Discussion: A proposal for the Team
in: Orienteering; General
Aug 21, 2003 9:30 AM
#
Having vented, now's the time for more constructive stuff. (No, I haven't been drinking.) As I said, the best way for the Team to raise money appears to be holding events. This makes the Team a target of accusations by clubs that it is skimming the cream off an existing investment in maps and volunteer power that these clubs view as revenue-generating assets. The only maps that the Team owns are the Harriman maps; using them year after year is clearly not feasible.
So, short of original ideas, I'll throw in an old one. We could consider investing in new maps and rotating them with the Harriman areas. Managed properly, this activity could generate a consistent revenue stream just like it does for "plain boring" O-clubs. We would be different from those clubs in that we would not be interested in any activities they "waste" the time and energy on except holding the A (or IOF) events and using the proceeds for Team training and competition. We could just leave local events on the map to a neighboring club in exchange for royalties.
We should be careful, however, to not ask the neighboring club for too much, like seed/investment money or volunteers, because then we'd be viewed as unwelcome invaders. Seed money could come from USOF map-loan fund (try to keep that USOF as friends). I also have preliminary offers of mapping in exchange for later event proceeds and possibly royalties, with little payment upfront.
Certainly this is not a new idea and there are reasons why this has not been done before. What has subtly changed in the 10 years that I have been observing US orienteering is that people have become more serious about O. The membership is stable but the people who are there attend more events, travel farther, and train slightly better. There *just* may be a base among this membership to support this idea now that there wasn't in the past.
There are items to carefully consider before plunging in.
* The new maps have to be as close to a major population center as possible. Thinking locally, there are areas around BAOC fringe (but still sufficiently close to the population) that BAOC has little interest in. It would be nice if a lot of Team people lived around these areas but this may not be possible given other constraints. But clearly South Dakota would not work.
* As much use must be made of existing assets as possible. I.e. hold a sprint or a relay event on a long-forgotten, slighly-modified nearby map as a third/fourth day. But not get too greedy; clearly the customer base for the 1000-day is smaller than that for a regular 2-day meet.
* We should not be afraid to charge what is reasonable. $25/day seems like the absolute floor (it is hard to find a decent 5k for less than $25 around the Bay Area). Remember, this is a rich country despite whatever is going on, and people are more prosperous now than 10 years ago.
* Plans will have to be made well in advance. 2005 (preparation cycle for the Japan WOC) seems like the earliest we could venture for now given an agreement.
* Maximum use would have to be made of bid and IOF events, but we should not ask for what limited resources cannot handle. I.e. Open Champs or a WRE seem great to bid for, but an Interscholastics is not. Even a JWOC or a World Cup are not out of the question, but would require very careful preparation. For the same reason a large rogaine seems like a stretch (not too many man-hours but too many hours). By contrast, real lead time for an A meet is not large as we found out this year (and I've known all along with the Pig).
* Again, the most important thing is to keep the aboriginals happy.
Here are the numbers that at a rough glance seem to make the idea possible. Mapper costs for a map large enough for 2 days are about $10k. This for quality that will not require the course setter to do more fieldwork, and for an area just large enough for two reasonably overlapping days. A third day should use a smaller, existing, volunteer-revised (if needed) map. Eastern European printing prices for 3k maps and very good quality are well under $1k. Permits and miscellanious (which should be kept uner control) should not exceed another $1k. Equipment rental is yet another $1k. For a start, this should be all for a near-bare-bones event (which an Open Champs may well be—you do get a new map).
In the Northeast or in BAOC land, given a proper PR and marketing effort, one can expect around 200 equivalent people to show up for such an event (i.e. 600 people-days). This rings in $15k, for an around $2k first-time profit. Then there are possible royalties, places to cut the budget slightly, and places to make more $. Seems like enough of an immediate contribution to the Team budget, with a potential for more later.
One of the main points is to keep our efforts to a minimum. Notice that this plan would not have quite worked in, say, 1995 because you couldn't charge this much. Also the state of the map fund and the availability of mappers have changed significantly.
Everyone is welcome to discuss. Note that we have just about pulled a project like that through this year, but without the "new map" part. Given enough lead time I think we can do it.
So, short of original ideas, I'll throw in an old one. We could consider investing in new maps and rotating them with the Harriman areas. Managed properly, this activity could generate a consistent revenue stream just like it does for "plain boring" O-clubs. We would be different from those clubs in that we would not be interested in any activities they "waste" the time and energy on except holding the A (or IOF) events and using the proceeds for Team training and competition. We could just leave local events on the map to a neighboring club in exchange for royalties.
We should be careful, however, to not ask the neighboring club for too much, like seed/investment money or volunteers, because then we'd be viewed as unwelcome invaders. Seed money could come from USOF map-loan fund (try to keep that USOF as friends). I also have preliminary offers of mapping in exchange for later event proceeds and possibly royalties, with little payment upfront.
Certainly this is not a new idea and there are reasons why this has not been done before. What has subtly changed in the 10 years that I have been observing US orienteering is that people have become more serious about O. The membership is stable but the people who are there attend more events, travel farther, and train slightly better. There *just* may be a base among this membership to support this idea now that there wasn't in the past.
There are items to carefully consider before plunging in.
* The new maps have to be as close to a major population center as possible. Thinking locally, there are areas around BAOC fringe (but still sufficiently close to the population) that BAOC has little interest in. It would be nice if a lot of Team people lived around these areas but this may not be possible given other constraints. But clearly South Dakota would not work.
* As much use must be made of existing assets as possible. I.e. hold a sprint or a relay event on a long-forgotten, slighly-modified nearby map as a third/fourth day. But not get too greedy; clearly the customer base for the 1000-day is smaller than that for a regular 2-day meet.
* We should not be afraid to charge what is reasonable. $25/day seems like the absolute floor (it is hard to find a decent 5k for less than $25 around the Bay Area). Remember, this is a rich country despite whatever is going on, and people are more prosperous now than 10 years ago.
* Plans will have to be made well in advance. 2005 (preparation cycle for the Japan WOC) seems like the earliest we could venture for now given an agreement.
* Maximum use would have to be made of bid and IOF events, but we should not ask for what limited resources cannot handle. I.e. Open Champs or a WRE seem great to bid for, but an Interscholastics is not. Even a JWOC or a World Cup are not out of the question, but would require very careful preparation. For the same reason a large rogaine seems like a stretch (not too many man-hours but too many hours). By contrast, real lead time for an A meet is not large as we found out this year (and I've known all along with the Pig).
* Again, the most important thing is to keep the aboriginals happy.
Here are the numbers that at a rough glance seem to make the idea possible. Mapper costs for a map large enough for 2 days are about $10k. This for quality that will not require the course setter to do more fieldwork, and for an area just large enough for two reasonably overlapping days. A third day should use a smaller, existing, volunteer-revised (if needed) map. Eastern European printing prices for 3k maps and very good quality are well under $1k. Permits and miscellanious (which should be kept uner control) should not exceed another $1k. Equipment rental is yet another $1k. For a start, this should be all for a near-bare-bones event (which an Open Champs may well be—you do get a new map).
In the Northeast or in BAOC land, given a proper PR and marketing effort, one can expect around 200 equivalent people to show up for such an event (i.e. 600 people-days). This rings in $15k, for an around $2k first-time profit. Then there are possible royalties, places to cut the budget slightly, and places to make more $. Seems like enough of an immediate contribution to the Team budget, with a potential for more later.
One of the main points is to keep our efforts to a minimum. Notice that this plan would not have quite worked in, say, 1995 because you couldn't charge this much. Also the state of the map fund and the availability of mappers have changed significantly.
Everyone is welcome to discuss. Note that we have just about pulled a project like that through this year, but without the "new map" part. Given enough lead time I think we can do it.
This discussion thread is closed.