Discussion: BS orienteering

"Boutique Series", that is. If we called it a "training series" we could stay off the radar. No fancy setup, no music, no levies...

Agree. I certainly like the idea and l want more technical stuff like Jim's event.. But how do insurances etc work. Is it run under the auspices of a club?
Sorry l couldn't come to the discussion day. I was 'volunteered' into assisting with an old collegian's event at my former school.

Would have to be on the Eventor fixture. Would need club support for access to infrastructure. Calling it training implies catering to all skill levels.

I also like the idea of some more technically interesting events on the calendar. If a BS is what is required I thik it would be worth while. I am sure there would be others willing to do an event on an interesting area.

And I was wondering whether Roch would like to use one of those areas near his place that deserves mapping. Watson's? Would require voluntary mapping. Most of mine is now. And I retain copyright just for ideas such as this.

The N and R Spectacular.

Just good fun. Hopefully not spectaular as it will draw crowds. On a related note, permitting is getting tougher this year. No parking inside the borders of Kooyoora Park for example. If you have less than 30 participants you don't need a permit.....

Really? Apparently in SA this year DEWNR wants to see all the courses planned for National Parks land - by some time in March!

They are trying that one as well, and we are resisting. It may be futile. When they are asked the criteria they will use to assess control sites, no-one can give an answer. Criteria would be useful to course designers. My bet is that there are no criteria. Forcing an admission of such would be amusing.

Isn't time some orienteers infiltrated these organisations and took control of the process......

I think I have blown my chances on that one.

Neil, I will send you a copy of a letter I received recently from the Loddon Shire, essentially raving about how good Kooyoora is for orienteering, and the fact that we hosted a world champs there in 1985. And now we can't even park?

Thats the gist of the message sitting in Colin's inbox. I wasn't at the 1985 WOC. In fact, I blissfully unaware of it. But I understand parking was in Inglewood and people were bussed. The arena was on private land (also now unavailable). The permit application this year was for the north of the mountain. We can park on the road outside the park. But I fear the wording meansno parking anywhere in the Park. Last year the Kooyoora event used the campground for parking and that caused friction with campers. They complained to parks. I remember the attitude of some older orienteers was a bit of "we own this place so we can just ignore them". Perhaps we can't ignore them. There aren't many other places where it is possible to park. Once the soil gets wet.. its impossible. I think future use of the south of the parkl may require parking on the side of the bitumen road and then walking in as far as Barry's Rock. Not the safest solution. Perhaps another slogan needs to be mocked up to go with Healthy Parks Wealthy People. No Park Victoria.

Back to Boutique orienteering.

Yes, the people in the camping ground were very cross about all the cars. Especially the people with little children. They thought there should have been a sign up advising of the event and then they would have gone elsewhere. That is not the first time l have heard this complaint - other events too (l think it was Spargo Creek or somewhere like that a year or so ago where 1000 people walked through a family's campsite on the way to the start). The worse bit is - it actually sounds like quite a reasonable request, but we never put up the signs. We just land on people en masse and no wonder they complain.

G & I were the only people in the campground at Kooyoora last Sunday, and the night sky was magnificent. But I guess we'd have been a bit disconcerted if a few dozen astronomers had suddenly arrived & set up their telescopes...

Neil, I'll come to a guerrilla Orientshow if it doesn't push you over the 30-people limit :)

Around here, orienteering doesn't have strategy. We have muddles, like a forest-on-sand dune event clobbering my club's long-planned school series one next Sunday.

I have a strategy, but its yet to bear fruit. The "put out a couple of markers each in an interesting area, form a course, and run round it." Run whenever there's a gap in the muddle. Uptake has ranged from 8 to 0, safely under the 30 that constitutes an "event". I think the lack of the big screen results TV is what's holding it back.

And to think an expat kiwis were telling me on Saturday how much better NZ organises its fixtures. Well apparently you do some things better than this side of the ditch. I will tell you after this Easter if I agree. ;-)

Easter is at a different level. There will always be those who can "pull out all the stops" for a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. I'm more interested in the grass-roots, and sustainability. Which suffer when a lot of the resources go to BHAGs.

I must admit, I found the WMG in Victoria exhausting. I was so over WMG afterwards that I didn't have the enthusiasm to go to the NSW equivalent some years later. So just once I am inflicting myself on NZ. Mind you, I would be just as happy to attend if all the events were low key training events. Its the availability of so many opportunities to experience your dune terrain that is the attraction, The WMG superstructure is more a nuisance in some ways.

Inflicting WMG on yourself or yourself on NZ...? :)

NZ inflicted WMG on themselves.... if it came here again most would just say No. I suspect most other countries with experience of WMG orienteering would feel similarly. Probably explains the IOF change of heart.

Yeah, I think the response to the IOF survey was resoundingly separatist!

The Victorian experience was a saga. I was thankfully insulated with the WMG organisation dealings. The event really teetered on the edge in a number of ways.
-discovering by accident a plan for a vegetation burn on the qualification map the day of the competition. It was a case of noticing something on someone's computer while walking past. This was despite all the required permits being issued.
-having to re-layout competition maps for the two quals in the last week because of a spat between government and a landholder over road access and grading
-the discovery of a control in the wrong place just an hour before the first start of the final
- having to set fair Vic Championships on the day after the final when each age group has had three different finals on different parts of the map the day before.

Beats me why NZ undertook it. Well it beats me why Australia undertook it a second time:-)

Different states of the nation. NSW wasn't involved with Victoria's effort so didn't benefit from experiential learning. They had their very own experiential learning experience. Mind you, some Victorians more involved than I did try and warn them. The real issue is probably the IOF who insisted that WMG would involve orienteering. Trouble is, no-one in the national orienteering administration is involved in any decision to bid, or any bid itself. That is driven by government who is enamored with the claimed economic benefits. Then suddenly a voluntary organisation finds it is expected to organise an international carnival. That is not a good model for buy in from the on-ground volunteers.

You won't be surprised at this: http://portugueseorienteeringblog.blogspot.co.nz/2...
You don't need to read very far...

"Passing the decision was a relief."
Is that like passing a kidney stone?

No, its worth reading to the end...
"I hope that now, with less official obligations, I can find more time and channel more energies into meaningful tasks ..."
Underneath this is the issue that the work is done by volunteers. As he said... can you fire them for not complying with instructions from above.

-discovering by accident a plan for a vegetation burn on the qualification map the day of the competition. It was a case of noticing something on someone's computer while walking past. This was despite all the required permits being issued.

This is not at all unusual.

For a World Masters event I suspect it is unusual. Back then I worked in the same building as the managers of the burning program. No longer. The left hand-right hand problem of Park management comes up with wonderful conflicts every year or so. Last year it was scheduling a Sporting Shooters fox hunt on the same bush block and same day as an orienteering event.

Yeah for a World Masters (from a competitor perspective) it probably is unusual. For something happening in Australia, not so.

In fact we've just this week discovered the 'planned' burns occurring on our O maps for this year - two bush and three MTBO. The comment that registered with me from our DPaW contact is that the foot events will need to be cancelled if the fire management people suddenly decide they want to burn on the weekends in question.

I don't know if they'll even bother giving permission for the MTBO events since they might suddenly decide to burn at any time of the year although two are popular MTB areas so I've no idea how they'll manage those. Last time I rode in one of the areas during a burn, I only found out about it when I encountered the leading edge of the fire.

"-the discovery of a control in the wrong place just an hour before the first start of the final"
I don't remember that. Are you sure?

I remember it. It was in the far western part of the map used by the oldest courses (not the ones Bruce was responsible for). Hania, who was pre-running, picked it up. Goes to show you can never check too many times...

That's the one. My understanding is that the control site had been shifted at the request of the controller, but the flag was placed at the original site. You could call it a cognitive versioning issue. Like Blair said... check early and then check often.

"the oldest courses"

*imagines a group of geriatric courses inching their way around a small corner of the map...