Discussion and feedback from the Inward Bound consultation  held on 28/10/15 

1. Appointment of Race Director:

• I urged the students, to make sure that the race director for 2017 is appointed no later than April 2016.
  • For an event of this magnitude it needs this amount of time to organise.
  • It means that if students are not happy with the format next year, the race director will be much more prepared to return to an earlier date in 2017.

Recommendation: I strongly urge ISO and ANU Sport to do this next year.

2. Date change:

   Due to the appointment process being delayed,  the length of time it takes to gain approvals from the relevant stakeholders, we really do not have any choice but to hold it later in the year. After accepting this, acknowledging that winter is not appropriate, October 14-15th has emerged as the best option from the submissions after the consultation. We have not received many submissions on the date change after the consultation. If people do have strong opinions about the date change, they need to express them to the committee as their feedback is important and will be considered when the dates for 2017 are being decided. Please read through the slides in the consultation for how we plan to tackle the issues we identified in holding the event towards the end of the year 

   Following the points we raised and the potential dates for the race, the feedback was:

   1. Sep 16^th/17^th – people away for mid-sem break, especially spectators (Bruce’s submission was critical of this date)
   2. Oct 7th / 8th – The councils raised problems involving school holiday traffic and vetoed this date.
   3. Oct 14^th/15^th – Closer to exams, uni games occurs around the same time, people could slack off with regards to training in the mid-sem break. This does currently seem to be the preferred date, and does still give a few weeks to exams.
   4. The problems in 2008 were highlighted, where they struggled to fill anywhere below div 1 when the event was held in September.
      • Talked about honours students being out of action.
      • • The median temperature for Canberra in October is 19.1 degrees according to BOM. In March its 24.9.
        • The reason the event was held in September in 2008 was due to a last minute cancellation in March. This would have mean that students would have trained over the summer and throughout term 1 for it to be cancelled near the event. We believe that this was the factor that led to a drop in participation, not the something inherent in holding the event at the end of the year.
        • With the appropriate publicity and cooperation from the colleges and their coaches, the event should be able to retain the hype and participation that it currently enjoys.Talked about there being the potential for very hot days. Asked what temp do we call it off at?

Recommendation: October 14th/15th

3. A minimum of one female coach per college was unanimously supported.

Recommendation: Colleges to adopt this ASAP

4. Quota:

   In considering our proposal for a minimum of 7 women per full contingent, the following  ideas/issues were raised:

   1. Coordination amongst all female coaches on how to increase participation. (Female coach of BnG Alex Grant to head up this initiative with a meeting with all the female coaches)
   2. A point bonus idea for including 7 women in the contingent was raised as al alternative. This would mean that colleges wouldn’t have to field 7 if they didn’t think that it was safe to do so.
   3. Another Ideas was increasing to 4 ex-ressie’s but one has to be female. Another could be to hold at 3 ex-ressies but 1 has to be female.

Recommendation: Next year we should set the quota at 5 for a team of 28, or the equivalent percentage for a team of any size, rounded down and applying to ADFA too if they participate. We will make a recommendation in the rules that colleges try to field 7 and will review the quota up to 7 for 2017 pending feedback on the 2016 race.

5. Scoring:

We asked people to have a look and develop a scoring system that achieves the goals we set out in the consultation slide show.

• 30-div-place-(2xdiv) seemed to be preferred scoring method
• (16-div)(13-div-place) (or something like that) formula was received poorly by some
• I personally think that people might not understand Tom’s model which, while more complicated achieves the aims better. (Refer to spreadsheet on IB page for details)

Recommendation: We can hold off on this until next year, but at the moment the model approved by the sports reps (30-div-place-(2xdiv)) seems to be the one.

6. No Kayaks:

   • Extra costs for colleges to get approval for kayaking (Unilodge, Griffin)
   • Some people don’t want to get into a kayak and/or can’t swim
   • Concern with dropping compulsory equipment dropping into water
   • Can’t put the kayaks in the boat shed

Recommendation: No Kayaks.

8. Maps

• A more detailed and smaller scale course-info sheet, and easier to read property whitelist (including grid references for properties) was well received. While some were wary of having too much info given away, I asked them to trust me that we could do it in a way that still made it a challenge to work out where you are.
• More broadly on maps for the race, supplying the maps that teams need for the course is safer and cheaper for colleges. No team will ever be without a map that they need.

Recommendation: we will continue looking into the mapping software, and venture to make the maps more user friendly while preserving the location challenge of IB.

9. Gear and equipment central ordering system:

• All supported it as it would reduce costs for colleges and runners, while providing revenue for us. It’s a smart use of partnerships as the sponsor gets something in return.
• I disclosed that as the gear sponsor was a personal relation, all costs and prices will be transparent and above board to avoid a conflict of interest.
• Another way to achieve the outcome is for people to get onto the ‘gear freak’ Facebook group, where people sell this stuff second hand.

Recommendation: This ties in with the website, which will be built over the summer, the gear store will then be a component of the website, technicalities of how to charge will be worked out but the view is as little costs added to this process as possible.

Consultation Documents:

Slideshow:

Proposed Scoring models: