From: Mike Hamilton <info@britishorienteering.org.uk>
To: mccannhg <mccannhg@aol.com>
Sent: Fri, 6 Mar 2015 13:17
Subject: Mike's eNews - 6 March 2015
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Mike’s eNews – 6 March 2015ContentsAs always, feel free to forward this eNews to your members; it’s going to be published on the eNews page at http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/page/enews on Monday so if you would rather send them a link please feel free to do so.
Night Events and InsuranceOur insurers base their risk assessment on our track record and on their understanding and appreciation of our rules and the steps we take to mitigate risk. Therefore it is important that organisers apply our rules strictly and are able to demonstrate and evidence good risk management.
For night events the current Safety Appendix to the rules state:
4.10 Night events
4.10.1 When the event is to be held during the hours of darkness the risk assessment must take account of additional hazards arising from this. The Organiser may require competitors to wear an article of high visibility and/or reflective clothing.
4.10.2 Competitors should be reminded of their responsibility towards their personal safety. It should be mandatory for them to carry a whistle and back-up lighting. Checks should be made before they start. If the weather justifies it then wearing or carrying a waterproof hooded jacket needs to be mandatory.
4.10.3 For Urban night events in which competitors may encounter moving traffic, the Organiser may require competitors to wear an article of high visibility and/or reflective clothing.
4.10.4 It is advisable to notify the local police about the event in case they receive reports of suspicious lights. It is also good practice to inform local residents.
So, the wording could be clearer and will be updated shortly but 4.10.2 says “…. It should be mandatory for them to carry a whistle and back-up lighting. Checks should be made before they start….”
The insurers assume that ‘mandatory’ means mandatory and consequently this is what is required to be delivered for night events.
Clearly some will argue about the clarity of the rules and whether or not they agree with them; regardless of this it will be expected to be enforced by the insurers and if there was an incident this is what the insurers will expect.
So, at the moment until the rule is changed, please protect yourself, your club and British Orienteering by delivering the Rule and checking people have what they should have before they start. This will place you and us in the most defensible position if an incident occurs.
Add to your event information:
“Please note that British Orienteering have confirmed that every competitor must carry a whistle and a backup light and that the organising club must physically check at the start that a reasonable percentage of participants are complying with this rule. Please bear with us while this kit check is performed.”
If and when the rule is updated I’ll let you know.
InsuranceJust to be clear, the insurers expect events to be delivered as the rules and appendices to the rules state. If you do not deliver as the rules and particularly the Safety Appendix to the rules state you risk invalidating the insurance cover.
Risk ManagementRisk management has become a big issue over the last few weeks. Over the years I have been Chief Exec of British Orienteering I have heard continuously that our event organisers and coaches are good at risk assessment and the mitigation of risks as far as is feasible. To a large extent I have taken this at face value and not looked in depth at the practices within the sport, feeling happy that good practice is ‘normal’.
Unfortunately over the last few weeks a number of issues have arisen that has undermined somewhat my belief in our practices.
The insurers and to be honest I’m in the same position are now far less confident that risk assessments are being done in the formal way required. The insurers will be giving me guidance as to what they expect and it is clear that risk assessment and management is something that should be on-going throughout the delivery of an event. So, it is not sufficient to arrive at the day before an event and put down all of the thoughts regarding risk that you have in your head as an organiser or planner. Risk assessment and management needs to be on-going through the life of the event and should reflect risks that have been mitigated as well as those still existing.
The risk assessment and management of those risk should also be documented and available.
Clearly for a small local event that might mean doing the assessment and form in the week preceding the event but for a larger event or a major event it should be developed early in the life of the event and then updated continuously through to the day of the event.
It is the risk assessment documentation that the insurers will call on when they have an incident or when they have an event that they are looking into.
There have been examples of good practice, thank goodness. For instance two years ago there was a concern over insurance for the S6Ds and when the insurers asked for a copy of the risk assessment I was able to obtain it and get it to them within a matter of an hour or so of their request. The insurers were also impressed by the quality of the documentation.
Ordnance SurveyWe have recently received notice of changes to our Partner Contract with OS. You may have noticed that OS have announced a ‘brand refresh’ to reflect their new business practice.
You can read about their branding and style on their website here.
They are requiring us to be more thorough in making sure that we comply with the current version of their Style Guide which provides all the information you require about how to use their copyright statements, logos and legends, which should be used on all future maps.
I’ll be publishing the details on our web site next week.
LIDAR dataAfter the article last month one question has arisen about the LIDAR issue that will be of interest to a few clubs – how does the ruling on use of LIDAR impact on maps prepared for permanent courses which may be sold?
Unfortunately as soon as someone charges for a map it is classed as commercial usage and we can’t use the LIDAR data at the non-commercial rates. So I think the simplest way to solve the problem with POCs where maps are charged is to use old, non-LIDAR maps.
Major EventsOver the past few years there have been numerous issues thrown up around the staging of our major events, the JK and BOCs. Over the next few months we’ll be asking for the opinions of clubs, associations and members about how these events should be staged in the future. Clearly one thing remains constant and that is how we, British Orienteering and you the clubs and associations that stage them on our behalf, can meet the needs of our members. Balancing along with this are the things we don’t like thinking about such as safety and insurance and then the even bigger issue of how the sport is funded – particularly in the situation where the funding of sport and governing bodies is being challenged; there is no certainty that funding will be continued after March 2017. Income generation is consequently a major concern and we need to see where the major events sit in this.
Anyway there’ll be a few questions for clubs and associations to consider in a week or so around what your response is to a ‘franchise’ approach to one or more of the major events.
Event Organiser TrainingMany people are agreed that developing organisers to deliver events from local to major is of great importance as it can be argued our current volunteer work force is getting older and our ability to bring in younger people is not being successful.
We are commencing work with a consultant to see how we can attract and train new event organisers. This work is being led as a joint effort by Sally Pygott, Major Events Manager, and Craig Anthony, Head of Development, and you should be hearing more about this in the near future.
Strategic PlanningEarly warning again that the Board have agreed a consultation process to engage with clubs, associations, members and other interested parties such as non-member participants.
The consultation will, in brief, consider ‘what’ we are trying to achieve, that is our vision, and ‘how’ we will achieve it, our strategic plan. In essence the vision part of the consultation will run from next week through to April including a brief session at the AGM. This will be followed by the ‘how’ we will achieve this which will run from May through the summer to the Club & Association Conference in October. A final set of recommendations will then be widely consulted on in late October and early November leading to the Board meeting in December when the Vision and Strategic Plan should be agreed!
Key issues for the vision, or ‘what’ we are trying to achieve are likely to be: increasing participation, increasing membership and sustainable international success.
Other key discussion the consultations will seek input into are likely to be:
Keep your eyes on the news items!
State of PlayI’ve been working for the last 9 months with the CEOs of 38 other governing bodies of sport to try to get a message across to government and others about the positive role that governing bodies play.
The outcome is “State of Play Report 2014” which will be launched next Tuesday 10 March.
We hope that it will be a powerful example of what can be achieved when such a collective of NGBs come together to articulate the work and value of what we do. When you look at the report I think you will be amazed and extremely proud of the part that British Orienteering plays.
Last week saw a campaign commence to meet with and brief the key stakeholders on the content of our report and these briefings will continue into next week.
Orienteering has inputted significantly to the key findings within the report and we hope that the report will influence whichever government is in power after the General Election to recognise the good done by the NGBs and to continue to fund us after March 2017.
Orienteering’s input and ‘stories’ will be available after the launch of the report next Tuesday.
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