 HeadHoncho
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Posted: 12 March 2009, 12:54 PM
Jamie:
"It would be a hugely irresponsible governance for an organisation to suddenly castrate its finances as proposed without any real analysis (not that there was a lot more when it was introduced)"
In respect of the bracketed comment, I suggest you:
(a)(re-)read back issues of NZ Orienteering circa 2000
(b) ponder you might be making off-the-cuff comments without any basis
(c) admit you were too busy DNF'ing at JWOC to really give a stuff
(d) all of the above
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Michael
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Posted: 12 March 2009, 1:31 PM
Here's a get-out-of-corner card Nick.
The answer is not the AGM. This must by definition be representative and formal. And quick. Though it used to make time for a consideration of each officer's report, that has gone by the board with the time pressures of a competition weekend. Indeed I remember a president not so long ago who made an artform out of short AGMs. No-one even sees the various officers' reports now, the GM produces an annual report from the officers' reports.
And it's not the 4-yearly "strategic planning" meeting. That IMHO has a shape geared to SPARC requirements - or at least the resulting plan does.
The answer is a different sort of meeting. Officers and interested others. Chewing over the way we work together. Working up ideas into practical proposals. Maybe just engaging in persuasion. Focussing on the year ahead. Doesn't have to be representative. You come if you want to push your barrow, criticise, or learn.
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Jenni
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Posted: 13 March 2009, 5:55 AM
Greg - Luckily there are many in NZ orienteering who have the depth of thinking to realize that saying "Stuff parents" would not be a smart idea for our sport. We advertise orienteering as a family sport so we should live up to it. In other countries they put on a free drop in childcare, if we did that then we wouldn't need split starts but I don't see that happening. Lots of the people doing the work are parents if you don't make it possible for them to do the sport then they won't. On the Morrison comment I don't remember Val doing a lot of orienteering when her kids were around 2 years old!
Besides as far as start times go most people want to know what time their start is before they turn up to the event and if the entry date is the day before I think that's difficult to achieve. I believe something like a week to two weeks before is what we should be targeting. Oceania had a problem in that we wanted to get start lists etc out before people went away for Christmas which pushed the entry date two weeks earlier than it otherwise would have been. All of the entry on the day stuff could be possible if there were lots of helpers but most of the time clubs are struggling to find people to do all of the jobs there are at orienteering events and just don't have people left over to look after coordinating on the day entries.
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valerie
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Posted: 13 March 2009, 2:14 PM
EXCUSE ME! "wonder the event centre. It worked for the morrisons" ...First of all i think you mean 'wander' and secondly an more importantly, I NEVER left my children to WANDER the event centre! I ALWAYS had someone to look after them...you may be getting me muddled up with another Hawkes Bay family of four children who tended to fit this description? Just clarifying a few un-important points, but i feel clarification was necessary!
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Alistair
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Posted: 13 March 2009, 4:41 PM
Jenni - has nobody in NZ thought about implementing the concept of "Vacant" places in order to handle late entries?
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Jamie
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Posted: 14 March 2009, 3:12 PM
Honcho!
I admit there was an element of off the cuffness about it (and it was far from the main point of my post), but...I remember the material well and if you can point out to me a single piece of analysis analysing the decision with reflection on clubs finances/needs (and the potential implications of not having that extra few thousand floating around at the end of the year) as opposed to the NZOF needs then I will take it back my brief unimportant off the cuff comment.
Same applies also to the original event levy discussion, wasn't that back 1996/1997? - my memory fades a bit, but this is a long time ago.
I would also question why, and how come, it has not been a priority to analyse the financial health of clubs vis a vis the NZOF with reflection on the event levy. How many clubs have fallen over since the event levy came in, how many are dying...is it completely unrelated? (I know all the other accepted reasons don't bother listing them).
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Jenni
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Posted: 16 March 2009, 1:39 AM
Alistair - I asked for vacant places in the start lists for Oceania but I think the biggest problem was that we have quite large start intervals 3-4 minutes and more than one grade per course adn the grades start in blocks. This meant that even one vacant place per grade could see the overall start time spread going up by 20-15 minutes. This doesn't seem that bad but when you're trying to get the event finished before dark it starts to matter. I still think it is worth it but obviously is easier to do in Sweden where the start interval is 1 minute.
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marcusd
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Posted: 16 March 2009, 3:08 AM
Hi Jenni - obvious question then: why dont we do 1 minute start intervals in New Zealand, especially for the bigger events like Oceanias?
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Jenni
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Posted: 16 March 2009, 4:58 AM
Well the three minute interval is actually an NZOF rule although world ranking events also have to have 3 minute intervals (or 2 minutes with a spreading mechanism) for the WRE grades. But I wouldn't advocate going to 1 minute because there would be much more packing and following happening here compared to in Sweden (where it does happen and they don't typically have one minute intervals for championship type events) There would be more following here because one our terrain is usually much more open with long visibility. And two because in Sweden there is typically many, many more people running with serveral 21 grades for example so it's quite hard to tell whether people are on your course even if you do see them. It's a bit like running in a relay with people going all over the place. Here everyone knows everyone else and knows they're on their course.
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marcusd
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Posted: 16 March 2009, 5:47 AM
Hi Jenni - thanks for the info. Much appreciated.
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Alistair
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Posted: 16 March 2009, 8:37 PM
Jenni - why don't you alternate the runners from each class within the course start list and have 1-2 minute intervals? What is more - if the maps are placed out in CLASS start boxes for those courses with high numbers of runners it becomes less apparent who is on the course in front of you.
But actually I would beg the question as to why you don't just split the course into two or more similar courses if the startlist for the course gets too long. With Ocad etc. nowadays the administrative cost of generating a new course is extremely low. I just did a quick check and saw that on the Long day at Oceania the largest class was M21E with about 35 runners - that's only 2 hours-20mins with a 4minute interval if you really need a 4 minute interval.
And 1 minute start intervals are only used over here in what I'd call "popular" events such as ORingen. The norms are 0.5-2 mins for sprint, 2 mins for middle distance and 2-3 mins for Long. Certainly any championship race, whether District or National, use at least 2 minutes for middle and long.
Another alternative for late entries is insisting they start first but then you probably can't charge them the same "premium" for late entry that a Vacant place would be entitled to.
Over here the norm has traditiinally been 2 to 2.5 weeks for normal entries to a race. The only exceptions to this are really ORingen and the National championships. I've even had the odd race in the last year where the entry date was only about 5 days before the race - and this was for a race with up to 1000 competitors with published start-lists and printed maps etc! With well planned administration and good electronic systems to do minimize the work load it's easy...
...now what were you saying about that nationalized entry system Simon?!
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robbie
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Posted: 17 March 2009, 2:56 PM
Jamie Clubs have not folded because of the event levy. Clubs have gone into recess with a good bank balance. bad call!!!
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Jamie
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Posted: 18 March 2009, 2:48 PM
I don't think it is as simple as that. Only my opinion of course :-)
I think a lot of clubs are struggling to make much money, ie enough money to make maps on a regular cycle. Its not the money in the bank that is the issue, it is how that which is spent recycles through the orienteering community.
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robbie
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Posted: 19 March 2009, 3:29 AM
Jamie. The two day strategic planning meeting (which was a brilliant piece of work by president Paul) clearly showed that clubs were not struggling financially. Their top priority was burn out and I suggest this is the major reason for clubs going into recess.Both Kapiti and Pinelands struggled to operate with a below 15 membership base.Jamie the council does analyse problem areas and we do try to address these areas. Basisly thats what a strategic plan is all about. Identifying weakness and addressing those problems. Placing money and resources into the areas as required. You continually have a poke at the NZOF but you dont appear to do any research on the topic.Your concern appears to be recycle money in the budget. Where would you redirect finance within the budget? If you want to change the budget you have to decide which pocket you are going to take it out of.Shall we take all the squad money and put it into secondary schools? Come on Jamie give us some detail rather than piss and wind!
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addison
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Posted: 19 March 2009, 3:34 AM
Many people say clubs are financially sound, but as Jamie points out most of us are just 1 or 2 maps away from bankrupt. That is if we fund it completely out of club resources.
Small clubs often don't have the mapping skills in the club, which means they do have to pay for maps.
But more importantly, many clubs are so small they can't run enough events to make membership pay itself off. Sure you can subsidise it via club resources, but that can only last so long.
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