Discussion: O-Sport International 1/2005 Published

Dear readers of the AttackPoint website,


On Monday, April 4, the first ever issue of O-Sport International rolled off the printing press.

The issue 1/2005 of O-Sport International will bring you 48 colour-pages of exciting o-reading about the sport all over the world. With the first issue we will bring you virtually all the way around the world – to New Zealand, Japan, Israel, Spain, Finland, Denmark, Italy, Slovenia, Portugal, Switzerland...


On top of that, in the magazine you will find a A2 poster featuring the Australian David Brickhill-Jones (photographed by Lucie Navarová), who so excelled during the opening round of the Park World Tour in Italy.




But mainly, what all of you will appreciate most, I believe, is the new design of the magazine. Design which will be something of a revolution in our sport, but which, I believe will be appreciated by all of you, as it is so well-done and stylish. Despite being only 18, our designer Michal Sloboda knows his job perfectly; there’s no other way to put it.


Below are some previews of what the issue 1/2005 of the 'new' O-Sport brings.














Starting with 2005, the price of the one-year subscrption of the magazine for overseas readers is 51 EUR!


More Information at http://www.o-sport.net target=_blank>www.o-sport.net

Awesome!

Exactly. Do we have a NA rep for subscriptions? That would make life much easier for all of us. The biggest block to subscriptions right now is all the agents are overseas. The second biggest block is the rather late arrival of issues, but presumably that will improve over time. Maybe Scarborough Orienteering (orienteer.com) would be interested?

Yep, sweet (except for the poster of BJ... I'm not putting him on my wall since he might spit on me during the night or something... :) ).

Great work, Jan, and especially nice to see what apparently will be a more international focus beyond the very European emphasis of the old O-Sport. Any plans for regular columns from the different IOF regions, including North America, Australia/NZ, Asia and other places beyond the elite circuit? Maybe not every issue, but I think it would increase the interest outside Europe to have occasional columns and maps from elsewhere, even if the competitive standard is a little bit lower.

Beautiful!
I agree, a NA agent would be a big plus.

The British agent's website makes the subscription process pretty painless. And except for 2 issues in the past year and a half, I've gotten my issues pretty quickly. Agreed, it would be nice to have a NA distributor, but I fear it might slow delivery of the magazine even further...

Hello all of you and BIG thanks for the nice comments…


About a few subjects you've touched on so far...


NA Agent
So far we do not have an agent in the region. But presently we are finishing a new service on our website - online credit-card payments.
I will inform you when this is ready.


Internationality
I named the new O-Sport as O-Sport International. And internationality is also in my opinion the key thing with the new magazine. There are so many amazing terrains and events all over the world - and it would be real shame to narrow the focus of the magazine just to Europe. I also hope the list of contents of the issue 1/2005 support my reply here.


NA covered
I really would like to present a story on some NA event - but I would like you to help me with a tip. I think in the story we should really focus on some BIG all-American event, not just a regional race... But to tell the truth I do not fully understand the US system of o-races. I would be really grateful for any reply or suggestions I could get from you.


My email is: jan.skricka # o-sport.net


O-countries around the world
Starting with the issue 1/2005 we introduced a new regular section. In each issue, on 2 pages, we are introducing o-countries all over the world. - Terrains, maps, system of events, federation in data, etc...


Map of the issue
In each issue there is also, right in the centre of the magazine, a double page named Map of the Issue. There I will be putting most interesting maps all over the world, from various continents and countries. This page works also as a sort of a poster as it can be taken out of the magazine and pinned to your wall:)

With each map you'll find its short characteristics and brief description of the area.
In issue 1/2005 we put Kopaonik in Serbia and Montenegro as the 'Map of the Issue'


I'll be checking this thread, so if you have more questions you would like to ask, just put them in and I will reply to anything. I really feel that we have created something great, unprecedented in this sport so far, and I would be really glad and happy if I could share it with you.


Thanks for all,


Jan

I don't subscribe because I don't want to pay for the shipping. I would be willing to pay for website access, so that I could read the articles and see all the images.

I think an article of the Billy Goat Run this coming week end would be a good start of understanding NA O'.

I think a good article on the coach wearing his legendary Saegermeister Mark 1000s during the coming Billygoat would be a provocative approach to understanding NA O'. Some people might find such an article altogether too disturbing for a family type publication, however, especially if it were accompanied by exclusive photos of attack badgers ripping apart the coach's already rather weakened gaitors.

Who do I pay the 52 EUR to? The Czech rep, or the British rep?

Wyatt - at present you can pay with a credit card through the British agent - Compasspoint. But within next week, we should finally have up and running an online credit-card payment system on our website as well. Then it will be very easy to make a subscription even for readers in countries were we have noagents.

Jan, what will the price be on your website for delivery to the US?

From the European point of view, the USA belongs in the overseas category. So the price including the postage costs is 51 EUR.

Postage costs themselves make 23 EUR out of the total price.


Today I talked to our webmaster and it looks like from the next week (possibly Thursday), it should be possible to pay for O-Sport online through our website with your credit-cards.

Don't forget us Canadians!
We have the wmoc in Edmonton this year, and right before we have the Canadian championships (3 days) and a fun, simple event called "barebones" (also 3 days).
Then in august there is the US championships in Bend, Oregon, perhaps you could cover one of these :)

Nav-stock baby!! Peace, out.

We just got our O-Sport International today in the mail, and Marc didn't even take off his coat before sitting down to look through it. It looks great! I always get so excited about the international orienteering scene when I read it, I would really recommend it to everyone. Its well made, and worth the money!

Reported sighting in Cambridge, MA today. I think the new O-sport International is even better than the old version. Good luck for a long future, Jan! So it looks like long mail delays to the US won't be a big issue if it arrives in Boston only two days after Switzerland.

And it's certainly international - I count map samples from (in order of first appearance) Spain (8), Canada (1), Israel (3), New Zealand (1), Portugal (1), Italy (2), Serbia and Montenegro (1), Slovenia (2), Denmark (1), Japan (2), Switzerland (ski-o - 1), Finland (ski-o - 3), Norway (1), France (1), Kazakhstan (1), Australia (1), plus some historic maps! And then there are the photos and ads...

And no poster of BJ in my copy, thank goodness! (Did other US/Canadian subscribers get him?)

No poster in mine either.

I got the poster. I don't want it. I can send it to anyone who does. Maybe I'll bring it to St Louis and have a silent auction.

I like the new binding. It may have been done this way for reduced production costs. But it is also easier to flatten the magazine for better viewing of the maps.

No BJ in mine. I cried all morning.

Sorry about the posters, a mistake in distribution. All of you who don't have the poster in your copies will get it in a day or two.
The Czech Post made the mistake, but they told us about it and said they would send the missing posters separately. It involved some 20 subscribers altogether - unfortunately most of the USA ones, as you are at the end of the alphabet in our database which is sorted by countries.

About the new binding - it is not so much because of the production costs, but mostly because it is more flexible.
If we wanted to save on the production costs, we would not put the posters in and make the magazines all in colour...

Two main reasons for the new binding:
1) Most maps stretch accross more than one page in the magazine (and with the former binding, in such cases, parts of the maps were missing, though just tiny ones...)

2) Have a look in the centre of the magazine - the Kopaonik map. With the new binding you can take it out and put it on the wall, ceiling....:) where ever you want to.
In each coming issue you'll get map-posters like that.

That's just to explain,

Jan

I signed up for a subscriptiong through Compass Point a few weeks ago. Will I be getting this issue?

O-Sport International has reached California as I received my copy today. Perfect timing as I'm about done with my taxes...

And, there was no poster in my copy either.

It appears that this magazine has changed names yet again. I gather that what used to be "O-Sport", then was "O-Sport International" for a single issue, is now called "Orienteering Today". Is that correct? This is all pretty confusing. I get the impression there are some undercurrents - perhaps legal - among the staff there. It would comfort subscribers greatly if they could pick a name and a website and stick with it for a while. I thought "O-Sport" was a pretty cool name myself. "Orienteering Today" sounds a bit like a morning talk-show name. Like the old Monty Python sketch:

"Tonight, on 'Its the Mind' we discuss Deja-Vu, that strange feeling that you've seen something before...."

*click*

"Tonight, on 'Its the Mind' we discuss Deja-Vu, that strange feeling that you've seen something before...."

*click*

O-Sport

*click*

O-Sport International

*click*

Orienteering Today

*click*?

Maybe we can start a pool to see who can guess what the next issue will be called?

My sources tell me that O-Sport International disregarded my warning about the advisability of running an exclusive article about attack badgers bringing down a Saegermeistered coach, and the highly disturbing photos accompanying the article clearly provoked the Euro-O authorities to move quickly to shut the magazine down. But now perhaps they are learning firsthand how difficult it is to keep mushrooms from popping up in some other part of the yard.

It's still a great magazine, though, with or without name changes.

Personally, I think I may have preferred the extreme glossiness of the original and especially the square binding (which allowed them to be kept neatly on a bookshelf). But I may be in the minority on the latter point.

GeneralLy, design and layout are excellent. I can never get enough of the maps and route analysis and I thought the last issue was a little weak compare to earlier issues, but this is a quibble.

Yeah, I liked the glossier finish and square binding better too. The print quality on the maps and photos in those glossy prints was simply fantastic...*the best*. This last issue was not as good, although still very readable. The flat-stapled binding is easier for reading routes across the middle, but frankly I think the reason for the new printing and binding was a cost issue rather than a change to help readability. I preferred the old way - it really set itself apart because of that. Its far easier to justify spending $11 per-issue for a professionally bound set of glossy photos than for a stapled color newsletter. The content is exceptional and speaks for itself though.

I liked the old look better too, but I think that's the price we paid to switch to ALL color, as opposed to just the middle section in color. I'm willing to pay that price.

John, are you talking about the same rag? The "magazine formerly known as O-Sport" has been 100% color for at least the past few years. The binding/printing change came just at the turn of 2005.

Eddie, I think you might have overdone it on whatever it was Jim was serving at the Gap :-)

The only O-Sport I have that's full color was the last issue of last year (6-7/2004). Before that, about 20 pages (10 in the beginning and 10 at the end) were B/W.

The 7/2004 issue was 100% color *and* glossy with square binding. Can't we have that all the time? Lets see, in the 8 issues I have before me, the breakdown is as follows:

date # grey/total %color
1/2004 16/52 69%
2/2004 16/52 69%
3/2004 16/52 69%
4/2004 16/52 69%
5/2004 16/52 69%
7/2004 0/60 100%
8/2004 16/52 69%
1/2005 3/52 94% (last 3 pages are tintype bronze)

If by "middle section" you meant 70% of the page volume and all of the maps, route analysis and about 70% of all the photo area, then yes you are right - only the middle section is in color. I stand corrected.