Discussion: NOL 2010

Should i be worried that there is nothing on the VIC website about the first NOL round? Its not even listed on the event calender.

I wouldn't be worried. I mean, its only a NOL event.
If you look in the news list and choose the Victorian fixture release (three down?), you will get a spreadsheet of the fixture for 2010.
http://www.vicorienteering.asn.au/?ItemID=5131
The NOL events are on there.

The events will eventually be entered into the database for the web site coming events. It works on a self-serve basis with organisers entering their event details. There will be about 70 bush events to enter.. if the 38 Bendigo events are part of the fixture.

Well, the event bulletin is supposed to come out 2 months beforehand so they've still got a couple of days...it's also a bit hard to find the full 2010 NOL schedule on the OA website but it's as a NOL news item from about September:
http://www.orienteering.asn.au/nationalleague/noln...

Yeah i saw the schedule on the OA website.

I was just making a point that two months out and there is nothing....

I'm following this up with the event organisers - will keep you posted.

Information will be there shortly.
If you need to arrange travel, here are the summary details:

Event 1
Saturday 6th March (late morning)
Location: Chewton, VIC
Format: Long distance mass start loop race
Organisers: Melbourne Forest Racers

Event 2
Sunday 7th March (early morning)
Location: Daylesford, VIC
Format: Forest Sprint
Organisers: Eureka Orienteers

Event 3
Sunday 7th March (late morning)
Location: Daylesford, VIC
Format: Mixed Relay
Organisers: Eurkea Orienteers

LazyDave - it's orienteering, not a professional outfit like AROC. Orienteers are too tight and stuck in old ways to do anything like promote the sport. Shame when the product is so good.

Might go do a Gary Fairbrother adventure race with controls in the wrong spot instead of orienteer, at least I know when their events are on.

Fat Rat, if AROC really were professional don't you think they might employ some orienteers to make their maps and ensure their controls are in the right places?

And this is really up to date - for WA!

Hahaha, Simmo i work for AROC. We pay to use orienteering maps. So you're slagging off our races but how many have you done?

For Fat Rat and Simmo and whoever...

professional - 'following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain'.

I don't know of anyone making a livelihood from the NOL series. I have no role in the NOL event, but if I did I would probably be offended if I believed you were serious in writing that orienteers are 'too tight and stuck in their old ways to do anything like promote their sport'. It might be that organisers have been pre-occupied with other matters in the lead up to Xmas and this part of their non-professional lives slipped their attention. That is not 'being stuck in old ways'. That is part of having a rich life with not enough time to achieve all you want to.

I don't know what the younger generation would do if it couldn't fall back on the 'old ways' and 'pyjama fashion tragedy' stereotypes.
;-}

oh why do orienteers always get caught up on pedantics and waste time mumbling about unproductive things...

Professional: Having or showing great skill; expert: (source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/professional) in other words you can argue the nuances of a word as much as you want, but i'm sure you didnt miss my point.

AROC staff come from an orienteering background, and have employed myself, LazyDave and Grant Bluett to name a few over the past few years. Gary Fairbrother who I had a go at has also employed Rob Preston at one point because they built a reputation of bad control placements and wanted to better quality control.

My point is orienteering has traditionally (for years) been really crap at promotion (but really good at other things) and have even acknowledged it, but not done anything (in my opinion, significant) about it. To me, that spells "stuck in their old ways". Am I missing some big point not confused in some subtle word meaning?

Even Nic Naes from SILVA, who have ended the Orienteering Australia and NOL sponsorship suggested this was THE problem for orienteering.

If Im included in the younger generation... ask yourself, what would the younger generation do if it didnt have to be impeded by the old ways and pyjama fashion tragedy. Whilst it never works at the extremes, I think the younger generation are often impeded from advancing the sport, perhaps more than the older generation keeps it going.

Pedantics? This all started with a gentle prod about being close to the 2 month deadline and not having NOL event details up on the web site. I call that being pedantic. My point was that sometimes people are busy and have other priorities. Its part of the world of voluntary organisations. Its nothing to do with age or being stuck in one's ways. You can be busy whether young or old. You can be busy whether you are innovative or a laggard. Probably more likely to be busy if you are innovative. Obviously MFR has some busy people (well.. being blunt about MFR.. Bruce, who does much of the club management work, has probably been busy with family and Xmas). If you ignore Warren, then I doubt age is an issue in MFR getting info on the web site. Eureka on the other hand...

But if you truly think nothing is being tried to promote the sport or orienteering, then perhaps you missed the item about Space racing in the latest O glossy. Also in the last 12 months in the same regional city...
- a multi-media (print, radio, tv) promotion campaign
- that was tied in with a beginners series of graded courses over a month.. no real orienteers permitted to run, especially not in lycra as our research showed this intimidated newcomers.
- development of the fixture to lead from the beginner month towards involvement in the rest of the years programs
- starting development on a program for juniors to take them from schools racing through a pathway towards hopefully elite competition
- introduction of SI into our local event program, developing a management protocol that will not intimidate event organisers (ie ditching OE2003 and testing SIME and some other software). Also redesigning the physical infrastructure associated with SI to reduce unecessary complexity.
- running two thirds of the Victorian bush orienteering events in the state fixture
- experimenting with new event formats - Orientshow, Skins, Ironman
- fielding half the Victorian NOL squad
- and organising an Australian Long Champs.

I think the average age of those involved in these promotional activities would be about 60. Perhaps we haven't really promoted our promotional activity, but to be frank, with the Oz Champs carnival and everything else.. everyone was probably just too busy.

Haha i cant be classed as being pedanic neil, i didnt even know there was a rule stating that a bulletin had to be out 2 mths prior to the event.

I just thought it was poor that it wasnt even listed on the calender!

dip·lo·mat·ic (dpl-mtk)
adj.
2. Using or marked by tact and sensitivity in dealing with others.

I'm having a go at orienteering overall. I agree people are busy. We rely on a volunteer system. We rely on a volunteer system. We rely on a volunteer system. We don't seriously try to change... we rely on a volunteer system. No doubt some/most is inevitable at volunteer level. But all? Come on, we create the situation we are in. We should blame ourselves instead of blaming "busy". Think outside this typical box you have described above.

BTW - information for the NOL was sent to Orienteering Australia around 12 months ago. Copy, paste, publish. Done. Information on a website.

Mmmm maybe I am both undiplomatic and thinking inside a box or two. Sorry if I offended you Lazydave by suggesting you were being pedantic. I should never accuse anyone of that when I know they can do a 180 in a mass start and then start reading the map. ;-} I think my last thought of orienteering as I fade away will be of that magic moment and I thank you for it. However, at risk of compounding my sins, I'll keep on with the main thread and see where it leads because it is clearly important to explore if others perceive you and being hemmed into a conceptual box.

FatRat... By thinking outside the box I infer you are suggesting I should be thinking paid organisers etc. If I have missed something, please be more explicit. But working on my assumption.... here is my thinking on the issue. I won't bother referring back to previous threads on the issue, but am probably repeating myself. Wouldn't be the first time.

Paid organisers is a concept dependent upon mass participation or a price inelastic demand for orienteering services.

I have no research on orienteering price elasticity, but I suspect that it varies according to market segment. There is a contingent willing to pay for all orienteering events (assuming quality course setting and maps) and you see them every national carnival. But I think this is a small group. Do adventure races attract a wide cross section of participation. I don't know because I don't enter because they cost too much for what you get.... ;-}

Mass participation requires entry-level skills in navigation. Street orienteering and some forms of adventure racing fit this profile. Maybe national carnivals fit this criteria. We have been discussing this for future national carnival committments in Victoria. It is an idea worth exploring. It raises some challenging questions for OV. Such as.. is the best use of the surplus from National events the funding of an office and a schools program. Or is it best reinvested into carnival organisation? Or should there be a surplus, but rather an attempt to lower entry fees with the aim of increasing participation.

NOL is in another league (pardon the pun) to the three examples above. It has a small and limited pool of eligible and potential runners with a high skill level. That skill barrier is a wonderful thing, but it does mean there is a long time lag in the supply chain that feed participants into the field. (One of the innovations i talked about in an earlier post is targeted at this). So I suspect that in its current form the NOL won't easily support professional management.. unless it is subsidied from elsewhere or there are radical changes to the structure of the NOL.

Tackle the subsidy angle first. Maybe I have blinkers on, but I see either sponsors (hardly a rich vein based on past experience) or subsidies from other sections of the orienteering world. Subsidy looks more likely. There is already a precedent here. I would argue that the NOL only survives in its current form due to the the subsidies of others in the sport. Subsidies come in the form of hard dollars (eg travel support, small print run offset jobs at national carnivals, mapping) and in time (all those carnival support roles). I am not arguing against that current support. But I think it would take some very persuasive arguments to convince anyone that the subsidy should be extended to support NOL races outside national carnivals. In fact, in Victoria the current subsidy is under challenge.

Some locals are argueing that 'thinking outside the box' in Victoria means concentrating on the real heart of Victorian orienteering... gulp.. street orienteering. At the moment it subsidises other forms of the sport, and a proposed increase in the street O levy is catalysing grumblings about secession. That would leave a hole and a half in the budget. Which is very pertinent to your hints about thinking outside the volunteer box. There is alimit to how much cross-subsidy can be extracted. We may have passed this in Victoria though it is not a NOL specific issue.

The other angle is a radical restructure of NOL into something that can attract a mass participation willing to pay for professional management. I will admit to not even thinking in this box. Not my place. The structure of NOL is something for NOL participants... any suggestions around?

Which leads back to where all this started. We have the current structure and it is by necessity volunteer dependent. So a deadline for NOL info on the web is pretty close. Don't fret. Volunteerism seems to lead to a JIT syndrome. I'd say its inevitable. The reminder was reasonable.

Not so much a rule as a NOL guideline (which now says the info should be on the OA website 3 months beforehand - I think that's a change). States are often a bit behind the 8-ball in promoting the season's opening NOL weekend; even Robin and I were scrambling to get organised last year.

Now would be about the time for someone (head coach, high performance manager?) to make all NOL team managers aware of this year's calendar.

InvisibleLog.

I agree... current structure provides for what we have. I don't understand why we can't challenge the current structure. Incidentally, which part of orienteering do we promote effectively? (I would say the best promotion we have is the NOL coverage in Run For Your Life magazine). As another example, we don't even target outdoor or teaching education, and I would have thought schools are are best potential market. There is not necessarily a paid person there, although I'd argue we only get that kind of thing when we have effective (paid) management and planning at the top. Volunteers are fine, but they are (generally) only effective when they have appropriate instruction.

When you say street orienteering, I assume you mean Melbourne street orienteering... it seems street orienteering is often misused by individuals on Melbourne based boards, often simultaneously playing computer games whilst at a meeting. Ah... fond memories of running around on a black and white photocopy of a melways map.

I just think there are too many events in general, and I would suggest that leads to some of the elasticity in the market. there should be more club based activities instead of everything being an event with the associated volunteer overload. Is there only one club in Bendigo?

Looks like we are converging on our positions FatRat.

Challenging the current structure. Well, there is a bit of a silent retreat from State Series events in Victoria. The numbers are gradually declining. In part its because of some volunteer effort shifting to ... uggggh.. MTBO. But in our club there has been an overt argument to reduce our committment to State events in favour of less labour intensive events. Well... less labour intensive in the areas that people don't enjoy doing. SI timing but no computer is one thing we have worked pretty hard on. The result has been a steady increase in the number and quality of local events. This is reflected in the increasing numbers of of Southern Cross series gatherings at bendigo local events. The best orienteering experience isn't necessarily at State events any more.
http://www.bendigo-orienteers.com.au/gadget/cgi-bi...

RFYL is good promotion for one segment of the market. But it doesn't get much penetration in Bendigo. Given the demographic shift of the educated young (which seems to be who is attracted to orienteering) to larger cities, we need to concentrate on attracting people already settled in Bendigo for the longer term. That is an older age group. Most wouldn't know what RFYL is.

Schools is problematic. We are putting a big efort in here, with state funding and a schools league running events on about 20 saturday mornings. We are designing it to eventually funnel into bush orienteering. But if you don't get the parents, the school runners won't get to bush events easily. And then they move on to Melbourne. OK.. maybe someone in Melbourne will benefit. But I don't know that the case is proven. There is also a Melbourne based schools program. But its even harder there. I doubt you would get any more than 0.1 per cent to bush events as a result. Not necessarily a good investment.

Street orienteering.. good old Pseud-O. It works. I think 70 per cent of the Victorian fixtured events fit this category. Its local to Melbourne in the way that bush is local to Bendigo. The punters love it so you can't ignore it. I am not sure to what extent it feed into bush orienteering, or whether it even needs to. And it has its own innovation. RFID control checking. Automated entry, results and announcements.

Too many events? Well, there are more events with more disciplines.. street, MTBO, Du-O, park. Trad bush orienteering will comprise only 30 per cent of the Victorian fixture this year, and two thirds of those events will be bendgo events (yes, one club in the town). Without that there would only be 17 bush events in the Victorian 2010 fixture at last count. So there is a clear trend away from workload heavy events, and with the exception of Bendigo, from traditional bush events. Despite our relatively large number of local bush events, you have to be quick to get your name on the fixture as an organiser/course setter. In contrast, for the one or two state national events we do a year, you have to twist arms to get an organiser. That is the volunteer 'market' speaking. It has always been my contention that its the one you have to listen to very closely.

i want to hear some more words of wisdom from simmo

Some people have way too much time to tap on the keyboard -- that time could be spent so much more productively organising more orienteering events ....

But seriously, there's obviously no chance at all that orienteering can be completely professional -- fatrat's point is that we should pay for some things that need to be done, but that we don't do well normally. This includes the promotion, administration (and day-to-day management) of the sport. In my experience, the administrative load grows every year while the budget and volunteer base effectively shrinks. Not sustainable in the long term.

I always find it funny when people who are volunteers, get all shitty when its pointed out that work has not been done, sighting that- "Its a volunteer position" Its not volunteering if you dont do it, its just being a wanker

FatRat - who doesn't target outdoor and teacher education? WA has a (Paid) school development officer ( simmo) that gives school groups lessons and runs teacher workshops, conducts schools championships, interschool events etc

Every high school I have worked at has had navigation stuff at it (although limited links into weekend orienteering and in some cases limited similarity to orienteering, despite them using the name) and I certainly make it as close to the real thing as I can and publicise local events, but have had no takers since returning to Perth 2 years ago

Heaps of young kids are getting exposed to orienteering in WA, but not many make the jump to attending bush events.
There are ways to get them there (I have driven some myself in years gone by, but they didn't stick at it) but they need a lot of time and effort for what may be minimal return...

lazydave, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that AROC had employed any orienteers, and my comment about the professionalism of AROC was based only on what I know about the AR scene in WA - which I have to admit is largely hearsay. There is a regular litany of complaints about inaccurate maps and misplaced controls at AR events in WA appearing on this site (perversely, though, the participants seem to enjoy this aspect!). And a number of AR event date clashes and late cancellations have occurred in WA, which also doesn't inspire much of a belief in professionalism on the part of AR organisers. Maybe these events are nothing to do with AROC, I don't know.

Calling a volunteer who fails to get every thing done a wanker because they don't appreciate criticism.- you might think that but saying it is not a wonderfully constructive way to build the volunteer pool.

It shouldn't matter if you are a volunteer or a paid employee, if it is your job to do something then you shoudl do it or accept the criticism, but it needs to be constructive not destructive. And those who criticise the volunteers need to be willing to put their labour where their mouth is and show it can be done correctly since they clearly know a better way.
The original thread here was that no info was up about round 1 NOL event. No entirely true There was basic info, like location race formats dates and approx times in the NOL program, but there is no direct link to it on the OFA website. The only way to find it was through the news archive from Sept 10 2009. The NOL links should have been updated ages ago. Who's job is that?
From the correspondence that has been happening between those responsible for the round 1 events I would conclude things are in hand and progressing OK, but clearly not as quickly as some would like.

fletch: we target schools, and we do some teacher education. if orienteering doesnt form part of the formal training of the teacher, and we don't try to make it happen, I would argue we dont TARGET these people.

phatmax: by OFA you mean OA - 5 year ago change? probably Manager High Performance persons job to have on OA website, but it kinda is kinda isn't, the problem with being so tight is you ask one person to do a million jobs, although only a few that really fit within their remit. Also generated by not really having anyone that manages staff, programs....

So, everyone is burnt out, overcommitted, grumpy and frustrated and this year's O season hasn't even started yet...that pretty much encapsulates the biggest problem within orienteering, I'd say.

(quoth the pessimist)

Anyone for a round of golf?

thanks everyone for the entertaining read. i love it when people get fired up. i also love it when clowns bag out something they know absolutely nothing about, eg simmo and AROC...

Shep (sh-ep)
adj.
2. Using or marked by tact and sensitivity in dealing with others.

It's good to see some people getting excited about these races. Don't worry - they are in good hands.

These are races that you will not want to miss.

After all the entertainment, a constructive post. ;-}

Thanks for whoever added these links to the event calendar on the OA Web Site
http://www.orienteering.asn.au/events/