This bulletin provides a brief summary of the state of play on a number of issues discussed at the SCOA AGM and the committee meeting on 6^th September. It is not intended to be a record of those meetings.

 

SCOA League

The first event in the SCOA League for 2012 / 13 will be TVOC’s event at Kings Wood (near High Wycombe) on Sunday 21^st October. A further eight events are scheduled for the season. More details at http://www.scoa-orienteering.org.uk/league/2011/09/11/scoa-league-events...

 

2013 SCOA Championships

The 2013 SCOA Classic Championships will be held at the November Classic, in the New Forest on Sunday 3^rd November 2013.

SCOA will also, for the first time, hold a Sprint Championship and a Middle Distance Championship in 2013. They will be held at Wellington College on Saturday 6^th April and Bagshot Heath on Sunday 7^th April respectively.

More details in due course.

 

JK 2013

Work on organising the JK is progressing well. Entries will open on 1^st November.

The event will require some 125 helpers each day. SCOA clubs will be asking their members shortly to volunteer to help on, ideally all the days, but at least one or two.

Please respond positively to these appeals; just like with the Olympics, the success of the JK is dependent on lots of smiley-faced volunteers making everything work smoothly.

 

New EMIT system

EMIT has developed a new touch-free punching system. The EMIT ‘card’ is a wrist band which is ‘punched’ when it is brought within approximately 50 cms of the control unit. The band contains a set of LEDs which will flash for approximately ten seconds once the control has been ‘punched’.

The system was successfully trialled by Southampton Orienteering Club at a level D event on 18^th August.

SOC will next use the system at their level C urban event at Southampton on 3^rd November (the day before the November Classic).

The control units include a two dimensional orienteering banner stencilled on the face of the unit. The banner is approximately 12.5cm by 12.5cm, about the size of a mini-orienteering banner. The SCOA Committee has agreed to relax British Orienteering Rule 6.3.1 which requires control sites to be marked with a triangular control banner approximately 30cm by 30cm.

After the event, SOC will be seeking feedback from competitors on the system and on the lack of traditional banners.

 

SCOA Levy

Currently SCOA clubs pay a levy to SCOA, calculated as an amount for each competitor competing, when the number of competitors exceeds 100. In the light of the new British Orienteering levy basis (a levy for every competitor at an event, with juniors counting as 1/3^rd) which takes effect on 1^st January 2013, SCOA has decided to move to the same basis. This approach should be simpler for clubs to administer.

The SCOA levy to apply from 1^st January 2013 will be 13.5p per competitor (with juniors counting as 1/3^rd). There is no minimum number of competitors or fee. The SCOA levy will therefore apply to all SCOA events from 1^st January. As with the British Orienteering levy, it will not apply to activities – broadly anything which does not produce results.

 

Event Safety Workshop

An event safety workshop will be held in the Salisbury area on Saturday 20^th or Saturday 27^th October, primarily for SARUM members but other clubs’ members are also welcome. Anyone organising an event from 1^st January 2013 needs to have attended one of these workshops. If you would like to attend then please contact Katy (technical@scoa-orienteering.org.uk).

 

Success at the World MTBO Championships

The Mountain Bike Orienteering World Championships took place in Hungary last month. Emily Benham (SARUM) had a superb ride to take Silver in the Sprint Race, Britain's first medal in a World MTBO Championship event. Emily was also a very creditable ninth on the Long Course Race.

 

SCOA Committee Vacancies

As mentioned in previous bulletins both the Secretary and Treasurer of SCOA have resigned after serving for many years on the committee. So far, there have been no applications to fill these roles. SCOA cannot continue to function without these officers. Please please please therefore give serious consideration as to whether you could undertake one of these roles. A copy of the job spec for both roles is listed below.

Neither role is very time-consuming, but they are vital part in the smooth-running of our sport. Please consider whether you could do one of these roles, and if so then please contact Alun (chairman@scoa-orienteering.org.uk).

 

SCOA SECRETARY DUTIES

 

The main role of the SCOA Secretary is to organise the SCOA Committee meetings and the AGM. There are 4 committee meetings a year: March, June (same day as AGM), September and December. There is very little external to committee correspondence to deal with (2 mailed letters in 4 years and about 10 emails). This is because most of the general information cascading from BO has already been sent direct to clubs.

 

Outline Tasks

Before the meeting

• three weeks before the meeting email committee the provisional agenda and ask for additions

• three weeks before meeting email requesting reports from committee members/officers to be sent by the Monday before the meeting

• collate reports and convert them to a standard format (pdf)

• email committee the collated reports and revised agenda

• print a few spare copies of meeting papers

During the meeting

• take the minutes – record salient points from reports

After the meeting

• produce draft minutes

• email committee the draft minutes asking for any amendments

• book the meeting room for the next meeting.

• re-issue draft minutes to committee.

• Place minutes on SCOA website.

 

 

SCOA TREASURER DUTIES

The Treasurer’s job includes the normal tasks of:

• processing receipts and payments

• maintaining a set of books

• producing annual accounts

• producing a budget and

• advising the committee on income and expenditure policies.

The committee meets quarterly with business conducted by email in between meetings.

Annually, the Treasurer issues membership fee requests to the 11 SCOA clubs.

Periodically during the year, levy returns are monitored against the BOF website’s levy returns pages to ensure all SCOA levies have been paid.