1. Register of interests
Checked & updated.
2. Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of Directors on 12th January 2010.
3. Matters arising from the minutes of 12th January 2010 and not covered in the agenda.
AP 1 LW to write to Hilary Quick thanking for volunteering to look after SSD equipment store. Hilary wants T-bars belonging to clubs to be taken away.
4. Director resignations
Replacement for Technical Director pending resignation of John Emeleus: no progress as yet but hope to have a candidate in time for autumn meeting. John has asked Gareth BJ by e-mail – awaiting a reply. Directors asked for other potential candidates e.g. Controllers?
5. British Orienteering levy for Oban 2011 (LW)
Paper tabled from GBJ (created prior to the BOF AGM voting)
Proxy votes seemed to carry vote at BO AGM for increase in levy. Smaller events will pay less. Larger events will be hit by this development. Reference: GBJ’s paper. All levies goes into the BO development fund, which clubs can apply to for new equipment etc. So clubs can benefit from the levy. Should we seek a capping for large events such as the SSD from BO?
AP 2 LW will approach Welsh/Lakes co-ordinators to gauge their thoughts. LW will seek views on what cap might be. Also find out cost of insurance for event if we decide to remove the SSD from BOF.
6. Safety Procedures (LK & SF)
Are we covered by our current procedures? (Communication received from Katy Dyer, BOF safety officer, has brought this to our attention)
LK introduced issue raised by Katy Dyer’s recent communication. We don’t have very much on safety (just campsite fire plan). As directors we need have sufficient procedures in place to ensure we are covered. Fire incident, child hand over plan, missing runner plan, casualty handling are all potentially relevant. Do we need another manual? Should this be a professional officer role? As the issues are common to all large events one manual could fit all.
AP 3 SF to be asked to draft a manual with help from LK and RL (as co-ordinator 2011). LK to approach SF.
AP 4 There is a new British Orienteering risk assessment form, which LW is planning to train all Oban2011 day organisers on once they are appointed.
7. Organiser’s & Equipment Manager’s manuals (LK)
Equipment manager’s manual is ready for Equipment co-ordinator to have a go at making it fit for Oban 2011.
AP 5 RL to distribute Organisers and Equipment manuals to Stewart Durham (Equipment Co-ord) and Dave MacRitchie (Day Co-ord) to work on and tweak for Oban 2011. LK to pass to Scott.
RO suggested day teams be made responsible for dismantling previous day’s equipment and its transfer to their site before they erect. That way they are not hanging around too much at the end of the day waiting for the equipment to arrive. It would be an incentive to pack equipment better since the same team would be required to unpack it at the other end.
Starting procedure? Should we have punching starts? OK for everyone except Elites who should have timed starts. If so, we would still want to impress on everyone to make their allotted start time and not encourage deliberate late starts. Not good for commentary who don’t like punching starts as can’t comment on chasing times for courses other than elites.
At Tay09 start teams made notes on those who were more than 5mins late and asked for reason for late time. OK for one offs but not if pattern develops. This could be solved by computing team running a report to show those starting later than their start time. It would require an update of the technical manual.
AP 6 Robin S to investigate and liaise with Bob Cherry (Oban 2011 technical co-ordinator)
Day officials feedback via e-mail was very effective way of getting feedback and seemed much better than usual wind-up meeting. Suggest this is used next time around
AP 7 RL to seek officials’ feedback by e-mail after 2011 event.
8. Oban 2011 (RL & SF & RO)
RL tabled a progress report.
AP 8 RL to ensure traffic management plan includes recommendation to bus all camper van owners to each day assembly as these are particularly difficult vehicles to park in poor field conditions. Days 1 & 5 might be an exception to this. Also to ensure there is a changing marquee for bus people at each day’s assembly field.
All other competitors should be encouraged to share transport to reduce traffic each day.
AP 9 RL Advise COT sets short deadline to encourage clubs to appoint remaining day officials e.g. by mid June.
Elite race format (MS)
AP 10 Murray to think about which of the days would suit UK cup events
Twitter: does this need to be resurrected as a form of media the event could be advertised on?
9. Park World Tour (SF & LK)
Planner is concerned about small size of area involved. So short courses are likely.
Directors were not clear on whom the event is targeted at other than Elite competitors? Scottish Orienteers? It is the same race format as British Sprint Champs. In which case people need to know it’s not just for elites but that anyone can enter, especially Saturday morning CATI. Organisers should find a way of including Saturday morning results in overall results so people can compare their times with elite competitors. But Saturday afternoon public race streets will not be closed off – so juniors enter under their own (signed) risk.
Finance/funding
Funded by sponsors so a large number of entry fees are not essential to ensure that the event breaks even.
10. Finance report (RO)
Good surplus from Tay09 –camping, sponsorship etc helped. Concerned that with the current financial climate sponsorship might not be that forthcoming in future. Therefore we shouldn’t be reliant on it. Also need to be careful about adding too many new attractions that can’t be sustained at future events. This could risk downgrading event appeal.
Current balance does not include SOA billing which we are still awaiting invoice for.
Options for distribution of surplus funds
Robin O. tabled some suggested options for distributing surplus funds.
AH suggested clubs apply to SSD not SOA as decision body.
RS suggested investing in radio controls. LW suggested this be accompanied with training option to get people familiar with working with the technology.
AP 11 RS to investigate costs of radio controls
LW suggested lighter T-bars. There was discussion over which type; aluminium L-bars or fibreglass wands? Aluminium bars more robust. Fibreglass wands have a tendency to wobble/flex
RS suggested procuring more S.I. cards particularly for use at schools events.
Other ideas:
Volunteer officials should be encouraged to claim their expenses so that a more realistic estimate of event costs can be obtained. They can always, if they wish, donate the fees back to the SSD Company or invest in an orienteering development of their choice?
LW suggested procuring lighter, more useable assembly/finish area equipment e.g. stakes
AP 12 All directors to think further about options and respond by mid-June through GoogleDocs.
Fuel costs are going up. SSD mileage rate has been fixed for many years now and probably does not reflect true cost of fuel etc.
AP 13 Agreed mileage rate to be £0.25 raised from current £0.20. RL to inform Kenny Milton (Oban 2011 treasurer).
11. Business Plan 2010 – 2019
AP 14 Change environmental objective to car sharing to be encouraged. Add new bullet point – try and select areas close to each other to avoid excessive travelling between days.
12. SOA matters with relevance to the 6-Day Company (DG & SF)
JK 2012: Tay are the lead club.
AP 15 Lynne to circulate Scott’s briefing note about the JK.
RO asked if Scott’s list of areas included Auchengarroch as this is proposed for Scottish Champs?
Directors confirmed their opinion from previous meeting that SSD should not be the driver for major events other than SSD. It was felt that if the SOA’s Major events strategy did indeed attract some major events then that might be the time for SOA to appoint a major event’s director who could sit on the SSD Company as a director.
There does not appear to be any major event affecting our choice of 2015 area and therefore we continue to have a free hand.
13. 6 Day Event 2013 (AH & SF)
George Esson has agreed to be an interim co-ordinator. It was suggested that Moravian rather than Gramp be approached in the first instance for someone to take on the role.
Areas for competition?
Steve Smirthwaite is leading on looking at areas with help from Scott and Hilary Quick. Got FCS consent to look at Lossie, Roseisle and Culbin. Enquires made about Darnaway. Hilary looking at access to Dochan and Deisha. A new area near Carrbridge has been suggested. Some Invoc areas being looked at but perhaps not a good idea to use another club’s areas particularly as might want to use for a future SSD.
Event centre?
Won’t decide until areas been selected and therefore where the focus for event will be.
Date for the event confirmed as 28th July – 3rd August 2013
14. 6 Day Event 2015 (SF & LW)
20th 6 Day Event since beginning in 1977
Possible locations?
No further forward. Need to decide at September meeting.
AP 16 LW to speak to Donald Grassie about major events and how these might impact on the 2015 decision.
15. Professional Officer business (SF)
Scott was ill and unable to be at the meeting. His email report was incorporated into other items in the meeting.
16. History of 6-Day Company (LW)
Two communications from John Colls on progress were tabled.
Progress noted. Directors discussed formats and consensus was that any published document be best kept brief with more interesting and illustrative content that would appeal to as wider an audience as possible. Meanwhile much of the detail and data could be made available online for those with particular interest.
What to do with all the archive material? This is likely to be limited to current quantity as material on more recent events is mostly in electronic format.
AP 17 LW to approach National Centre to store the archive material involved.
17. Any other business
RO suggested the SSD should keep a list of potential six-day areas for future reference when the company is choosing future SSD locations.
AP 18 SF to be asked to investigate areas West of Inverness. Donald Petrie has tried looking in SW Scotland but did not come up with anything workable with sufficient car parking areas.
AH suggested SSD company website home page needs more attractive content e.g. photos. SSD Company had considered in past about going for a consistent event to event theme image like other multi-day events but this was dismissed. However things have moved on now. MS recommended the O-Ringen & Tiomila as attractive sites with lots of attractive content.
AP 19 LW to contact Paul Frost about the layout. All to send relevant photos to Paul.
MS suggested developing the String/Off String courses e.g. Norway O-fest has a kind of Maze O type game event. RS said French 5 days has a ‘ribbon’ course.
AP 20 RL to pass on to Oban 2011 string course co-ordinator to consider.
18. Meeting dates for 2010
September: 28th September, minutes SF
Not an AGM but shareholders are invited to keep updated with SSD Company.
End November/start December: Provisionally Wednesday 24th November 2010 in Perth.
Should have a meeting start of February – to keep on top of Oban 2011.