-o format too?
We could allocate championship points for each format and combine the lot for the overall OY.
Yes, this is remarkably similar to the NOL concept!

We have a very big problem! It is October now and the 2007 calendar has not been finalised! In less than 5 months the 2007 bush program will have commenced.
We are in grave danger that all the fine sentiments expressed to date are going to be overlooked in the rush to get that 2007 calendar out.
We need time at the Bush-O meeting to establish a variable competition format and also to bless the 2007 calendar.

Personally I wouldn't want the street-o included, but that's just my opinion. As it's run now it's a quite different style of orienteering with melways-style maps and score-o format. There are already numerous series of street-o with points and series winners etc. Obviously there would be a big contingent of Melbourne street-o'ers at events, but I can't really see it attracting many out-of-towners to run around the 'burbs instead of the bush. I would be partial to a park-o though, but draw a line there.

Also, if a sprint is to become part of the state league, it should be an event like the Ironman or Skins, or as part of a weekend of events to justify driving time and entry cost.

Would these changes affect only couses 1-3 as was somewhere suggested? W20 and 18 run course 4 and I don't want to miss the fun.

That's my 2 bob's worth to the discussion.

whatever happened to the 'pent-o'

I'm running a 'special' event at this year's nillumbik weekend.

street-O score course (with a different start and finish).
Sprint line course (in a park)
mountain bike / rogaine 3 hour score

each course starts where the last finished off!!!

I am submitting a late proposal for a lesser number of state series events, with an emphasis on varied disciplines.

and also attempting to encourage more novelty events ran by clubs in their local areas.
such as nightO, pentO, score events, that kind of thing.

As inventor of the Pent-O, I have to admit that the turn up wasn't always that good. I think the secret to successful weekends is actually a format that brings people together. That's impossible on a 3 hour start window with 10 people on the course! It's one of the reasons why the ironman and maxi-3 hours work.... Both these events have mass finishes.

Another problem is that fewer and fewer people voluntaire to organise events, so the same people end up doing it over and over again.

This is a major trap anywhere. The key is to tackle the second part of the sentence first. It's too easy to just organize the event yourself, or ask the same old crew to do it again. It's several times harder to get new people to organize, teach them how, hold their hand, etc. But if you don't, the text in italics is what happens. I remember a famous president of my old O club, who spent only a small fraction of his time organizing, and most of his time just getting more people to help out in various ways. It really is the majority of what experienced volunteers should be doing (even though it's three times more work than just doing it yourself). The club was the largest club in North America, with 50 ISOM maps, events every weekend, and lots of national champions.

Bruce has put me onto this discussion thread and the earlier thread Fair Enough.
I will try to read whats going on when time permits.
I love the 'stacking' idea buts its not actually that hard to get a say; remember the noisiest wheel gets the oil!
Appalled as I am at the Pensioner or Old Fart description I am actually pretty new to orienteering compared to many and I like to think open to new ideas, particularily those I think are practical (or don't require more work for me!)
Another hint on politics: certain 'oldies' have long figured that a word in my ear might get them what they want ie forget the comittees and meetings and just work on those who might actually have the chance to effect a change.
As for different event formats etc; sometimes you don't need 'permission' just do it and if you haven't broken too many rules and enough people like it you're the hero. (Just check with me or BT first in case its actually illegal.)
Yes it would be better to work thro the Bush SubCommittee for much of what you seem to want but anyone is welcome at the Council meeting next Fri 28th.
The Feb meeting, previously known as Policy Day, will be replaced next year by Strategy Day and will be enlivened by talk of really new ideas (old ideas will be given short shift by me as Chairman as I get bored with hearing them again even though I've only been coming to Council for 3 years or so).

Finally of all I've read here the olny thing I didn't agree with was the complaint by Mr Hogg that Victoria ".. have not given a coherent or rational reason" for opposing his ideas. Not sure when I have had the opportunity to do so but if he's reading I can give a few quite good reasons and perhaps will at December OA meeting. But take a step back; what evidence is there that playing with courses will make competitors more likely to come to events? I don't disagree with the proposals personally but I'm not convinced they are good for the reasons given. Sure image has its place, but exactly how many potential recruits changed their mind because they saw results from prior events and thought the classes were too small?
I'm not criticising Andy here - I love the fact that elites are moving onto the committees and dispelling the suggestions that they don't put anything back.
Equally you may find that not all the 'oldies' are as stuck in their ways as you might have believed.
Oh and BTW; SprintO (stupid name for marketing purposes) and StreetO are not poor forms of orienteering - they are the cricket equivalent of OneDay matches and will not go away despite Pensioner's views! Thats my 2c worth!

Hey!
I didn't say anything on this thread about street-O and sprint being poor forms of orienteering. Defence follows.

1. As perhaps the only Victorian to have set a National League Sprint event in the past year (or longer) I wouldn't claim that sprint is a poor form of orienteering. I love it. So much so that I devote inordinate hours to running the Bendigo ironman each year. Four sprint races in a day! But what I don't like is lame sprint maps. By lame I mean overly simple maps. I remember one national sprint event where I joined in at the start without a map and followed the pack. It was just criss-crossing between a few rectilinear buildings. I prefer sprints to be in a combination of runnable complex forest terrain and complex urban terrain. The open gold mining around bendigo gives us an advantage. But I'm planning on going to the Vic Champs sprint at melbourne Uni. Should be good terrain as well.

2. I would never claim street O is lame orienteering. I just wouldn't call it orienteering. ;-}. No, its a necessary evil when you live hours from good terrain, or the terrain is too hot, cob-webbed, snake infested. We even organise street events in Bendigo now, and I have made all the maps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's a great substitute for a training run, being sociable, pressured and proximate. But its not a substitute for orienteering, being really a very limited test of navigation. And I still worry about the mixing of cars and runners.

I invite Prez to next years ironman. Do I have the handicap for you!

PS
Congratulations on the changes through the (bush) orienteering committee on Saturday. Quite a few of you turned up. Even if you said little, your presence can be interpreted as assent. It was the best attended meeting in years. Some notable people were absent, which might have meant there was less debate against the proposals. The wide attendance gives credibility to the decisions if those decisions are questioned in the next few months.

Sorry if my comments were off thread but just wanted to see if Pensioner was lurking.
Prez accepts challenge and will make effort to get to Ironman. Already have a handicap (can't read bush maps with all those squiggily brown line things on them).
Agree mostly with your point #1 but may have to agree to disagree re #2? Call as my first witness Adam S. - 7th at Aus Champs from a heavy StreetO background. Can't say that StreetO isn't orienteering but them maintain Sprint events are. (Aus Champs sprint was mostly in the river flats behind town with the streets mostly OOB.)
This argument will become redundant anyway when I become prez of OA and change the name to Map Sports Australia!
Oh no! Now I've really stirred things up! Better pull my head in before the oldies AND the elites come to take me away.

MAP SPORTS AUSTRALIA
I'm on the bandwagon!

Or even better: ADVENTURE RUNNING

maps sports, sorry thats not a good one. Adventure Running thats better. I think they tried that in Canada and their entries increased, North American APer's, is this right?

But adventure running includes trail running. Jools runs with teh Victorian trail runners on an irregular basis. I don't know if they can read a map. What sets orienteering (and rogaining, but do we go there) apart is navigation. How do you fit that concept into the name?

Super Adventure Navigating Running

Love the way this discussion is heading: what about “supa-dupa-treasure-hunt-very-fast-through-the-bush-racing”? That should cover it all!

Talking about lame names: I know we all criticise “orienteering” but “rogaining” is a lot worse if you ask me. Isn’t Rogaine that anti hair loss product Shane Warne is promoting?

Anyway, I think “forest racing” is a better name. Even though I occasionally feel like I have been on some kind of an “adventure” by the time I finish my course (like on Sunday) I will argue that this word doesn’t really explains what we do.

–Maybe we should start some kind of national name competition? The winner gets free entry all days at Easter or something like that.