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Nats at Labour Weekend?

Martin Posted: 21 September 2005, 7:15 AM   Is there a statistical difference in the number of competitors at national long distance events? (that could not be due to chance) it was recently pointed out in a letter to the editor, stating that these numbers could be due to chance. This message was edited by Martin on 22 September 2005, 7:19 PM   MASH Posted: 21 September 2005, 7:30 AM   Yes me again RobG,#14, and yes I will stand up to you on this and any subject no matter how personal you get. As you very well know I did my time in course setting and the sports admin for 14 solid years. Does the phrase "time to get out and let the younger and or fresh idea people take up the reins" suggest anything to you. All I will say on the subject of my not course setting etc anymore is I'm quite happy for you and other Winter die hards to continue believing what you have written about me, however, the penny may eventually drop. Being a paid up member of the NZOF I think I still have the right to view my ardent support on any subject, just as you Rob, have the right to also be obsessive in your stance and views about matters. My stance and support for Easter Nationals and a properly constructed event season to go with it is purely based on what I (and some others)perceive might be and stress might be good for the sport and not for personal selfish reasons. If such a change proves not to benefit the sport then we re address that situation when it arises. What is wrong with that? At least I can't be accused of putting my head in the Woodhill sand and denying such a development. Finally if the Nationals ever revert back to Labour weekend be assured I will be attending them and not boycotting them.(will the penny drop here also) This message was edited by MASH on 22 September 2005, 9:56 AM   mark Posted: 21 September 2005, 7:52 AM   Go Labour weekend. MASH sux I never had any problems when my university exams clashed with orienteering. If you are serious about orienteering then you do the nationals and worry about your exams later. I also found university staff very supportive of people involved in sport. They always let me take time off and/or reschedule tests/exams when I wanted to go orienteering. I missed a third of the second semester in my last year at university because I was off orienteering.   addison Posted: 21 September 2005, 10:31 AM   mark sux   Jenni Posted: 21 September 2005, 4:50 PM   The large number of events you see in August in Sweden, Rob, is when the district champs are on. I think there are just over 20 districts and in Sweden you go only to your own district champs so they're all mostly on the same weekends. So in a typical weekend in August there are around 10-15 events but they don't all have 1000 people at them! I think even the bigger districts like Stockholm wouldn't even have that many. The only event on this weekend in the Stockholm area has around 400 entered at it. Anyway that's just for your information it's not really relevant to all this. The Swedish season leading up to their nationals in Autumn starts with summer holiday type events (which there are actually quite a lot of 3-5 day events and then about 4-6 weeks of the district champs and so on "culminating" in two weekends of Swedish champs. It's not really culminating because there are some big events to follow like 25 manna. These Swedish champs are just for 18, 20 and 21 elites by the way. As Jamie pointed out, the season as proposed by many here would be quite similar to the Swedish setup. I certainly didn't like it when Nationals was at Labour weekend, I frequently had exams actually in Labour weekend (one I left early once) and I think it definitely was detrimental to my orienteering and maybe study as well. Sure you can put orienteering first but should we be asking students to do this when we don't have to. As a lecturer now I try to be accommodating to students with sporting requests and I am definitely the most flexible in my department. This includes being flexible with lab and tutorials etc. But I think I would really struggle to convince my department to let me reschedule final exams for a single student and this kind of thing is a big hassle for a lecturer as you have to write a new exam for that student - a day's work probably. So Mark you were very lucky if your lecturers did that for you! Anyway I believe, along with the majority as far as I can see, that it would be better NZO to have a spring/summer/autumn season which includes district champs with the nationals somewhat near the end of that. That's independent of any student exam issues. As people have said, that doens't mean there can't be any events in winter we just aim to have the more important ones in the season. (When I played hockey, I played nearly all year round but the season was clearly in the winter and summer competitions were more relaxed and then merged into preseason training.) As far as nothing two months before WOC, I don't think that's what is proposed, there would be "big" events right up to Queen's Birthday. And then realistically most years one should go to Europe in early (-mid at the latest) July in any case so there is maybe a 3-4 week gap where you can concentrate on training which seems like a good idea to me. There's nothing to stop anyone organizing relevant traning events in this period.   HeadHoncho Posted: 22 September 2005, 10:59 AM   Martin, Dave Godfrey is not the AOA statistician. Peter Godfrey is. And don't believe everything you read.   Martin Posted: 22 September 2005, 11:16 AM   whoops got the name wrong   Dave Barr Posted: 27 September 2005, 4:54 AM   First time I've looked at this site in months, and, you've got to be fucking kidding me!!! Honestly, are you all taking the piss? If you all had put the two cents you keep putting into this debate into a bank account, you'd all be fucking millionaires by now.   pcbrent Posted: 27 September 2005, 5:11 AM   Language Dave   Jamie Posted: 27 September 2005, 9:09 AM   Moneys not everything Dave   HeadHoncho Posted: 27 September 2005, 10:06 AM   Dave, if you had two cents for every time you have contributed something intelligent to a debate, you might have enough for a handle of Speights by now.   thomasr Posted: 3 October 2005, 10:19 AM   iv not looked at this site for about two weeks and i was starting to feel encouraged when itlooked like a descision was being reached. EASTER IS THE BEST OPTION. NO ARGUMENTS. about two pages of posts ago it seemed like some people had finally made a decision. But then the argument descended furthur into a bit of a personal slagging match. No disrespect to anyone, but its all a bit childish. Iv never met dave barr, but he sounds like he knows what hes talking about. All of the energy being put into this argument should go into more productive things, like getting nz a few WOC champions. Ive been orienteering for two and a half years now and up until recently i had thought that nationals had always been at easter because the season ran fine. Jenni is right, theres nothing stopping anybody from training if they want to be better at nationals. If it aint broke don't fix it!   Kate Posted: 5 October 2005, 7:17 AM   Ok, going waaaaaaay back to the beginning of this thread. I was all excited about the area champs and doing well after australia, when i got home to find that may parents had decided that because exams were "very important" i was not allowed to go away to auckland or SI champs. that leaves me with just welly champs, that wont be that big any way. Im sure that there are other juniors out there with like minded parents, so perhaps we do need to stop bitchign and moaning at each other and make a decision to make a proposal to the people who make decisions or something.   nick Posted: 6 October 2005, 3:34 AM   Good call Kate. Maptalk is a discussion forum, not a decision forum, so its time to take our ideas out of the internet and into the real world. I'm starting by writing a letter to my club committee. If alot of people do this we might create some momentum towards a decision from the decision makers. Or something.   Jamie Posted: 6 October 2005, 6:12 AM   yeah good stuff I'll do the same with my club