Two years ago, Alex Ross departed the South East (much to the relief of his rivals in HH) to become Assistant Secretary General of BOF. Now, settled into the National Office, he gives Pacemaker readers a guide to what BOF does for us, its membership. Until two years ago I knew very little about what BOF National Office did for orienteering. As an ordinary member I, like most of you, received a quarterly mailing containing a magazine and a fixtures list alongside other less regular materials and, annually, a demand for money. Little did I realise, at the time, the effort and organisation that go into producing the contents of that mailing, or how the money was spent. It is a real team effort, involving staff and volunteers, to produce and distribute the materials and a large proportion of the membership fee is required to fund this process. Now, as an employee, I never cease to be amazed by how much time and effort individual volunteers put into support orienteering in Britain at all levels. So what does the office contribute to this effort? The sport attracts more than 1000 new members every year. Many of them find out about the sport through contacting the office by letter, telephone and e-mail. They receive a general information pack, produced in house, tailored to their specific needs in terms of location. This pack hopefully answers most of their questions, gets them attracted to an event, then into club and BOF membership once they get addicted.
The other queries that we field, from the media, are much more difficult to handle (usually due to short deadlines) and we rely on contacts within clubs to help us provide journalists with the scenarios they desire; many thanks to all those who help. When we take part in a large event it is usually the culmination of months of hard work by a team of dedicated volunteers. The office provides them with support by distributing details of members (eg BOF number and SI number) for entry checking purposes, registering the event to ensure that the civil liability insurance is in place and registering the map in order that any fees due to the Ordnance Survey can be paid. We then sit back and await the levy payment for the event, which covers those services and all the other activities that we engage in. Decisions about the sport are taken by Committees at various levels and an important task of the office is providing those committees with the support they require from arranging a suitable venue to posting out the minutes. Similar support is provided for Coaching (e.g. accreditation of coaches), Development (e.g. Schools Development Officers) and the World Class Programmes, although much of the funding for these come from outside the sport. At times the work of the office can appear remote but many of the staff enjoy their run in the woods on a Sunday morning as much as anyone and the views from the office window are wonderful. If you are ever in the area please drop in to see us. Alex can be contacted at the BOF Office or by e-mail - alex@bof.cix.co.uk |
