Mike’s eNews – 22 May 2015

Contents

Major Events – Franchise Option

Finance

Vision for the sport

WOC Legacy

Xplorer Goes National

University Orienteering

Ordnance Survey

As always, feel free to forward this eNews to your members; it’s going to be published on the eNews page at http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/page/enews on Monday so if you would rather send them a link please feel free to do so.

Major Events – Franchise Option

Many thanks to the clubs and associations that responded. The responses have been really helpful.

The so called ‘franchise’ option for the delivery of the major events is clearly not viable from most people’s perspective which is completely understandable. The option places the greater part of the financial risk with clubs/associations and requires clubs/associations to be able to manage the cash flow.

Of the 19 responses only 2 indicated they think it a viable option and would be willing to organise one of the major events under such a scheme.

Our view was always that this was an unlikely option but that it needed putting on the table and discussing; it was therefore no surprise that it is not considered to be a viable option.

Several ideas were presented in the responses that we will consider further and float around for comment:

1. That clubs are happy to organise the BOCs in general as their size (number of participants) are deliverable by clubs – they are not significantly larger than other large events organised by clubs.

2. The JK is an exception to this as the larger number of participants and the 4 day nature of the event does put greater organisational pressure on a club(s).

3. The idea of a ‘super’ levy for major events was floated in several responses as worthy of further consideration.

4. The relationship between the major events and the funding of British Orienteering was raised several times.

More options will be floated for comment in the next few months. It will take a little longer than expected as I think the ideas above need to be given more consideration, particularly (d).

Finance

Speaking of finance it is clear that we need to provide you with further information about how British Orienteering is funded and what can be delivered with that funding.

It is clear that the income generated by members and participants on which we try to fund the core business of British Orienteering has remained at approximately £250,000 for almost 10 years. For interest this includes £25,000 of income generated by the major events. This means the current ‘core’ business is significantly sponsored by Government funding. The situation is almost certain to change over the next 2 to 3 years as government cuts back on what they perceive to be non-essential expenditure. Sport England for example receive over 30% of their funding from the Exchequer (Government) the remaining 70% is from the Lottery. The Exchequer funds to Sport England are used to support core operations of organisations such as British Orienteering whilst the Lottery funding is for enhancements and projects, time limited. Lottery funds cannot be used for on-going costs such as ‘core’ business under current legislation.

The loss of Exchequer funding to Sport England will mean that British Orienteering is extremely unlikely to receive funding for ‘core’ business after 1 April 2017.

What this means to British Orienteering the Board will be discussing in June and then, hopefully, we will have more information we can share with you.

Vision for the sport

Once again many thanks to those people who responded to the survey. As always the insight the responses provide is extremely useful.

We are continuing to analyse the responses and will be publishing the ‘raw’ data immediately after the Board meeting so that you can have a look for yourself.

The summary data is easier to deal with than the comments and highlights a number of points.

Q1: The vision will reflect one or more key themes; can you rate the following themes and tell us which you think should be reflected most strongly in the vision.

Q2: Once the vision is agreed it will shape the way British Orienteering uses the resources it has available. However there will continue to be resource allocated to the following tasks; how would you allocate resources – assuming no funding from government agencies is available? (Numbers as %s)

Q3: The following are examples of a vision for orienteering; how would you rate them on a scale of 1 (Poorly) to 5 (Highly)?

Q5: The 'strap line' we currently use is 'more people, more places, more podiums' (mp3); how would you rate this on a scale of 1 (Poorly) to 5 (Highly)?

The comments added to the responses are fascinating and, as you will guess, there are many conflicting views and few themes that are strongly reflected across a significant number of comments! Why would we ever think this might be easy? What one person sees as ‘obvious and a no brainer’ the next see as ‘essential’!

There are preferences indicated in the rating questions that do come across and that will be taken into consideration, the top 3 of these being:

1. Increasing participation

2. Increasing membership

3. Improving the promotion/image of orienteering particularly as an outdoor adventure sport

WOC Legacy

British Orienteering and WOC2015 are looking at the potential for a ‘Find Your Way To Orienteering’ legacy project and are asking clubs if they would be interested in being involved. The project would involve clubs hosting 4-6 weeks of introductory sessions starting between 17th August and 6th September aimed at introducing people to the sport. British Orienteering and WOC2015 will provide specific session plans and clear guidance, though of course clubs will be at liberty to adjust these to suit their own circumstances.  We recommend that you charge an appropriate fee for these sessions, which should include the full membership fee for club/region/British Orienteering.  Sessions might be for juniors, adults or both; they might be in towns, parks or forests – or indeed a mixture.  The sessions should be focused around an appropriate population centre and be no more than 20 minutes travel time from that centre. Ideally these sessions should be run by qualified coaches however experienced orienteers with a friendly manner will be able to deliver fun and engaging sessions with the resources supplied. Please indicate your interest by completing this survey before Monday 1^st June.

Xplorer Goes National

Last week we launched an England wide offer for Friends of Park groups and have had a good response with 20 parks signing up already. As these groups are confirmed over the next few weeks the development team will be in touch with clubs where they are based. If you know of any groups who would be interested in this offer please direct them to www.xplorer.org.uk/offer for more information.

University Orienteering

If you have any club members who are heading to university for the first time in the Autumn and aren’t sure how they will continue to orienteer or would be interested in setting up an Orienteering club at their university please encourage them to contact Craig Anthony  canthony@britishorienteering.org.uk or 07972 780542 for assistance.

Ordnance Survey

My apologies but I have not yet published the guidelines for mappers I promised a month or more ago. There remain a couple of significant issues to resolve with OS and as soon as I am able to finalise these the guidance will be published.

'More People, More Places, More Podiums'

For further information about orienteering please visit www.britishorienteering.org.uk