Scottish Hill Racing

Martin I whole agree with you here. This is great website that is an invaluable resource to all that take part in hill races. At least 36 club members have taken part in a hill race that features on the website.

http://www.scottishhillracing.co.uk...

I think that we should support and help Chris and his website where ever possible. I think a monetary contribution would be well made here.

I'll specifically raise this at the next committee meet. Can you provide me with any more details and the amount of money that Chris is looking to raise?

Separately from this I think it would be great if SHR could help out as well. Chris's site results/runners/clubs database clearly surpasses their results service in its usefulness, as does his calendar and race details in many cases. Are you aware if this has been raised with SHR?

I would agree that Chris's website is a brilliant resource for hill runners and in many ways surpasses the SHR one, which is also excellentin other ways.  It would be great loss to me if Chis's site had to be closed or reduced greatly.

I'd personnally be happy to contribute a small amount to it's up-keep but I don't think it should come from general club funds. The vast majority us CAAC members are not users of the website or indeed hill runners and I think it would be unfair to ask them to contribute through their membership fee/subs. Since it's hill runners that use the site and they have an interest in keeping it running, they should put up the money. I expect Chris has asked clubs to keep the number of income streams to a minimum and simpler to administer.

I would suggest, if we decide to contribute through he club, hill runners should voluntarily add a few quid on to their membership fees and we pass that to Chris.

I think this would need a good discussing a the commmitte to sort out fairly.

Tim, I'm not sure I wholely agree with you.

I believe that this is a suitable thing for the club to fund for as it used by significant proportion of club members and provides a useful resource to all. The well presented and easily accessible information it provides actually encourages participation in hill running, and wider participation is something the club should support. Similarly the statistics and rankings could arguably encourage more competition between runners, which can encourages people to want to improve and again this should be supported by the club.

This is very similar to the way that the club spend funds on things like athletics equipment not used by all members or transportation to events that again not all members participate in. (the huge cost of coaches for junior track meets springs to mind here.) These are well spent though as a significant proportion of the club are involved and by subsidising these it encourages particpation.

I believe that this website for fills the same requirements of being of use to a significant proportion of club members and encourages participation in running so providing some financial support (how ever limited) would be a fair use of club funds.

Though I'd be interested in other views on the matter.

Generally agree to some sort of donation, and dont think its completely outwith the remit to expect to come from club funds, we do support other events when required.

I would however be interested in the actual costs involved? As generally a website is time expensive and not so much monetary cost. Then again i suppose time is money.. i would be willing to assist Chris if a results backlog is the main issue which sounds like it is and im sure many more would do so too to ensure the continuation of the resource.

It has always struck me odd the SHR site and Chris's were seperate i thought they were both under his control? It could make sense to merge the two.

Chris has only just raised the issue with me, and mentioned that a few individuals have already made donations. SHR has not discussed this as yet, but it may be on the agenda at the next confertel committee meeting as yet unscheduled, unless resolvable by e-mail contributions from committee members in due course. He has also indicated that he may organize a hill race himself with the specific aim of raising funds to maintain the site, so a few ideas are bouncing around. Chris will be pleased that there is  such enthuisiasm for his efforts.

Just wondering what the money would be for?  If it's just to keep the website up to date, then perhaps volunteers should be recruited - I, for one, wouldn't mind helping out.  I do agree that the two websites should be merged.

If it can be shown that money is required, then I think some help from the club is fine.  Don't think that fee's would have to be increased as I'm sure there is a reasonable pot sitting there.

As a runner for the club, I appreciate that the fee's I pay will go to areas of running I'm not interested in - I have no problem with that at all.  

I think its a great site and the personalised stats are brilliant.  I would be happy for the club to donate.  

I also agree with the comments above regarding money going into track/field events so why not put something back into Hill running 

Any idea of how much Chris is looking for ??

It sounds like a worthwhile cause for donation but as with comments above a bit more clarity as to the specifics would be good.

OK to answer the questions people have raised, I will more or less quote what Chris has e-mailed to me with regard to the need for funding from clubs, other organizations and indiduals should they choose to do so.

The main purposes of any funding would be:

1. To pay my web developer to upgrade the functionality of the site. I’ve just paid him £800, but there’s an awful lot more work to do. He indicates that the total bill will be c.£1500.
2. To pay for hosting costs which are around £200 per year.
3. To pay for any trophies or prizes I might organise. Last year I sourced 6 trophies for the 3 highest ranked men & women.

So far I have probably spent a couple of thousands of pounds of my own money on the site, and provided the service for free.

Plus several thousand hours of my own time.

Only 2 runners have made a contribution.

I am not looking to be paid for the hours I spend maintaining the site, but I do need some funding if the site is to have a future, in order to pay for the website development.  

My plan to improve the data maintenance of the site should allow other people to help, thereby reducing my workload.

At present there are no user-friendly tools for maintaining the site that I could explain to anyone else.

I am not looking for a huge amount of money. I just need enough support to make the site sustainable.

Chris suggests a sum of £100 from CAAC would be appreciated.

I guess that the next step is for the proposal to donate this sum to Scottish Hill Racing would need to be considered formally in committee.

Thanks Martin, most informative. I feel i have to play a little devil's advocate here. From a technical aspect the costs seem a tad over the top, with hosting and development costs likely being primarily inflated by the sites use of Microsoft software products. There are number of Open Source alternatives that could be utilised that would greatly reduce the running overheads to a minimal level and greatly reduce ongoing costs. For example to host the caac.org.uk site we pay £50 per annum all in, obviously we have a lot less traffic than SHR so £200 per annum whilst i feel still over the top could be arguably justified with redundancy measures brought in and a higher tariffs for increased bandwith required. However further content and improvements are all driven by time spent and pooling of skills available to us, with a call to to Hill Running community i feel Chris could find a wealth of expertise able to assist maintaining and pushing forward his great resource. 

I also love that website and the SHR one. I think the idea of other people (for instance race organisers) being able to help get the results up is a terrific idea and would save Chris a lot of work. I can't beleive he's trying to turn a profit from the thing. well he isn't. I guess this is the problem with all great websites that don't go overboard with advertising.

I've been away all weekend so coming to this one a bit late.  Not sure your point is fair Tim since the club pays a fee (I'm fairly sure it's more than £100) to be part of the Men's League and only about 15 people max take part in that each season.  Nick's right, there are enough club members benefiting to justify making a donation.

On Cob's point - I wrote to virtually every club in Scotland to seek donations for the prize fund for my 10000m earlier this year and only 7 (inlcuding CAAC) came up with the goods (and I was only asking for £20!) so don't be surprised if responses are few.

I'd be happy to contribute personally but don't think it would be a waste of club money if a motion is passed to help out.

I raised this at the club committee meeting. I proposed that the club make a one off small financial contribution to support the maintenance and development of this website, however when it went to a vote it was defeated 7-1.

I will raise it again at the next committee meeting. I would encourage others that also support this to raise it with committee members.

Yesterday Chris Upson has also announced a new hill race, 'Run the Mill' that is being organised to raise funds for the maintenance and development of the Scottish Hill Racing website. If your keen to offer your support you may wish to enter. http://www.scottishhillracing.co.uk...

Great debate guys, perhaps we could ask Chris to correspond with the club secretary as would be a normal channel for such things? 

There was quite an extensive debate around this topic at the last committee meeting and the decision was carried via a voting process at the end of the debate, quite logical for matters requiring a collective decision. As for Chris Upson's comment that Corstorphine is a club ready to grab something for nothing, this is ill informed and verging on insulting. Especially to the people who give their time, money and make many personal sacrifices to ensure Corstorphine remains a viable club. One that offers a pathway into athletics,  support, qualified guidance, nurtures talent and provides a social platform for individuals and families involved in athletics.

What would you propose that Chris take to the club secretary? Chris has made it public that he needs support maintain the SHRacing website. I as an individual member of the club proposed that the club make a small financial donation to help with this. I articulated the reasons why above and to the committee. (I am also aware that other ways off providing support are available to individuals, such as personal donations, or perhaps volunteering if that would help.)

I think you mis represent Chris. Are we all not ready to take something for nothing when it is offered as such? The SHRacing website is offered as such. I do not think anyone is suggesting that the club, or individuals in it, do not work to support the clubs interests, or provide valuable athletics/running related services.

I would however like to encourage the club to increase its support of Scottish hill running, which is much more ad-hoc than the structured Scottish Athletics and with which it has no ties that I'm aware of, as a reasonable proportion of club members take part in hill races. One such way of supporting this would be to make a small donation towards the maintenance of this very useful website.

The latest I have on this subject is that following the last SHR committee meeting, the members agreed to donate £200 to Scottish Hill Racing, which will now fund the hosting for next year. I have made a small donation myself in recognition of the work needed for the upgrade. There may also be a motion at the SHR AGM following Tinto arising, which may indicate that SHR should offer regular support to SHRacing. If that transpires then I would urge those CAAC SHR members who run Tinto to stay for the AGM too. The new 'Run of the Mill' hill race in October if well attended may raise sufficient funds to cover the costs of the upgrade needed so that in the future race organizers can enter the results themselves.

Chris has had a 'scatter gun' approach to fund raising so far, and in fact has only contacted a few clubs to consider funding, but needs to make it absolutely clear what they are being asked to fund, as illustrated by the comments of COB above, and I agree with Paul that the 'normal' way of doing this should be by a formal approach to the secretary.

On Nick's additional point, some clubs and individuals donate to SHRunners in order to contribute towards the annual cost of race insurance (c£800pa). Race insurance remains a considerable headache for SHR, and the issue of bumbags and their contents, and categories of runners who may not be  covered by this (Juniors mainly). Race insurance could be invalidated for a breach of the rules which indemnify Race Organizers for personal liability, but every year breaches occur from time to time. The tightening up of the rules that govern the insurance are compulsory full body cover for all medium and long races, whatever the weather conditions with additional specifications for long races (map,compass,whistle and spare food as the minimum). Even with all this there are grey areas, as category 'short' races in the winter often also require full body cover to be carried. As we know, there was confusion and ignorance of that fact at Tinto last year, and SHR will endeavour to issue reminders for races where there is this ambiguity.

The easiest way to avoid breaching the insurance rules for hill races is to always turn up to any hill race with sufficient kit to cover any specification on the day, unless otherwise indicated in advance.

On a related subject, negotiations are hopefully proceeding with Harvey Maps to produce high quality maps, with checkpoints marked etc, for use by hill runners at scheduled races. The pilot race for this is likely to be the Carnrthy '5' next year.