Discussion: Fair enough

It was pretty good training for the Australian Champs though, which are going to be long, steep and rocky, but hopefully with better weather.

i thought yesterdays race was fantastic, really tough and steep and long, but thats what i like and dont think we have enough of. i certainly think though, that i am in a minority of people who enjoy that sort of race.
i do agree with you that it would make things more enjoyable to focus on a smaller number of courses with more competitors.
the weather yesterday certainly didnt make the event anymore fun for anyone.
btw,
"In Norway we only have long courses in championships or national league."
-sounds like your getting a bit homesick torgeir

heh
aren't you going back soon?

ev- the hard man is a dieing breed. As proven at the you yangs event.

i think jimbo proved this weekend that he is the hard man

yeah he's getting harder.
other descriptive words I've heard used: weathered. old.

number of apparent hard men at the you yangs event: 0

Torgier, some people like only running against 3 others (they always place!) and they could'nt possibly run against someone who was more than 5 years younger than them as that would be absolutely unfair. This is why we have 5 year age groups and lots of courses. I think its ok for me to say this as I dont think any of these people are on attackpoint!

actually i am going to propose to the voa that we set a different course for every age group between 5 and 95 in monthly increments(a total of 1080 courses). that way you only run against those who were born within 30 days of you. I think this would be a much more fair and sensible way to run State league events. how can i be expected to compete with toph when i am 6 months his senior. i mean whilst he is in his prime i am practically riddled with arthritis.

Torgeir- didn't you berate me on Sunday for driving all the way out to Maldon, and not running a long course?

Torgeir, There is a lot of merit in what you say, cutting down on the number of courses not only gives competitors more competition, but more importantly, makes it easier for the organisers.
I personally, like the longer race, but I could have made do with course 2. :-(

hmm Torgeir...loooonger stronger bigger better... yea

Mate it's not always about competition. What makes orienteering fun is the challenge in difficult unknown terrain where you make your decisions on your own.

Anyway it doesn’t really matter if there are 5 people running as far as the course setter has managed an awesome course, and you have a great 'journey' in the forest.

Often it happens that you don't see anyone running the same class even if the are 30 competitors. I guess the load on the organisers wouldn't change much going from 10 courses to 5 as most of the courses will use the same controls anyway in the small 'competitions'

Finally I don't think many orienteers runs for the prizes....

Why don't some of you guys come to the OV council meetings or get on the Orienteering Victoria Board?
I tried a proposal for simpler State Series events in July, but got no support from the oldies.

It seems a lot of older orienteers mindset is not competition but the courses, yet most younger orienteers would run an orienteering course around a football field if it meant good competition, even though they would complain privately (or maybe publicly) a bit later.
I agree that a simpler set of courses is better, I mean the difference in length of some of the shorter hard courses (that the older age groups compete in) is quite small (like four courses within 1km length difference), so I think they can be combined on this basis. Sure it would make a lot of people run the same course. So?
There also seems to be an arguement by those against amalgamating age groups that the people 5 yrs younger than them are superior and they just cant compete. I reckon thats not true, and if someone truly wanted to 'compete' they would just do a bit of training. Other sports (triathlon?, road running?) have broader agegroups and I dont think anyone complains that they cant compete, they just do their best and dont 'expect' to be able to win.
We have a lot of overworked officials already, I think simplifying the course/class structure would take a load off them and also make orienteering fresher and more competitive.
I know all this has already been said, but I'm bored at work and wanted to put my thoughts forward.

I agree! I've been doing a fair few cross country races lately and at athletics vic events they have separate age classes for juniors and for everyone else they just have different divisions, age does'nt really matter you end up competeing against people of your standard. So all the women do the same course but compete in different divisions against other women of similar standard.

I once went to an OV technical committee meeting........ and saw how frustrating it was for someone who had some really good ideas about changing the current system ie cutting back on age groups, courses and bringing a bit more variety to the types of courses at state events in vic. But a lot of people just would'nt listen, they would'nt have a barr of it!

OA is putting a proposal fwd at the end of this year to decrease number of age classes/courses. dont know what Victoria is voting on that one.

BTW nice rant Top Gear.

Here comes an old fart.. though perhaps a bit unrepresentative of old farts in general. Some points:

1. Yes, there is a proposal from OA for fewer courses at badge and championship events. I'm personally in favour of it, thinking perhaps a bit more could be done. ie it doesn't go far enough. Victoria's position... There was a meeting after the Mt Terrible (apt in my mind) event. It was at an appallingly noisy cafe. A couple of people dominated the meeting (not me) and the initial position was against too much change. One argument was indeed the 'I can't compete against someone 9 years younger than me".

2 So if you don't like it, you have to have your voice heard. Yep, meetings are frustrating, but they are often where decisions (eventually) get made. I am personally very impressed with how deeply Julian Dent has got involved in orienteering management. The sport needs more of that. And you might be surprised at how pleased the old fart brigade would be. As a start, I would really encourage as many of you as possible to turn up at the next VOA policy day. Probably in Jan or Feb.

Personal opinion... I haven't run my age group this year. I couldn't care less about SS tables. I'm into good experiences in the forest and cameraderie afterwards. Thats why I organise that Ironman event (thanks for the kind words Torgeir). Its a finger pointed up in the air at fairness. Hopefully its about fun. Part of the fun is that its a mass finish event. WE don't have enough of those on the calendar. Score events, Billygoats etc would help build that cmeraderie. Can we organise a fixture next year with no SS events?

I don’t know if it’s correct to use Scandinavia as a benchmark for how to organise orienteering events in general, but a few observations is worth mentioning:

When we have weekend events there they tend to be different throughout the season; sometimes it’s just a short course (for everyone), sometimes mass-start, sometimes a relay, sometimes extra long and so on. And it’s up to the organiser to decide how they want the event to be –not the state association. Here it tends to be more or less the same. (And never any night events, sigh…)

Also, some of the most popular events are midweek ones; in Oslo they might attract a few hundred runners each week. They are organised with only a few courses (5 I believe) and the longest one no more than 6-7km. I’ve taken part in organising those kinds of events several times myself, and it normally doesn’t take more than 3-4 people to do the whole damn thing.

Right before I moved they also started something called “oslo city cup”; a joint venture between the clubs in the city (http://nydalen.idrett.no/occ2006/index.html for those that reads Norwegian). The events are organised midweek with just one sprint course for everyone on 1:5000 maps within the city, with a pursuit start in the last even. They have become very popular.

I observe that the main argument for the “old farts” is that they don’t want to compete with someone 9 years younger than them; but running the same course doesn’t mean that you have to run in the same class! M21S don’t compete with M45 or W35 just because they happen to have the same course!

Another common thing organisers do back home is to combine age classes due to few entries. They simply put it in the invitation that they will do so, and no one can complain…

I think maybe I have to go to one of those meetings you’re all talking about here; the “old farts” arguments seems pretty weak to me and I think I would like to hear them “live”. It’s like they’re living in the past; soon they will start voting for 1:50.000 black and white maps…

We must drive the sport forwards and constantly think of how we can make it more appealing. I think another good, different and fun event this year was Bruce’s Turkey Traverse. Why can’t we have more of those?

We've got a Turkey Trot happening also in Sydney in November sometime. These sort of events are great fun.
Also the Stingers (with the lynchpin being FatRat) have started a Sprint Series here in Sydney on Monday nights to complement the Summer Series. This seems to be in the same vein as the Oslo Cup. It only seems to attract the diehards though (only 30 entries as opposed to 200+ for SS), many seem to think that a 20min course is not 'value for money', which is of course not the point. We are marketing less as a 'sprint' series but rather a 'park' series this year, last year I think we scared away too many by using words such as fast and exciting!
So it looks like people are trying to do things as you talk about Torgeir, whether we can pull the rest of the o-community along is another question!

http://www.nswstingers.com/sydneysprints

glad you noticed Julians involvement Pensioner. He's not the only one. It might take a while for the "disinterested and doesnt volunteer" image of australian elties to be dismissed but these days round the country you have ANdy Hogg, Ben Rattray, Gareth Candy, Blair (all OA Board), Julian, Dave Shep, Shannon Jones (OACT Board), Robbie Presont (NSW Board) and theya re just the ones I know about off the top of my head. THere are some good "youngsters" putting in these days. the days of the o old fart are numbered! ;)

> ANdy Hogg, Ben Rattray, Gareth Candy, Blair (all OA
> Board), Julian, Dave Shep, Shannon Jones (OACT Board)
> Robbie Presont (NSW Board) and theya re just the ones
> I know about off the top of my head. THere are some good
> "youngsters" putting in these days. the days of the o old
> fart are numbered! ;)
I have noticed and am really pleased about it. Its the healthiest thing I have seen for the sport in a while.
Dealing with Andy as technical Guru has been great. I find myself in sessions of furious agreement over email.
There is a place for the rest of us older farts, and some in particular have put in years of work that makes my belated involvement look puny. The place for us is sitting beside the younger contributors working together to keep as many as possible involved, enthusiastic and active in the sport.

Back to SS formats. To a degree its the same people organising each year. Often its not an unwillingness to try new ides, rather an inertia from habit. Here is my challenge to you all.

1. Get involved in running the sport like Blair and Bruce. There are vacant positions and tired people. The more of you that put your hand up, the more of a social occasion it will be for you, rather than a mix with us old farts.

2. Get a consensus between you about the format for 'Course 1' next year. Better still, try and generate a concept fixture for next year. The fixture is being designed at the moment. Its really a case of few people taking an interest. Steve Peacock was volunteered by Blair for this job.

3. The best way to get the sorts of events you want is to organise them. Come up with fun and interesting formats that minimise the work of organisers, and you will soon see the ideas adopted. Bruce is doing a good job on this already. There is no rule saying a club must organise so many SS events. What has happened in the past is the calendar is notionally populated with them, and then someone shanghais clubs into organising the SS events. Last year we had too few clubs volnteering for the number in the calendar.

4. Its possible MFR and BG will each be organising a day of the QB weekend next year around Inglewood. We don't have to organise two SS events between us. Ideas anyone? What would you like?

Togeir, if you want a night event or two, we have a couple coming up in Bendigo. The one not to miss is the Twilight 3 hour. Although you might do it in less than 3 hours. It starts in light and finishes in dark. Its a Friday night event, in a score format. Followed by a BBQ or such. Get a car or two from Melbourne full of people so you aren't the only young fart. It must have been pretty quiet for you at the last night O, I came second and you had already finished and left an hour before I came in.
I'm sure Ilka and Ev will convince their parents to put a few of you up afterwards. Or the same with Jim.

Hi All

Well, I thought I had better put my few cents worth in here. Yes, there is a proposal to reduce the number of age classes at badge events & state champs (not it doesn't apply to Nationals or Easter). Basically we want to go to 10-year age groups in veterans, and reduce the number of AS & B classes offered.

The proposal has generally had support. The exceptions are Victoria (who I believe will oppose the proposal, but they have not given a coherent or rational reason) and NSW (where the oldies are opposed to it & the youngies are in favour).

To me, the main issue is the image of the sport for new competitors. Who wants to get involved in a sport where everyone gets a badge and there's noone to race against? For new competitors, they want to meet people (by racing against them) and learn to improve. They won't do that running in a class by themselves.

I think the proposal will go through in December in something close to it's original form -- but this is because the more enlightened states (SA, WA, ACT and Qld) will probably vote for it. But you guys in the other states can still help. Firstly, lobby your club reps, state association reps to the OA Conference and the state technical committee to vote in favour of it. Secondly, and most importantly, if it does get up PUT PRESSURE ON YOUR STATES TO IMPLEMENT THE NEW STRUCTURE ASAP.

If anyone wants a copy of the proposal just email me.

Not all 'oldies' are against the proposal in Victoria. I suspect its just a few of the noisier and more assertive reps of some clubs. Bendigo Club is all for it. The 'rational reason' that i have heard is something about fairness. My argument has been that if you want to run against the best in your age group in Victoria, you have to run outside your age class.
Here's a sample....
M35 Is that you Liggo?
M40... Warren
M45.. Jymbo
M50.. Geoff Lawford
All four run M21
M55 Peter Jackson, runs M40 or 45
W35 Won't say who is best, but they run W21
W40? Do we have many?
W45 Jools runs W35
W50, unusually, Sue Neve runs her age class
W55 Anitra runs W35 As does Mary Enter
The Victorian SS age class competition is pointless. Scrap it.

I like the idea of 4 reds courses, 2 orange,(or 5 red, 1 orange a blue and green. No age classes. It would never get through though.
I think, like most things, that after the initial bitching and moaning the majority of the nay-sayers will realise it is a better system. I think of the sprint, many NSW 'oldies' - as they are affectionately being called - were of the opinion it was for young people, not value for money and easy/boring orienteering. At the NSW Sprints this year i got many good comments about how they enjoyed having many controls in short amounts of time as on there 'normal' courses it does not really happen. I think they just needed to experience to open their eyes a little and see that it was a step forward for orienteering and all that was needed was some willingness to try new ideas.
On a slightly different subject, i think the name 'Badge Event' should be scrapped, if someone reads the website all they'll think is 'what the hell is a badge event?'. Maybe 'Ranking Race'? I know this really only applies to the 21A classes but in a way they are gettinh 'ranked' for a badge( that no one bar a select few give a toss about)
BTW Torgeir, a ripper log!

Yep. its true. The title 'badge event' is ridiculous. The idea of getting a badge might be motivating for some, eg young kids, but it makes orienteering sound like scouts.

What is the point of getting a badge anyway?
'Woohoo! I finished within 25% of the top three competitors in my class.'
(If there were actually three people in your class)

If the badge system must stay, at least call it something else.

Sprint event markets....
The Bendigo sprints, the ironman and skins, attract far fewer local bendigo orienteers, but attractive quite a few melbiourne visitors. The idea of sprinting tends to act as a disincentive for recreational orienteers, but those that have tried the ironman generally seem to enjoy it. One mature orienteer has commented that its the only time he gets to run against the fastest in Victoria, and sprint with them at the finish line. The challenege is haow to package sprints so we get past the initial reluctance/fear/uncertainty.

All great ideas. But let me make a comment to some of my colleagues in Victoria. Don't just talk on attackpoint - get involved and do something about it!
For the past 5 years all of these kind of views have been left up to 2 or 3 very busy people to push. Unfortunately the numbers don't stack up in meetings.
Get involved in your club committees and state council or board. NSW and ACT guys have taken the lead here, so it time for VIC guys to get involved and to make a difference.

Bruce, that is a problem with most AP enthusiasts in Victoria being in one club, well two if we add bendigo. Those two clubs are in agreement. I think what we need to do is just start doing things differently with own club resources and see if others follow. And of course get involved. A mass turn up at the next Policy Day would be great.

BTW… I’m not too sure if I classify as a newcomer anymore, but I have never seen any of the badges you are referring to -nor do I have any idea of how to get one (apart from the helpful information from Stu here).

However, I did receive a nice little yellow piece of fabric with a cute lizard on it from SA the other day saying: “2nd M21A SA orienteering champs 2006”. I have no idea of what the hell to do with it, so at the moment it’s attached with BluTack to my office wall: reminding me that I need to do some training every now and then (which I don’t anyway).

Is that one of the infamous badges?

And yes, if I'm in the country I'll come to the next Policy Day!

Anyone else dare to make that promise...?

How about we stack the "Bush O" committee and come up with a few proposals for next year?
Blair, Jymbo, Pensioner, Bruce, Torgeir, Big Ev, Disco, Fell, Ilks and Scammell could all be in? That covers 5 clubs, which should be enough to get most things passed.
I'll discuss this with a few guys in WA next week.

Badges, no, a different badge. People on this site should be very defensive of the Badge scheme. It is a strategy to extract money from the average orienteer and use it to fund travel to WOC etc, or so I understand. Where are U Blair?
At present the National and State Long Champs, Easter and designated badge events have a levy extracted from them that goes to OA. For the levy, you get the chance to earn badge credits. If you finish within a certain y% of the top x runners' average time, you earn a gold, silver or Bronze badge credit. Get three in a year of a certain standard and you can pay for a badge, gold, silver or bronze. These badges are centrally coordinated by yet another long term volunteer. Some clubs order badges en masse as an encouragement for juniors in particular. We buy them for juniors in Bendigo.
If you finish the course you will generally get bronze credit. Gold is a little more of a challenge for someone of my skill. I think at one stage the gold qualification was meant to be used as a filter for entry to the elite class. That fell by the wayside some time ago.
BTW, the Crystal Mine event was a Badge event and we forgot. As a result, we didn't up the enry fee for the badge levy, so as a result we will make a loss on the event. I think we made the same mistake last time as well.

Re stacking, Bendigo once mused about doing that to the dieing Brumby to get access to Sedgwick.
Officially there is only one rep per club. But when I was trying to chair the bush committee I never saw a vote. It was more a consensus, often by default. One or two people would argue a point till teh others gave up. So extra observers would always help.
Bendigo can supply Jymbo, Ev, Ilks and myself.
Disco and Fell can do Nillumbick
MFR and ARDF are easy as well.
Is Blair part of YV?
Seriously, one of the reasons I gave up trying to chair the Bush committee was that it was hard to get any response from many reps. It wasn't so much a conspiracy to keep things as they are, but more a lack of energy to change things. Change takes effort. After two years I felt worn out. I think others felt that way after the long run of big events. A new enthusiastic crowd would be great.

cracker stuff!

branch-stacking the bush-o comittee!!!
holy shit!!! i can already feel this power going to my head.

comment from another old (I hesitate to say fart) runner. I agree there are too many courses generally including at championship events. Lets maker it simpler for setters and controllers by cutting the number back. Sensible selection of control sites (easier rather than harder) on highly complex areas (eg Honeysuckle or Badja) can also save time for setter and controller as well as cutting the number of dnf's and the number of people who take excessive time on courses. The latter outcome also helps the setter reduce the number of courses. Having Fewer people standing around on top of rocks like lost gnomes might also improve the image of orienteering as an athletic pursuit rather than some strange form of hide and seek!!

But good for the image as a meditative sport.

This has been a most enlightening discussion to read that the forum would apparently prefer to reduce the present format State Series events in favour of more (varied) competition. I advocate fewer State Series events and more club events. No more than one SS per club per year. With State and Mid Distance Champs that is still a good number of high standard events. We could still keep the age classes even if the number of courses is reduced. But we don't have age classes in our Park/Street comps, and noone is pushing for them. However there is an influential minority? in favour of keeping the present State Series format.
As far as Policy Day is concerned, it only happens once a year. Anyone can attend and contribute to discussion, but only the club delegates can vote. In many ways it would be better to influence the Bush-O sub-committee, or get involved with some of the national sub-committees.

without wanting to stir up another wasps' nest...

have a look at the street-O system:
5 courses.

When you finish your course you are given a certain amount of points based on what position you finished on the course, eg. 100 for 1st, 99 for 2nd, etc.
After the first few competitions, each runner's average points are worked out and they are placed into a division within each course (eg. Course 1A, 1B, 1C, or Course 2A, etc.)
They spend the next part of the season competing within these divisions (but their points are still based on their position against all competitors on that course)-
so not necessarily against people of their own age, but rather people of similar ability / motivation.

The average is re calculated/considered every quarter/third/half of the season, and people can be moved into a more suitable division-
by the end of the season the divisions should be pretty correct.
At the end of the season, places are awarded to the top 3 in each division.


could this system substitute the current SS system?

Would it be relevant in terms of a badge- eg.
Course 1Gold, 1Silver, 1 Bronze....


I see this system as more effective than the current SS one for the following reasons-
-People compete at a level which they choose to
-Competition level is a lot higher
-The course setter does not need to set as many courses
-if people feel like running up or down a course here or there, they can (the average will cover them).
-If people improve over the season, they can compete at a higher division/level of competition, without changing courses

disadvantages:
-someone is needed to calculate the results at the end of each race. (how much more work will it be than that of the current system?)

The street-o competition format has been discussed as an option by the bushies. This was at the Mt Terrible bush-o meeting. I wasn't there - reports are second hand.

sounds a bit complicated...
BTW the victorian website is shit

The terrible bush-o meeting, where there was far too much noise to communicate.....
Queensland option was discussed. This is a handicap score system based on age, sex, distance. The idea is you can run any course and then have winners calcualted afterwards. Maybe this will be put on the OA web site as part of the planned Australian O results service.
Its a neat concept to allow you to compete across different courses, but I still wonder if we need to have such a competitive structure.

cracker thread Torgeir. great effort form one rant!

sorry, when I read my description now, it is a bit confusing.
It IS a simple system though.

instead of a commitee we should have a dictator. possibly a robotic one.
with a 'wildcard' circuit.

I don’t see the need to re-invent the wheel here… To introduce a new class system might just end up being more work: let’s think simplistic rather then bureaucratic! I support the suggestion of just one SS per club per year.

I do love this sport but I’m not one of the ones that necessarily like leaving home at 8AM and return home from the event at 6PM. More easy accessible events that don’t take the whole day would be great!

That can be trouble Torgeir, finding suitable areas that haven't been used to death in close proximity to cities. But that doesnt mean quality events can't be held on 'lesser' areas. Especially with SI allowing better options.
Quantity is definitely a problem with NSW SL's, too many. If less were held more people might go to those that are as they then have less 'opportunity' to run at them, they might even hold some prestige!
ACT has way too many events also, putting too much pressure on the limited resources and manpower

I've come in fairly late on this - mainly because I've been flat-out getting all the things done that I needed to get done before going to WA....

Opinion on the issue of classes does seem to be split along age lines - the older orienteers seem to like the proliferation of classes, the younger ones don't. Unfortunately the former group dominates the Victorian Bush-O committee - hopefully, from what's been said in this group, that's about to change :-). It's probably fair to say I didn't force the issue as much as I could have, but I'm definitely keen on having a State Series competition across (rather than within) age groups, as well as having fewer State Series events and more lower-level events. Canberra seems to manage perfectly well with 9 events per year at that level (including championships).

The real simplification comes with reducing the number of courses. One easy thing to do is that not every event needs to be long (for the 21s) - even if the older age groups have their usual distance, I'd like to see a mix of something like 1/3 long, 1/3 middle and 1/3 in between. The shorter events then allow you to abolish course 1, or courses 1 and 2.

Off to catch a plane now. I'll be interested to see how this develops (and I definitely look forward to seeing a few more of you put your views forward where it really matters).

I totally agree with Blair here, he points back to my initial argument: not every event needs to be long!

Maybe it’s me being lazy, but I need to build up a bit of motivation to do a 90min+ course. And in smaller events that motivation is harder to find...

Definately the best (serious) discussion i have read on attackpoint. Many of the points that have been talked about such as reducing courses and events are being talked about at state and national level. There is a change occuring with more elites showing their political skills. It would be good to stack the Vic board a bit more, and i'm hoping i can convince another stinger to join the NSW board. As Andy pointed out, NSW and Vic are the hard states with the greatest proportion of stubborn old men. But it's actually quite fun taking the fight to them, and proving that we're all young smart arses trying to destroy Rome in a day, rather than them just assuming it :-)

At Tarrengower if Courses 1,2 were eliminated and those entrants ran Course 3 then there would have been 26 on the course. Still not very many! Much the same numbers as on courses 4,5,6. Just have to change the guidelines for course setting for distances on each course. No real impact on the rest of us on courses 4,5,6. And course setters, controllers and the poor bastards who collect controls after events would not have to visit the outer reaches of the Galaxy where only Course 1 goes.
That reduces the courses to 4 Red, 2 Orange and 2 Blue/Green.
I don't think age groupings are really an issue except at championship events. The rivalry is between people on the same course regardless of age or gender. Orienteering is a navigation sport and we enjoy both the competition between yourself and the course setter, and the competition against others on the same course. This battle with the course setter is what sets us apart from sports such as track athletics where the main competition is against other athletes.
What a lot of us do not want is a short course. Who wants to travel for an hour or two each way just for a 30 minute run? That's one of the attractions of a rogaine - more time in the bush, and everyone starts together, and finishes more or less together -> social interaction.

So go along to Council and vote for change at the top end but please let the older age groups keep their "long" 3-4 km courses.

NSW Stinger.. as a stubborn old man I just have to take you to task for sexism. The old women can be just as stubborn, beleive me!