Club Activity Guidelines

The following highlights good practice key points for clubs to follow. It is hoped that clubs will use the guidelines to develop their own orienteering activities to help raise participation levels within the sport.

Frequency

• Aim to provide a weekly meeting point at a suitable venue for changing and showering etc. Examples include: Leisure Centres, Church Halls, Schools and Social Clubs that can all be hired on an hourly basis at a low cost.

• Successful activities need to be continued to ensure retention rates and progression. An activity running once a week for 4 weeks is great at promoting the sport but may not provide as much sustainability for newcomers as a more long term programme.

Activity

• Try to organise Street O and Urban O activities that are easily accessible to communities can act as a starting point for newcomers to orienteering.

• Promote ‘come and try it’ type events that welcome complete beginners and are less intimidating.

• Offer progression routes towards more demanding courses over time.

• ‘Family Days’ provide an experience for everyone.

Marketing and Publicity

• Use local newspapers and aim to get reporters to report on orienteering in the community rather than a direct advertisement. This may eliminate paying a fee.

•  Flyers distributed to parents of children in local schools.

• Emphasise themes such as orienteering being a “whole family lifestyle, adventurous activity” as used in the MADO initiative.
• Posters and leaflets in local shops, businesses, hospitals and schools seem to be the most productive way of attracting people to activities.
• Establishing links with local schools provides easy communication for local events. Contact School Sports Co-Ordinators and School Sports Partnership Development Managers through your local county sports partnership for details on how to establish relationships with local schools (your regional development officer can help make these contacts).
• Include phrases such as ‘no experience necessary’ and ‘tuition available’ when producing banners and flyers to welcome and encourage non orienteers.

Organisation

• Provide newcomers with sufficient support and guidance.

• Clearly identify who is available to help e.g. South Ribble OrienteerIng Club used volunteers wearing high-visibility bibs with "SROC - here to help" on the front and back at one of their activities.

• Utilize current junior members and train them (use the Young Leader Award course) to become assistants before events.  This can be extremely productive as juniors often really enjoy helping out and families coming to try the sport are greeted by confident, happy children running around, thus highlighting the social benefits that orienteering can bring.
• Experienced orienteers on hand to help during activities.

Venue

• Use a low cost popular centre such as a village hall or school to coordinate activities from.

• Local Village area within easy access of mapped area. Map could include ‘street section’ to get the short distance to the start/finish in the forest as demonstrated by MAROC in their introductory events at Ballater and Braemar.
• Map small urban areas e.g. Parks, University Campus, Market Areas as demonstrated by OD and POW in their development initiatives.
• Schools often accommodate external sports clubs as it provides extra curricular opportunities for their students and promotes the use of their facilities.

Funding

• A number of clubs have made successful ‘Awards for All’ bids to help  with various costs such as buying new equipment,  getting new areas mapped, remapping new areas, putting in new permanent courses and  for the publicity of activities.

• Most clubs with successful bids didn't apply for the total cost, instead they asked for a significant contribution with the club committing to provide the rest of the funding.

• British Orienteering has various funding streams available