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Current major topics:

Junior levies

Levy charges

Junior levies

The Management Committee of British Orienteering fully supports junior participation and wishes to see an increase in the number of juniors that are participating in orienteering events. In discussing the proposal to be taken to the AGM about the changes to the levy scheme, Management Committee sought to publicly reinforce this support for junior participation.

Management Committee tried to establish a list of the ‘junior participation only’ events but realised that the list could be considerable and that events would inevitably be omitted. Consequently the proposal being put before the members at the AGM includes some examples of events in which juniors only participate, for example the Yvette Baker Trophy. Management Committee agreed that Junior Competitions Group should have the authority to recommend any ‘junior participation only events’ as being exempt from the levy. Through this mechanism the events in which juniors only participate in can be ratified and added to a list of exemptions to the levy.

If the proposal is adopted at the AGM the way forward for organisers of junior only events is to provide the Junior Competitions Group the name and date of the event (and whether it is part of a series or annual) along with a brief overview of the event stressing that it is for junior participation only.

I hope this statement will allay the fears of those people who have raised queries about the impact of the levy change proposal on junior only orienteering events.

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Levy Charges

Several people have written to the National Office to raise the issue of substantive increases in fees for local events. Overall the income generated through levies across the entirety of the competition structure has, for the proposed scheme in 2009, been calculated at a 3% increase. This is across all events (excepting junior only events); the change across individual events may be lower or higher than this and if the data for 2007 events is used the number of events that have no levy to pay will increase from 117 in 2007 to 173 under the proposed system. (The data used for modelling included the 2007 events on which returns had been made as of November and totalling 442 of which 9 were national, 74 regional, 182 district and 177 local).

A sample set of events shows:

When considering the table above please note that the number of local events below the minimum participation level to incur a levy charge has risen from 117 to 173.

Cost per event is now based on the number of entrants only.

The cost per person for events ranging from 25 participants through to 1,000 participants can be represented as shown below. The cost per participant for an event of 2,000 people rises to £2.34 and only 4p more, £2.38 for 3,000 people.

The proposed scheme links the number of people participating in an event with the levy charged on the event and removes the current link with the category of event (ie at and above regional level C3 or below regional level).

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