DEVELOPMENT REPORTS

The Sports Council for Wales decided not to fund the project for 2004, this means the WOA are £2,000.00 short for this years development plan and more importantly they will not fund it for 2005 and on...we need to re-submit a new development plan for 2005 and the following years and hopefully they will fund us again.

Their reasons are two-fold:

The membership of WOA has fallen steadily over the last 4 years. The idea that the development officers would be able to increase not only participation (which you have) bit also members (much harder to achieve) and therefore stop the decline in WOA membership.

Secondly they criticised the WOA for having so much money in our reserves; they presumably think the WOA can fund the development plan on it's own.  Something again that needs discussing, maybe WOA will have to do this and ask the clubs for an annual contribution to development work.

The reports for North and Mid Wales were tabled at the October Committee meeting; the report for SW Wales appeared in SBOC's newsletter, The Spur. These reports have been edited, but they indicate the amount of work put in by the Development Leaders on behalf of the WOA, their clubs and the sport in general. 

We say goodbye and give much appreciation to Anne Wilson and Kay Seward who are have worked tirelessly as Development Officers for the last 4 years. Mair Tomos is continuing her work in the North West Wales in 2005 to capitalize on the work she has achieved for the past 2 years.

 

N WALES DEVELOPMENT LEADER - MAIR TOMOS

The Glanllyn map is being put to good use. Hundreds of children have had a chance to orienteer there since the map was completed in March.

I ran an unofficial course for four instructors from Glanllyn. They found the course quite an eye opener and realised that there was more to orienteering than a 'time filler treasure hunt'. They returned to Glanllyn and gave an in-house training to the rest of the instructors. The chief instructor at Glanllyn was very pleased with their reaction to the course I had run for them.

Nant Gwrtheyrn POC is up and running with the map extended to a slightly more difficult area. The education officer has helped me run a session for school children at Glynllifon.

The Countryside Officer at Bodlondeb, Conway Council Office site, is very keen to set up a POC there and also offer orienteering to school groups in the same way as Glanllyn, Nant Gwrtheyrn and Glynllifon.

I have also been in discussion with Trawsnewid the community group responsible for the regeneration of the land around the Trawsfynydd power station. They are also keen to offer orienteering to school groups. 

Introduction Courses
I have run a number of these courses as
at basic introduction to orienteering for beginners. They then get a chance to try a multi-coloured course, starting off with a few white control sites, then a few
yellow, then orange & light green. 

A course was run for Gwynedd Foster Carers, and a team building exercise for Bangor University. Disappointingly, no participants from these courses have appeared at any of our events.

Targeting a specific group
Two evening sessions were run for Eryri Harriers children. Two girls went on to do very well in the schools champs. One girl has been attending all Eryri's junior coaching and events since then.

Orienteering at Glynllifon
Four schools had orienteering sessions at Glynllifon. Total 160 children.

School mapping
Maps and packs completed for Bontnewydd, Llandwrog & 
Talysarn, all schools visited and given a 3-hour lesson.

Llanaelhaearn, Amlwch, Llanddeusant & Botwnnog (secondary) were also mapped; Bodedern, Amlwch (secondary), Nebo, Llanllyfni are in the pipeline.

I ran a daily orienteering session at the Urdd Eisteddfod, and prepared a POC around the Eisteddfod site. This also proved a good opportunity to spread the word amongst teachers. With the help of Peter Colbert from SWOC I prepared a POC for the National Eisteddfod in Newport. For both the eisteddfodau, the SCW at Plas Menai reproduced 500 maps & leaflets.

I ran five orienteering sessions a day for six days at the Ynys Môn Sports Development week (formerly the Wylfa Week that Helena used to organise).

Year 6 children from all the schools in Anglesey attended. Plas Arthur, Amlwch & Holyhead leisure centres were used. I prepared a set of maps for each of the leisure centres that can be used again. A lot of interest was shown by the teachers, some have already made enquiries to have their schools mapped.
Sixty children attended the Schools Competition at Glynllifon. Winners and runners up received a medal.

The Wednesday evening series did not attract the schools I had anticipated. However it turned out to be a very beneficial exercise for the parents and juniors that did come.

Parents supervised their children on the courses and had a chance to talk to Anne Darlington and myself about orienteering. The success of the series displayed itself when 8 new juniors and parents came to the training/fun day planned at Y Fron. 

CATI 
Three CATI events had been planned for the autumn to fit around two other events that other club members were putting on.

Allsports Challenge
October 16 & 17th: Anglesey showground. I prepared a display, with info about orienteering in N.Wales and future events.

Llanaelhaearn & Trefor schools
I have started a 6-week course at different school venues: Nant Gwrtheyrn, Glynllifon & Moel Smytho. Aim is to get 
years 3 & 4 up to yellow standard and years 5 & 6 up to orange standard! Hopefully these 2 schools will be the first to join BSOA.

MID WALES DEVELOPMENT LEADER - ANNE WILSON

Since April, I have mainly concentrated on retaining the interest of the new POW members - those who joined as a result of the introductory events put on earlier this year, and those who started orienteering in 2003. Fourteen beginners have competed regularly at the POW local events which have been put on throughout the year, in addition to Scouts and a local school who have attended some events.

I mapped a new area (Cefn Blewog) which was used to put on a Fun Score Event as part of a Tircoed Health and Fitness Day. Unfortunately, despite this being held in July, it was very cold, wet and windy, and only a few hardy families turned out for the event, most of whom were already POW members.

The new permanent course map for Hafren Forest has been completed, but we are still awaiting the marker posts from Forest Enterprise.
I organised a day of orienteering for a primary school in Aberystwyth, as part of their end-of-term Health and Fitness Week. Two separate year groups were taken round a Yellow course and given a basic introduction to the sport.

Early this year I plan to put on two Introductory Events, aimed mainly at families, one in Aberystwyth and one near Newtown. In the past this has been the most successful way of recruiting new members.

SW WALES DEVELOPMENT LEADER - KAY SEWARD

This year we held the qualifying event for the Llanelli inter-schools competition at Sandy Water Park on the one day, giving each school a slot. It was a very successful day with several schools bringing over 50 pupils.

The final, which was held in Pembrey, was a great success with Dewi Sant winning for the second year and St Michael's coming a very close second. 

As a follow up to this, one of the schools asked if I could plan an event for them in Pembrey as part of their school's coastal project - they spent the morning in Pembrey orienteering, and then the afternoon cycling along the 
coastal path to Sandy Water Park. I planned a course with several loops as for many of them it was the first taste of orienteering and success was our aim. Pupils enjoyed the course so much that they wanted to run it again and again and again...

As a result of the schools' league and this event the schools are now going to add orienteering to their curriculum. I have planned a scheme of work for them and offered to help with resources and coaching.

From here we were into the SBOC's introductory series starting at Singleton Park. We also repeated the introductory series on Thursday evenings for a scout group.

Having been contacted by Neath Port Talbot Leisure Section we organised an after-school session of I hour a week for 10 weeks to four different schools. Funding for mapping and coaching was made available. The final week saw us in Margam Park with all four schools competing. The winning school was Traethmelyn, though it was a very close competition. Although I planned and co-ordinated the ten weeks, the coaching was undertaken by David Seward and his daughter, Emma. It was a huge undertaking for three people who work full time. 

We were very lucky that the whole project was sponsored by New Opportunities Fund* enabling us to buy medals and a splendid trophy which was presented to Traethmelyn. All of the children had a fantastic day and all are keen to take part again next year.

*The New Opportunities Fund is an excellent scheme enabling schools to give children the chance to experience a whole range of new activities not just the usual football and netball.

Subsequently, we carried out a similar exercise with a school in Briton Ferry with the final two sessions in Jersey Park and Gnoll Park.

Over 400 pupils have had a go this year - hopefully many will now recognise orienteering as a fast exciting sport and will try it again in the future.

We do need more people to help if we are to continue to take orienteering to the masses

 

 

ORIENTEERING IN WALES

Participation at Local, Welsh League and Regional Events over the past few years has been steadily decreasing especially from orienteers from "over the border", so this got me to thinking why this was and what can Welsh clubs do to reverse this trend. Membership and participation numbers in the sport, not only in Wales, is decreasing and the GB fixtures list is now getting so busy that orienteers can pick and choose which events they want to go to. Just looking at this weekend (9th Jan) there are 8 events on, next weekend (16th Jan) there are 10 events on somewhere in the country. 

Lynden Hartmann's article in CompassSport (Sept/Oct '04) I believe is on the right tracks; she called it EVO, Extra Value Orienteering. Because of the full fixtures programme clubs have to put on something extra to attract the diminishing orienteer population and try to get orienteers to your club's event instead of someone else's. 

I also posted a notice on the Nopesport website and asked the question: "Why don't orienteers come to Wales?", and looking at the replies the overall consensus was:

a) travel time b) travel distance
c) cost (£4.80 to cross the Severn Bridge)
d) fuel costs
e) low key events: Welsh league/ local events not attractive enough

Take for example an orienteer travelling from Bristol/Gloucester to Mid or West Wales for an event. This could take 2-3 hours and 100 miles in a car and £14.00 in fuel plus the Severn Bridge toll, all to run a Blue or Brown in 1 - 1p hours, not value for money (not forgetting the entry fee).

So what can be done? Well, I believe that Welsh clubs need to "twin up" more when setting their fixtures. What I mean by this is that SBOC twin with SWOC, SWOC with BOK/NGOC, POW with SBOC and ERYRI, ERYRI with DEE. So if a club is holding a Welsh League on a Sunday the neighboring club hosts a local event, sprint race or even another Welsh League event on the Saturday afternoon, making a weekend of orienteering. At the moment Welsh clubs are hosting many events but they are all on separate weekends. Orienteers from outside of Wales will travel if there is something extra to travel for. As I have said previously, because the fixtures in GB are 
so full they can pick and choose which events to attend. The SBOC "Weekend on Gower" is a testament to this; the club gets far more entries by putting on 3 events on a weekend than 3 separate events on 3 different dates. More importantly the same effort/manpower is needed to host the 3 events on one weekend, as on 3 separate dates, so there is no extra effort involved.

I am not saying clubs should put on more orienteering events just that they should coincide with another club's events. 

By using this twinning method this can also allow clubs with small membership levels to have help from a larger club for volunteers, etc. Also clubs could pool resources and hold more Regional Events as again one comment from Nopesport was: "I am not going to travel 2 hours to run a Blue course but I would for a M50L". So there could be a Welsh league on the Saturday and a Regional event on the Sunday. If clubs were able to spread the workload then the "same faithful few, who always put on events" could be rested and not feel so hard pressed. This will also allow less experienced club orienteers to try planning/organizing an event using a mentoring system.

So to get more orienteers into Wales I think we should start to look at the club fixtures programme and make it more "joined up". This hopefully will mean the same number of events being held but higher participation figures, spreading the volunteer load between clubs, encouraging less experienced orienteers to try out planning/organizing, and more inter-club partnerships being formed.

Phil Jenkins (SBOC)

 

A copy of the Development Plan can be found on the Documents page