Meeting Minutes: TVOC Club meeting: FINAL Held at 8pm on Tuesday 15 th July 2014 at The Merry Bells, Wheatley Present: Neville Baker (Chair), John Dalton (Minutes), Martin Ricketts, Lyn Blackie, Yvonne Hodson, Robin Bishop, Steve Stone, Roger Baker, John Thompson, Bob Beresford, John Farren Apologies for absence: Alun Jones, Jon and Glynis Wheatcroft, Alison Smith, Ian Buxton, Carol Edwards 1. Matters Arising from previous Club Meeting a) Defibrillator ACTION: Alun Jones to contact Dave Grimes at Abingdon Venture Rescue for an update on any 2014 grant applications. Alun to review how St John Ambulance operate at Hughenden event REPORT FROM ALUN: St John Ambulance worked well at the Hughenden event, professional and helpful. They dealt with four (minor) injuries. They were a similar price to AVR, and brought two defibs, plus gas (for use, I understand, following splinting a broken limb before transporting the injured to an ambulance). I would have no hesitation in using them again. The one issue is that they get booked up, so early contact with them is essential, particularly for busy times and Bank Holidays. b) Saturday Series It was suggested that any pricing policies for the Saturday Series are also in place for Sunday events. ACTION: Alun Jones will consult with others and propose a way forward for pricing the 2014/15 series. REPORT FROM ALUN: The following has been discussed and agreed for the new 2014/15 season: Senior non-bof 5 Senior BOF 4 Junior, or group of juniors 2. These prices also apply where they announce a senior (and only one!) is accompanying the junior(s) to shadow them. Note we should not seek out this statement; it will be for them to inform us. Family group 5 (or 4 if one is a BOF member) Note 'family' should be interpreted widely, ie any group of adults (with or without children) going round together. Extra maps are 1 each. EMIT hire free. Second runs free (on return of first map) A query was raised about the British Orienteering levy. It was confirmed that these events do incur such a levy at the rate of 1 per unit (and 1/3 of this for juniors). In addition, there is a SCOA levy of 18p per run. No additional levy for free second runs. c) Summer Series ACTION: John Thompson to review web site information about the Summer Series and ask the Webmaster to make any necessary changes. Web site has been updated accordingly. ACTION COMPLETE d) Mapping and OCAD v11 It was AGREED that a subcommittee consisting of Martin Ricketts, Bob Beresford and John Farren be set up to make recommendations to the club on the provision of software and equipment to TVOC mappers and planners. ACTION: Alun Jones to contact John Farren to ask if he would be happy to join this subcommittee. John Farren confimed he was happy to be on the subcommittee. ACTION COMPLETE The mapping committee has not met since the last TVOC meeting. ACTION CARRIED OVER 2. Recent Club Successes Saunders Mountain Marathon, 12 th and 13 th July held in Helvellyn area of the Lake District.
Nigel and Fiona Bunn: 1 st place in Harter class, nearly 1h 20mins ahead of 2 nd place team Suzy Robertson (TVOC member) and her sister: 1 st female pair in Wansfell class Fiona Bunn made the podium at the W16 relays in the European Youth Orienteering Championships British Championships, 31 st May / 1 st June: Fiona Bunn, 1 st W16 Inara Gipsle, 1 st W60 1 st Womens Short Relay: Fiona Bunn, Bethany Kippin, Anne Edwards) win Womens Short Relay There was a very good picture of Fiona in the recent FOCUS magazine 3. Past events a) Hughenden (Sunday Sunday 8 th ) June 2014, Level C) REPORT FROM ALUN: Hughenden seemed to go well. 190-odd entries, about what we might expect for June (especially with level B urban on in Tunbridge Wells). Surplus of ~ 250 to be confirmed when final Fabian4 report is received. VERY positive article in Daily Telegraph Weekend section following the event. Very nice letter back from Child Bereavement UK, recipient of 100 donation in lieu of land access fees for West Wycombe Estate. 4. Future Events: see http://tinyurl.com/tvoc-plans A full discussion of the plans for events for the second half of 2015, and for 2016 was held. All events proposed are listed below. 2014 a) Didcot Urban Event (August Bank Holiday, Monday 25 th August 2014, Level C): Planner: Carol Edwards. Organiser: Scott Collier and Anne Edwards. Controller Geoff Ellis RAFO ACTIONS: Martin Ricketts spoke to Didcot Town Council regarding the event. Waiting for formal authorisation at June meeting to use Start and Finish locations. ACTION COMPLETE Martin Ricketts commented that necessary map updates have been completed. COMMENT FROM CAROL: We have permission for the event from the town council We have parking at Didcot Football Ground We have use of the toilets and cafe at the adjacent Leisure Centre + a room for computing equipment. Just finalising attendance by Ultrasport. Courses are with the controller. Map printer ready to print proofs. b) King s Wood (Sunday 19 th October 2014, Level C) Organiser: Paul Greenough. Planner: Robin Bishop. Controller tbc COMMENT FROM ALUN: Peter Riches has agreed to control ACTION: Robin reported that he will visit this weekend to see what updates might be required on the map. c) Shotover (fallback option Wendover) (December 21 st December 2014, Level C) Organiser: Gary Mills. Planner: Greg Birdseye (assuming Shotover). Controller: Mark Foxwell (BKO) Car parking to be confirmed by September or revert to Wendover ACTION: Neville to check with Gary Mills to determine if there is any update regarding car parking at BMW Neville to inform mapper, John Farren, as to the outcome of this call 2015 d) Penn Wood, Penn Estate and Common Wood (22 nd February 2015, Chiltern Challenge, Level B)
Planner: Steve Long. Controller: Philip Gristwood (MV) assisted by Peter Priest COMMENT FROM ALUN: Alun will organise e) Great Hampden (29th March 2015, Level C) COMMENT FROM ALUN: Richard Steptoe planning. Needs an Organiser. Controller yet to be identified. f) British Middle Distance Championships 2015, Park Wood and Naphill (Sunday 10 th May 2015, Level A) Organisers: Neville Baker and Marie-Anne Fischer. Planner: Seamus Cunnane ACTION: Neville to confirm permissions with National Trust for Bradenham, and Keeper, Les Morris on behalf of the tenant farmers Neville reported as follows: Date confirmed as Sunday 10 th May Mapper to be Andrew Chalmers National Trust permission (verbally) received from Matt Shrimpton Some permission still pending for small wooded areas following change of gamekeeper. Longstanding TVOC contact, Les Morris has left to be replaced by Mike Claire. Neville trying to contact Mike with intention of confirming permission for these last bits Has met British Orienteering Major Events Manager, Sally Pygott This is a Partnership event, where the weekend events jointly are expected to return approximately 7k for both British Orienteering and SCOA. No levy is due from these events, however g) RAL, Harwell (Monday 31 st August 2015) Richard Sharp is in the process of exploring permissions COMMENT FROM ALUN: Richard Sharp has received permission for RAL. Map update required because of building work. We are seeking permission to use the Harwell side of the site, too. h) World Orienteering Championships (Inverness, Scotland, 1-7 August 2015) A number of TVOC members are travelling to this event and have offered to help at the event. Jon and Glynis Wheatcroft provided an update for volunteers. ACTION: Alun to raise this at the next SCOA meeting. ACTION COMPLETE i) Area to be proposed (Mid October 2015, level C) See comment on Nettlebed Below i) Wendover Woods. (Mid October Sunday 15 th December 2015, Level C) See comment on Nettlebed Below j) Nettlebed (Sunday December 15 th 2015, Level C) This event can not happen as it was specified as it is during the shooting season 2016 k) Christmas Common (February 2016), Level C) l) Hambleden? (Sunday 24 th April 2016 tbc, Chiltern Challenge, Level B). Organiser: John Dalton, Planners: Mark Thompson and Peter Riches. ACTION: John Dalton to confirm permission UPDATE FROM JOHN DALTON: Other planned events at Hambleden for this time are likely to require a date change. John Dalton to follow up. m) Kingswood (Sunday June 6 th 2016, Level C) n) Grove and Wantage (Monday 29 th August 2016, Urban Level C) o) Hodgemoor (October 2016, Level C) p) Shotover (December 2016)
2017 q) Great Hampden (March 2017, Chiltern Challenge, Level B) Need to avoid shooting season and February GENERAL COMMENT FROM ALUN: For the events in the second half of 2015 and into 2016, we need to agree that they are in sensible places, and to identify individuals who will seek permissions and who will update (or create in one case) the map. Feedback from the meeting was that the schedule, with the comments and changes noted above, looks OK. 5. Saturday Series Martin Ricketts has recently received a summary of the account for the series from Mark Thompson. An overall surplus of 1,600 was reported. This equates to an average surplus of 150 per event (excluding the Big Wood night event which made a loss). Very positive comments were made about the effect of Mike Shires efforts with publicity. His efforts had certainly resulted in many more newcomers. Martin reported that during this period about 500 was spent on publicity. A question was asked about the extent to which the newcomers were moving to become members. It was commented as to how pro-active particularly Carol Edwards is in this area when she is in attendance. A question was asked about limitations in the provision of insurance cover by the British Orienteering policy for non-members. An excerpt of a recent email from Mike Hamilton is included at the end of these minutes. ACTIONS: Matters arising from this discussion to be discussed at the next meeting Neville to ensure all 2014-15 Saturday Series events are registered with British Orienteering 6. Summer Series 2014 2014 series is underway. There will be 11 of our events, plus one BKO event at Bloom Wood in the series. There are two events left. One at Windmill Hill, the other at Wendover. Attendance is down on last year. Robin Bishop explained an innovation he used at the Coombe Hill event where a time limit was set to the whole event, with the last loop on everyone s course being a Score loop. This had the benefit of getting everyone back to the finish together at a specific time. This helped to provide volunteers to collect controls and improved the social element of the event. The scoring system needs further thought. It is more difficult to plan the loop and their lengths correctly. However, people present thought it was a good innovation and would be happy for others to use it. 7. Mapping a) Didcot (August 2014) Martin Ricketts updating map as necessary b) Kingswood (October 2014) Needs a mapper. Last done by Martin Ricketts. ACTION: Alun Jones to talk to John Farren to assist in confirming a mapper Martin Ricketts has very kindly agreed to update it (as well as Didcot!) c) Shotover (December 2014) John Farren had kindly offered to update the map if car parking at BMW is confirmed d) Penn and Penn Estate Common Wood (February 2015) Mapping of Penn Wood underway by Bob Beresford. Won t be completed until the autumn. Planner, Steve Long has copies of the map as it develops. Has met the Woodland Trust people to determine any planned work by them. Lots of rhododendrons have been removed, but there shouldn t be any felling. Some thinning of conifers and replacement with deciduous trees is planned. Also, a lot of work has been conducted in Common Wood that will need updating.
e) Great Hampden (29 th March 2015?) Mark Thompson is happy to remap for this date f) Park Wood and Naphill (9 th May 2015, Level A) ACTION: Neville Baker will contact Andrew Chalmers to discuss what might be needed for a re-map. ACTION COMPLETE g) RAL, Harwell (Monday 31 st August 2015) Map update required because of building work. h) Grove and Wantage (August 2016) Luke McNeil might be interested in mapping ACTION: Alun Jones to liaise with John Farren about talking to Luke McNeil as mapper COMMENT FROM ALUN: I have passed Luke's name to John Farren for him to follow up. ACTION COMPLETE John Farren indicated that this might not be close enough to Luke s home to be practical for him to map. John did comment that he has obtained copies of useful base-maps of the areas concerned, and has contact details for the individual who produced the documents containing them. ACTIONS: John Farren to obtain the actual source base-maps if possible John Farren then to talk to Luke McNeil The club can then seek formal permission to use the area before any mapping work takes place. 8. Development Committee The Development Committee has not met since the previous Club Meeting. ACTION: Robin Bishop to provide an update for the next TVOiCe, and make a plea for new members of this committee. ACTION CARRIED OVER Robin reported that will be organising the next meeting shortly. 9. Officers Reports Chairman: Comment on Funding from SCOA Bulletin: Both SARUM and BADO have been successful recently in obtaining funding from Sport England for purchasing new equipment. In both cases they applied for funds to create Maze events, to attract people to have a go at the sport. These Mazes enable greater use of small areas and can be used for all ages. SARUM also obtained some additional funding from Salisbury Council. There are a number of sources of funding available, large and small, and clubs are advised to look at the BOF website for suggestions see http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/page/funding Comment from Alun Might we want to seek funding for kit to create a maze? Would be ideal at an event like Saturday Series at Wycombe Abbey, and in the Oxford Parks. Anyone willing to investigate what would be involved / how much funding would be available? Treasurer: Martin is in the process of sorting out levies due for the Summer Series Secretary: School Grounds mapping: John Dalton is getting a growing number of requests to map school grounds. For example: Sandhills School, Headington Northern House School in Oxford (small) A discussion was had about how we might handle these in the future Captain: Nothing to report
10. Any Other Business Taller flagpoles for TVOC banner flags (Jon Wheatcroft): 5.18m super-strong poles are 36, rotating ground spikes are 15, carriage 10. All prices +VAT. So, 2 of each comes to 134.40 including carriage and VAT. Good use of club money? Happy to order if approved. COMMENT FROM ALUN: Martin and I have not agreed to this suggestion from Jon Wheatcroft. He should raise this at the meeting. Do we want to spend 135 on longer poles for the two existing feather flags? It was agreed at the meeting that the club should go ahead and purchase these longer poles. ACTION: John Dalton will confirm this with Jon Wheatcroft Coaching (Simon Kippin): Simon Kippin has expressed an interest in becoming an orienteering assistant coach for the past year, but there have not been any convenient courses anywhere in the UK recently. It appears that British Orienteering is keen for new coaches to go straight to level 2 coaching qualification. Also, BO were seeking to find a more cost-effective way of delivering that qualification. In addition, SCOA is keen to share training opportunities across the various clubs. Craig Blackford, in charge of the Junor Squad at SCOA has been contacted. He has had quite a few people contact him from SCOA clubs interested in coaching, including some juniors. He thinks we could easily get 8 to 10 people willing to attend a course. BAOC may offer more. Craig thinks it would be better if everyone did a level 2 rather than level 1 course. Because of time constraints (it is hard to attend training for a full weekend or two), Craig suggests that the best approach for the training course would be to run it on Saturdays, say every two weeks until complete. Once people have attended the course they can then practice the skills and show evidence of the coaching by running one or more junior squad or club sessions. ACTION: John Dalton with share this dialogue with Simon Kippin, and confirm that, from his point of view (and that of TVOC s), that he is happy to take the requirement forward in association with SCOA via Craig. Aylesbury Vale Love Parks. (Yvonne Hodson) Yvonne noted that Aylesbury Vale Council are running Love Parks programme of activities at the end of July offering orienteering. Mike Shires is exploring what exactly they are doing. It might be appropriate for us to get some TVOC flyers to these events. RadiO. (Robin Bishop) Robin is running a RadiO event on Sunday 10 th of August at Hodgemoor. Come and try it! Web Site update Our webmaster will be away from the 25 th July for 2 weeks. If people need the web updating in that period, they must use his gmail email account. This is in the format: [firstname].[lastname]2508[at]gmail.com. Thanks were given to the Webmaster for his refreshed TVOC web site which has been very well received. Event Safety Course. (Neville Baker) The Wheatcrofts are holding the next Event Safety Course at the Merry Bells in Wheatley 09:00-13:00 Saturday 15 th November. It is an increasing requirement for event organisers to have been on this programme. Contact the Wheatcrofts for more information. Date of next meeting: Confirmed as 8pm on Tuesday 16 th September 2014 at The Merry Bells, Wheatley. Appendix: Excerpt from British Orienteering enews email from Mike Hamilton to clubs dated 23JUN14. Continuing the insurance saga, there s been further email traffic regarding the insurance scheme, particularly from clubs in Scotland, although the issues raised probably apply to all clubs.
The problems raised are particularly around how our public liability insurance covers non-members attending events. The insurance situation is exactly the same as it has been for 7 or so years. Non-members attending events can participate in 3 events under the come and try it approach and will be covered for public liability. However once they have attended 3 they should be encouraged to become members. The queries raised are about where this leaves the organising club and its officials if non-members continue to participate in events and do not become members. Under the current cover the following applies: a) The club and its officials will be covered for public liability insurance regardless of the non-members situation b) All members participating or volunteering to organise etc will be covered c) Non-members will be covered by public liability for 3 events. In discussion with our insurers there are several points worth noting: a) Clubs are required to maintain lists of attendees b) The insurers understand the challenge of non-member participants attending multiple activities/events at the same or different clubs. So what is the solution? Firstly, the insurers and our brokers understand this situation. The club and its members are covered for public liability regardless of this matter. Clubs must keep an attendance register. Clubs can organise to charge non-members 5 for seniors and 2 for juniors and turn the non-members into members of British Orienteering, but accept they are not members of the club or association. Of course if the club or association fee is 0 then they automatically become members of the club and association at the same time. Some clubs are already taking this approach and focus their income generation on entry fees to their events. Most associations do not have fees, the exceptions being EMOA ( 7 senior, 0 junior), NIOA ( 13.50, 3.59, 30.50 family), SEOA ( 7, 0), SOA ( 7, 0) and 25% of our clubs also have no fees. To implement the joining of members to British Orienteering to ensure they receive public liability insurance clubs will need to take participant details and pass them on to the National Office. We can organise for you to have copies of a welcome letter. This approach reduces the workload on everyone and costs the nonmember the minimum to ensure they have public liability cover. The insurers we use and the other major sports insurance providers do not provide public liability cover at a reasonable price for all participants at an event in a single package, members and non-members. Such a solution is simply not achievable for us as the significant increase in cost (if it is possible at all) will have to be met by increasing the costs to our members and will also entail significant administrative overhead for clubs and ourselves. The alternative is to go to a day insurance cover which will significantly increase costs, administration and penalise members. Clubs, club officials, event officials and members all have public liability cover regardless of this issue and all clubs need to keep lists of people attending all events.