This bulletin provides a brief summary of the state of play on a number of issues discussed at the SCOA meeting on 1st December. It is not intended to be a record of that meeting – the minutes provide that record.
JK 2013
Work on organising the JK is continuing well. All major day officials have now been appointed. A first meeting for the major officials has taken place.
Regrettably, our proposed competition area for the Sprint race on Day 1 has fallen through. Katy Stubbs is now therefore exploring alternative venues for Day 1.
Day 2 and Day 4 are being held at Hambleden. The team have been exploring whether to extend the competition area to the north and west, but have now abandoned these ideas.
All clubs in SCOA will need to provide manpower to deliver the four days successfully. In order to simplify communication with clubs, each club has been asked to nominate one person through whom all requests for help can be channelled. Separately, SN have volunteered to take on the relays.
Domain names for the event website have been registered.
SCOA Relay championships
The inaugural SCOA Relay championships will take place on Saturday 16th June 2012 at Bagshot. SN are hosting the event, in parallel with the SEOA relays. The event follows a handicap structure, details of which can be seen on page 5 of http://www.moorenet.co.uk/seoa/events/eventinfo/seoa_competitions.pdf
More details will appear in due course, but in the meantime SCOA clubs may wish to include a reference to the championships on their websites and newsletters.
Other SCOA leagues and championships
The 2012 SCOA Championships will take place at the Sarum Saunter at Hamptworth on Sunday 26th February. Click here for the flyer. Entries are now open on Fabian4.
The SCOA league is a well-established format. More details on the SCOA website.
With a flurry of urban events taking place in or near our region next year (Lyndhurst, Guildford, Basingstoke, Didcot, Windsor, Oxford), we are intending holding a SCOA Urban Championship in 2012. A decision about which event will host it will probably be made at the March Committee meeting.
Yvette Baker Trophy
With effect from 2013, the Yvette Baker Trophy final will take place in the Summer rather than the traditional date of December. As a consequence, regional rounds will be brought forward to the Spring.
Rules and Guidance
(Note that the following have yet to be ratified by the British Orienteering Board.)
Eligibility for a British Championships medal will in future be limited to those who are both members of BOF and also British Citizens. (Previously the wording referred to those who were eligible to become British Citizens.)
Event Guidelines will in future include a Very Short Green course in their course length tables, in order to encourage event organisers to offer Very Short Green courses. This reflects requests by older competitors for events to offer short TD5 courses. SCOA Committee will consider next year what courses should be included in the SCOA League for the 2012 /13 season.
Level B events will in future be automatically allowed to use digitally printed maps, provided the printer has previously been approved by Map Group. (Printer in this context means both a firm of printers and individual club printers; for the latter, a sample of the printer output must be provided for scrutinising in order for the printer to be approved.)
Some changes have been made to wording concerning safety at Sprint and Urban events, and to emphasise that impassable barriers must not be crossed or reached over to punch a control site.
The revised IOF guidance on measuring actual course lengths (ie taking into account impassable buildings etc) is NOT being implemented in the UK Rules and Guidelines for Sprint and Urban races. Instead it is recommended that planners and organisers indicate how much longer the courses are likely to be compared with the straight line distances quoted in pre-event information, so that competitors can judge which course to enter
It looks likely that British Orienteering’s insurers are in future going to require mappers to be registered, to demonstrate that they have the skills and expertise to identify all potentially dangerous hazards on mapped areas. This proposal is still at an early stage of discussion; more details will no doubt emerge in due course.
Event Safety workshop
Katy Stubbs will be running an event safety workshop on Saturday 11th February at Harwell. All level C, B and A Organisers must attend a workshop by the end of 2012, as will anyone applying to be a Controller or to be appointed to a higher grade.
PR and publicity
It is recognised that Club Publicity Officers have a challenging role. There is very limited support for them, from British Orienteering or elsewhere. Furthermore they generally do not know their opposite numbers in other clubs, so cannot share ideas and good practice. To try to facilitate the latter, Liz Yeadon (SCOA’s Development Committee Representative) will organise a meeting of SCOA club Publicity Officers early in 2012.
