ORIENTEERING: Nationals

I guess I was hoping for a bit much when starting a thread on maptalk about the timing of the Nationals, that the oldies with strong opinions would keep out of it! Oh well, there were enough comments from our younger brigade to give me a flavour of what they are thinking. There were some good comments too - but first, some background.

Personally I don't really care when the Nationals are. Nor should I, as I don't run around anymore. My personal opinion counts for diddly squat. But I do have some responsibility to ensure that all sections of the orienteering community that may be affected by an issue have a voice. Simon makes a good point - "it is more obvious now than ever that students are the future of the sport" - and in some respects, the opinions of our younger orienteers are ones I will listen more closely to. That is why I was so interested in James' letter to the Auckland mag; I thought if there are a lot of students who don't mind the Nationals at Labour Weekend, then one of the reasons for not holding them then goes out the window. However judging by the comments on the thread, the split mirrors that of the wider orienteering community.

I'll admit I have some bias against Labour Weekend. In 1982, I got picked for the NZ team for the ANZ Challenge for the first time. It was my first year at Uni. The challenge was in Oz during the Oz champs carnival, late Sep/early Oct. And there was no way I was missing that trip! I missed about 10 days of lectures, and had 2 or 3 weeks to catch up before exams started. Oh, and there were the Nationals at Labour Weekend in Rotorua as well. I think I had an exam the Tuesday after. It was a hell of a month; my exam results weren't great, and neither was my Orienteering. In 1999 (the last year the Nats were held at Labour Weekend), I was coaching someone who was really upset they had to miss the event due to Uni exams (and she was an Aucklander). Last time I looked, Uni exams are still held late Oct.

If I had to express a preference, I favour the Nationals remaining at Easter because:

1. The change to Easter has had no adverse (and can be argued the change has been positive) effect on numbers competing;
2. It guarantees those juniors and elites (and even masters going to WMOC) who will be competing internationally a high quality event in the first half of the year;
3. It has a minimal affect on juniors in relation to their education;
4. It is a 4 day weekend, allowing for 4 events (yes, you could run the middle and sprint on the same day but a 3 day, 4 event weekend with travelling would be hellish IMO)

So I declare a slight bias. But personal bias has no place in decision-making, and if all our students were siding with the Aucklanders crying out for the Nationals to move to Labour Weekend, I would probably be leading the charge to have it changed.

Internationally, Orienteering is a summer sport. That is because in Europe, where Orienteering originated and is at its strongest, an outdoor sport such as ours can't be done in the snow (except on skis). Our sport is climate driven; and so if we look at the southern hemisphere countries (South Africa, Australia, Brazil) we see that Orienteering down under is done in the winter. New Zealand is a special case; a small country with extremities in climate, and therein lies the crux of the problem. Aucklanders want to pig out at the bach in summer and orienteer in the winter, which doesn't exactly appeal to South Islanders who have a more European climate with snow to contend with. Everyone has the right to express when they would like to orienteer, but trying to marry the wishes of different areas of the country (and there is not only climate to consider, but fire risk, landowner restrictions at certain times of the year) into a nationally structured season would be IMO an exercise in futility.

So like any good politician when faced with a divisive issue that has a roughly 50/50 split, do the ostrich (i.e. stick your head in the sand). Not strictly true, but the status quo will continue until the anti-Easter brigade come up with compelling reasons to have the date changed (and having a structured season for competitive orienteers from the Auckland region is not a compelling reason), or avail themselves of the process available to them to try and get it changed (i.e. the remit process and NZOF AGM).

Back to the comments from maptalk:

Martin: "Yes there is a mindset that the season is based around january to december. this is because the age groups are defined by which calendar year you were born in."

Interesting to note that in ski-O, a sport where the (European) season straddles the end of the year, age classes are still defined by age at 31 Dec. Their international events are held early in the calendar year and you have the situation where many 20 year-olds aren't eligible for their JWOC! I suspect the history is classes are defined at the end of the year as it suits (foot) O in the northern hemisphere. IF O was a summer sport in NZ, there would be nothing stopping us defining age classes at, say, 1 July. In horse racing, horses born south of the Equator have an assigned birthdate of 1 August, while those born north are assigned 1 January.

Martin again: "Before asking the question of Easter/Labour/QBday, a question should be asked about when during the season the nationals should be held"

Chicken and egg! Should the timing of the nationals define when the season should be, or should the season define when the nationals should be!? At this point, I'll introduce another comment:

Greg: "The only problem with James suggestion is that you are asking for more events, I can't see any changes happening if it involves more events being added for clubs to organise. Ideally if you are talking about an 'elite' season it would be best to run it so that it ends just before the start of the serious part of the European season. But the people that do the planning are not elites, and are also worried about every other person wanting to orienteer, which leads to events scattered all over the year"

We need to remember that Orienteering is a small sport, reasonably labour-intensive and has issues surrounding volunteer workload. It is a sport where masters compete and elites are not the be-all-and-end-all of serious competition. Our sport's survival is significantly dependant on the goodwill of clubs (or more correctly, certain individuals within clubs) who need to remain motivated to put on events. Otherwise it will slowly wither away and die.

So from a national perspective, I don't have much interest in telling clubs what to do, especially when it comes down to when they should put on their events. Now the Nationals are exempt from this, as it is one of two "NZOF" events (the National Sec Schools Champs being the other one), and as such "NZOF" decide when they should be held. The current philosophy of "NZOF" is it is really up to the owners of "NZOF" (the orienteering clubs) to decide when the Nationals should be.

Those from the Auckland region should be a bit careful about leading the charge of trying to set up a structured season. Consider the following scenario: NZOF set up a think tank committee, their recommendation is Orienteering should be a spring-to-autumn sport, and NZOF "order" that the Auckland Championships are to be held in March. Wonder what the reaction would be from Auckland clubs?

So to get back to Martin's question, the Nationals are fixed at a certain time of year (because last time we checked orienteers want the Nationals to be at the same time every year), through a democratic process (although some Aucklanders still believe that it wasn't), and it is really up to clubs and regions to devise a programme of events that take that date into consideration.

In an ideal world, it would be great if the different areas would co-ordinate and a "national season" could be devised. But the world is not ideal: Aucklanders do not want to orienteer in the summer and always have the risk of a fire ban in Woodhill to contend with. Wellingtonians and South Islanders have restrictions on them if they tried to orienteer in late winter/early spring due to climate and access. So it doesn't matter when the Nationals are (Easter or Labour Weekend), there is always going to be a significant proportion of the orienteering community who view the date as "not ideal". Transferring the Nats from Easter to Labour Weekend would transfer the problems of an "orienteering season" from Auckland to Christchurch.

So our world is not ideal. Is it really that bad? Last word to Fraser - his post sums up my feelings perfectly:

The debate about when the season is seems like a lost cause to me. If the NZOF decided that, for example, summer is the season for orienteering then how do they enforce this? Are they going to ban orienteering in winter?? Even in this small country there seems to be enough local variation in climate or land use to make different regions have different ideas on when orienteering is best for them. So you can debate the timing of nationals but debating the season seems pointless on a national level.