IOF World Orienteering Championships 2015
At the recent IOF congress held at the World Championship in Trondheim, British Orienteering announced its intention to bid for WOC 2015 in the Highlands of Scotland.
From the British Orienteering website:
Such a high profile event gives many opportunities for development through athlete success, media exposure and public awareness but is not without risks particularly financial and in the volunteer effort required. The bid is at the early stages of development and has been received positively by some of the key partners. Part of this bidding process will be to ensure that we can capitalise on the opportunities and that the risks are minimised.
If the bid is progressed and receives IOF backing it will undoubtedly be an exciting event to be involved in and British Orienteering will welcome partners and individuals who wish to participate in the delivery of the championships.
For more information contact Dave Peel, Bid Director.
Posted on 27th Aug 10
by Scott Fraser -
Filed under: News
Scott Fraser says:
Totally agree Blair.
We will be working closely with sportscotland and the clubs to see how we can maximise the development legacy before, during and after the event. This is going to be a major part of the WOC2015 project.
Terry O'Brien says:
Can’t disagree with the sentiment of the posts above but it wasn’t any lack of enthusiasm or energy after WOC 99 for STAG as we organised a host of events, sometimes 3 in the same week with little or no return in terms of NEW MEMBERS.
Nowadays NEW MEMBERS isn’t our raison d’etre. We host special projects for Football Teams (as part of their Pre-Season Training); similar projects for Scouts, Guides etc and are content at the thought of more people receiving a proper & positive orienteering experience - many repeat on an Annual basis.
My gut reaction is that should WOC 2015 be held in Scotland, our enthusiasm will need to be supported with thousands of £££££££ to fund publicity and the National & Local Press (where it exists) will have to buy into our agenda for any legacy to be stimulated & there after sustained.
Heart says Go For It but my Head says dont expect too much!!
scott-a mckendrick says:
you have got to agree with uncle terry on this one… whatever it is he is saying. as orienteering is far from a mainstream sport any marketing and publicity would need to be well thought out with a different approach; the traditional flyer distribution doesnt work, school interest is high but usually within school and term time with limited follow-up. at stag we have had limited success with direct emails and have found that clubs like to be spoon-fed their evenings entertainment. this problem is not limited to orienteering as we have tried various methods with our kaim hill race… even offering a £500 prize pot with no significant increase in runners .i would be interested to hear of any plans to publicise the sport or from any clubs with a successful marketing programme.
that said, keep your chin up uncle terry!
Roger Scrutton says:
The Development Conference at Fordell Firs in June touched on best practice for publicity, which will be published in a resource booklet arising from the conference. In some parts of Scotland publicity for the sport is good and this has worked to generate investment, but, I agree, it is tough to attract new members. Nevertheless, SOA membership is increasing year-on-year at about 5% or so.
Follow your heart, Terry! We have learnt a lot in recent years. Scott and Oleg have done a great job around the PWT and we will learn from that too. We just have to keep trying.
Other recent items in the same category
Blair Young says:
If we are to host these Championships again, we( Scotland) need to have a post Championships plan to utilise what on the face of it has to be an excellent opportunity to boost the sport.
Unfortunatly, the effort put into the 6 Day/WOC the last time seemed to leave little energy for promotion in the months after the Championships and this was despite there being a British World Champion!
2015 could be ideal timing with 2012 & 2014 (Ryder Cup as well as CG’s). If the Country isn’t looking to get out and about in 2014/15 I struggle to see when they will be.