How partnering with local businesses can help promote orienteering events

Linking up with our local running shop made perfect sense: as an orienteering club we have an amazing product to sell; our local running shop The Derby Runner has the networking links and advertising capacity to reach hundreds of runners. Feedback comments from our MapRun evenings from the Derby Runner have been overwhelmingly positive: “Genuinely one of my favourite running sessions ever”, “Brilliant fun”, “Fantastic night, thank you to Derwent Valley Orienteers and to everyone who took part”.

How did your partnership with The Derby Runner come about?

The Derby Runner is a huge asset to the running community, owned and run by Rob Jefferies and his partner Elaine Walker. When you walk into this magic little shop you get a sense of history, with walls adorned with photos and signatures of running greats. The staff team have been providing specialist shoe and accessory advice to its wide and loyal customer base for nearly 40 years.

It was therefore unsurprising to find that the store operates a weekly run club from just outside the front door. The shop has an impressive advertising reach with nearly 10,000 followers on Facebook and 6000 on Instagram. When we approached the Derby Runner with the idea of partnering a MapRun, Rob was delighted to host, and quickly fitted us into his schedule.

Planning for this collaboration started over a year earlier when we employed Chris Millard as our Club Development Officer. He successfully put on a series of 8 ‘pilot’ events using MapRun with the aim of increasing participation in DVO by offering midweek evening sessions. The main attractions of this project are that sessions are accessible to all fitness levels and many of our participants choose to tackle the challenge in pairs or small groups.

It’s a collaboration that has paid off and seen an increase in participation numbers at your events – how has this had a positive impact on your club and the visibility/perception of orienteering in general?

The MapRun initiative, including the collaboration with the Derby Runner, has increased the visibility of orienteering. The initial take-up of the MapRun sessions began slowly, but over three years DVO now have a committed core of around 20 members and 50 non-members who welcome 5-10 first-timers to each event. Over the past two years we have welcomed 350 individuals across ~30 MapRuns. Our biggest attendance has been from the Derby Runner with over 90 competitors taking part.

From our existing programmes, we recognised that newcomers and members were looking for opportunities to orienteer midweek without the commitment of long-distance travel. By offering ‘smartphone orienteering’ we have found one way to achieve the goal of a local midweek session. The format has become hugely popular, with the name of DVO much more widely known in running circles and beyond.

Advantages of this ‘club night’ include: preparation and planning can be done in advance; phone set-up for first-timers is quick and simple allowing newcomers to enjoy app-based orienteering; volunteer workload is much reduced on the evening as there are no physical checkpoints to put out and collect; registration has been simplified to a single signup sheet with a phone number taken for safety.

There is a noticeable buzz around the club on MapRun nights. Professionally printed maps are available and the sessions are fully risk-assessed and registered with British Orienteering. The format has allowed us to train more club members to be planners and organisers of these sessions. Afterwards, many go on to the nominated pub to chat about routes, strategies and what’s coming up next!

What would be your advice for other clubs that don’t know where to get started in reaching out to develop partnerships and collaborations with local businesses like The Derby Runner?

We were surprised at how many running clubs - and how willing - they were to partner with us. We were quite deliberate in engaging with local running clubs and scheduling the MapRuns to coincide with their club nights (most often Thursday at 7pm), often positioning the start of the event at the training base of each club.

Our MapRun format of mass start and hour time limit aligned well with the aim of most running club sessions. The mini mass start gives a sense of occasion and an obligation to turn up on time, while the hour duration gives participants an adequate amount of time to exercise. All participants end the session together which allows sharing of maps, discussion of routes and draws people together with an increased sense of social cohesion.

Recent feedback suggested that participants like the flexibility of being able to turn up and run at the last minute, as this allowed them to fit the events around other commitments. We have taken this on board and we now offer ‘entry on the day’ at all level C and D events.

Our MapRuns deliberately move round Derby to increase the exposure of the project. We are fortunate that Derby has enough urban sprawl to allow for new navigational challenge as the events move round the City. However, we have been very conscious to restrict ourselves to a 20-minute car journey radius to minimise travelling time.

Where do you advertise the events, and how do you boost reach?

Social media has been key to the success of our MapRuns. This was very noticeable when one of our posts failed to publish on Facebook and our participant numbers were considerably down for that week. Our traditional marketing of posters and fliers still has its place and we try to distribute these widely at sports centres and at events.