School Orienteering - Taking it to the next level

Michael Posted: 7 March 2013, 3:08 PM   Michael C you haven't told us how NARK turned out? Something else worth studying: http://bubbles.school.nz/Orienteering/AllResults.pdf Looks like 700+ on a rough estimate. And very popular with girls.   Dwayne Posted: 7 April 2013, 2:15 AM   Some next level racing at the AKSS Sprint Champs Yesterday - Two events run by CMOC and NW combined times decide the winners. Check out http://www.nworienteering.org.nz for results. Photo's here http://goo.gl/wZZV6   JohnR Posted: 9 April 2013, 9:21 AM   test   JohnR Posted: 9 April 2013, 9:26 AM   Congratulation Dwayne some fantastic photos. Its hard to realize that three years ago this event didnt exist. Its so great to see 400 students going everywhere and you have captured special moments coming into controls and going out. I feel proud to be part of it and I know Mike Beverage will feel the same. But I also know we are both stuffed.   Michael Posted: 14 April 2013, 3:06 PM   Re-reading the above I'd like to know more about the Auckland SS Sprint series. Number of events in series, timing (in the year, in the day), venues (schools I guess), relation to a traditional school series, are they open events or just students, run by volunteers or does a key person get paid, that sort of thing. Your success is impressive.   Martin Posted: 15 April 2013, 3:14 AM   The school sprint series kicked off in Pukekohe 4 years ago and now covers 4 regions, each has a core of people organising. Monday (South) - Counties Manukau Monday (West/North) - Mike Beveridge Tuesday (East) - Counties Manukau Wednesday (Central) - Mike Beveridge 6 after school events are held in each zone, with races being at schools within each zone. There's a final event comprising two races on a Saturday following the 6-week series. Events are self start from 4pm and all use sportident. They are open to students, both Y7&8 and secondary school. The South & Eastern zone events are largely volunteers, with expenses (mapping, printing, travel, sportident) covered by KiwiSport funding. It's run at no cost to students. Mike Beveridge runs the Central and West/North zones, from memory $5 entry fee. He might be able to provide more details. They are a huge effort to organise and I know all the organisers are exhausted... After 4 years our KiwiSport contract is complete and Counties Manukau have submitted an application to extend another 3 years with a slightly revised structure. Watch this space!   Michael Posted: 15 April 2013, 5:06 AM   Thanks Martin, I look forward to a contribution from Mike. I'm not interested in exhaustion, but I AM interested in adjustment to stuff that we already run around here, particularly timings in relation to the school year. Looking back over this discussion, I see that Michael C and Simon have recognised this.   JohnR Posted: 24 April 2013, 10:53 AM   The participation numbers are the most interesting 2010 298 2011 1156 2012 1507 2013 2521 Next year we intend to divide the southern region into two areas to cut down the travel. This should increase the numbers over the 3000 mark. Our team is usually home by 6.30pm The controls only take about ten minutes to put out. The Head of Dept at Rosehill, who has been taking rugby for the last ten years and now takes the orienteering team said "It was like a breath of fresh air"   addison Posted: 24 April 2013, 12:33 PM   It is really amazing to see the growth and all involved should be really proud. Not only are we getting huge numbers of kids through, we're also changing the image of orienteering in many peoples minds!   MikeB Posted: 27 April 2013, 2:00 AM   I think we need to take these increased numbers in perspective. Firstly we have to remember that the figures mentioned above are possibly the total number of competitors over the six events. When you consider most of the entrants would have run at each event and you divide the total numbers by 6 you end up with the true number of participants, approx 350. That would be like us saying we had between 1600 and 1800 to the Nationals this year when in fact it was around 400 odd each day. I sat down yesterday and went through all the results on Winsplits for this years series, for each of the four zones. It makes interesting reading when you take into account those who registered and those who actually competed. Franklin was a bit more difficult to work out as only one of the events showed those who were a DNS on Winsplits. At event 1 182 registered but only 134 competed so 26% were no shows. Over the six events there were a total of 975 kids who actually competed. South east zone 4 out of the 6 events showed those who were a DNS. That showed an average of 25% of students who were a DNS. Total numbers of participants over all six events 1152. The North/West zone had an average of 14% no shows with total participating numbers of 1511. This zones has two parts to it and I hope to be able to split it in two next year. It was very obvious when schools had to move out of their zone, every second week, the number of DNS's increased sometimes to as high as 19%. The Central zone was the most stable with only 11% DNS's mainly because of less travel with competing numbers of 1414. Agreed the growth in each of the zones is astonishing but the one thing that would concern me where Kiwisport funding is being used is the cost of map printing for these reasonably large numbers of kids who register but don't turn up. I charge an entry fee and that helps to cover the wastage in printing costs so it doesn't come out of my pocket. If those with funding did the same, be it just a couple of dollars, that would help to protect the funding money and make it go further. I think it also puts the kids on notice that they or their parents have paid so they could be more likely to turn up. When they pay nothing it doesn't mean anything to them. I think this year has been remarkably successful and all concerned should take a bow but there is still room to further increase participation. There are parts of Auckland where it is a waste of time and effort trying to introduce Orienteering and we should concentrate on the schools in the areas where we will always get the best bang for our buck. As Simon and Robbie said it is changing peoples' perspective of the sport and what it actually entails and the benefit students get out of it. Bring on next year, but now it's time for a bit of a break.   MikeB Posted: 27 April 2013, 4:23 AM   I forgot to add to the above message the average numbers of competitors per event per week. Franklin an average of 162 per event per week South East 192 North/West 252 Central 235 This equates to an average per week of approx 840 participants. Next year our goal should be to be well over the 1000 mark. Moving on from here I see our biggest obstacle is getting more of these students involved at the higher end school events and also to club events. Maybe clubs should be looking at incorporating more school type competitions in their event programs because some of the newbies will feel less threatened by competing in events away from school campuses if their friends are around as well and they can go out together for starters, gain some confidence and then have a go on their own. The North West club handed out rogaine fliers, for our events in May, at the last couple of school events I held. The kids seemed interested at the time but once a month has elapsed I wonder how many will remember. Entries have closed for the NISS, to be held in Auckland next weekend, and only 218 from the Auckland region have entered. A far cry from the 840 a week we were getting in the sprints. The AKSS individuals are on in the middle of May and it will be interesting to see how many turn up for that. One of the key's I believe is to get the parents involved, because without transport it's a no go. Also getting involved with the kids who have performed well during the series and encourage them and make contact with their parents. I'm sure that would make a differnce, but who has the spare time or inclination to do that in a city the size of Auckland. These are not insurmountable problems but ones we need to address as a sport wishing to go forward, as these kids are the our future   Martin Posted: 27 April 2013, 11:51 AM   Participation can be correctly measured by adding up the total of finishers at each event and this is in line with NZOF reporting. One of the key drivers behind the growth in participation numbers is the increase in number of schools taking part. DNS will be correlated to the entry fee. I've been printing the maps for SE zone and the number of maps printed stays relatively constant as a degree of DNS is expected. To put it in perspective, more maps are wasted for an event like an OY. How would charging an entry fee protect the funding? Funding is at the discretion of the regional sports bodies. Currently orienteering ranks as very highly (the highest?) in terms of investment per participant. We struggle to have enough sportident cards for the southern and eastern zones because they are run by separate teams of people. Has anyone in NZ looked into the Russian SFR system? Let's remember that between the zones there are very different funding and organisational structures. Each has its merits and both appear to be working satisfactorily.   Captain Quark Posted: 27 April 2013, 2:11 PM   This may or may not be relevant, but at Red Kiwi events we usually have a printer and laptop that come to events so we can print extra maps as needed. I don't know if this would work with the numbers you guys get up in Auckland, but it works very well down here.   JohnR Posted: 27 April 2013, 3:02 PM   The participation numbers quoted above are accurate I have deducted the dns which are in the eastern zone. All my figures are based on participation per event. We hold six stand alone events with several changes in pupils at events depending on the venue. This is no different to the V8 racing at Pukekohe where they quote numbers of 135 thousand. They dont say 45 thousand each day. A five day cricket match also has the total numbers attending. If we are going to be measured against other sports then we do have to count participation at nationals as 1600. They also are stand alone events where some orienteers dont compete in the sprint,others dont compete in the long. On the topic of students making orienteering there only sport---no---They use the sprint which is well placed before the start of winter sports but I find my group of 50 students mix and match between hockey rowing netball soccer and orienteering simply fits in somewhere.I have a much smaller group who I would call dedicated. Map printing--not a problem--I take the entries from the previous week and add 5 If im short I steal a map from one of my Puke group   Michael Posted: 28 April 2013, 11:16 AM   Thanks guys. I am not so concerned about the finer points of counting, just tell me what I need to do to start a sprint series around here. PS I want to know whether you have an existing SS series of any sort that it meshes in with.