1. Welcome & apologies for absence.

Apologies – Jon Musgrave (JM), Ewan McCarthy (EM), Terry O’Brien (TOB), Rachel Wilson (RW)

2. Register of interests – check & update.

All present checked and signed the register of interests.

3. Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of Directors on 6th December 2017

Approved.

4. Approval of Minutes of the Meeting of Directors on 15 February 2018

Approved subject to minor amendment.

5. Matters arising from the minutes of 6th December (not covered in the agenda below)

A budget of £2-£3K (ex-VAT) was approved to refresh the SI kit and in particular to update the laptops with kit which give some future-proofing. Action: RS

A Marketing Director is still being sought. Action: DK

6. Finance report (KR)

Completion of y/e 28 February 2018 accounting period. KR has been liaising with Pat Bartlet to ensure that the Deeside 2017 event finances were completed before our year end.  Distributions have been made to clubs based on the algorithm as applied by RW and overseen by DK.  Pat has a few final payments to make.  Event accounts are in a good shape and will allow the preparation of the 2018 Company financial statements over the coming months.

2017 Taxation Tax bill has been paid – £3.00, being approximately 20% of £15 interest income

Cash on Hand. At 28 February there was approximately £152K in the Company accounts and a small pot (up to £5K) in the Event account.   Pat is in the process of passing the event account on to Gareth Bryan-Jones for 2019.

At the moment there is a healthy margin above our strategic “cushion” of £100K agreed at previous meetings.  The head-room has been boosted because the Deeside 2017 event transferred funds back to the Company (mostly up front advances and the “accrual” for SOA fees).

WOC 2022 KR has given guidance on financial oversight / governance and taken part in a few phone calls with RAS & DK.

If successful, we will need an Event Treasurer and will need to agree the rules of engagement for financial oversight by and reporting to the Board.

7. Royal Deeside 2017

RW used the system from 2015 to calculate the distribution to clubs and after checking by DK and JM, payment has been made. An explanatory article for Score is still being produced. Action: KR, Pat Bartlet

8. Strathearn 2019 – 28th July to 3rd August 2019

CM presented a report and distributed copies of the “post card” which be initially distributed at JK 2018. Volunteers are sought to take the cards to foreign events

The Technical Coordinator role is vacant at present and CE has had to act in this role. Action: TOB

Venues have been confirmed and the programme for the week is

Mapping has gone out to tender, but LIDAR acquisition has been delayed by the recent inclement weather.

CE will arrange a meeting with key officials to discuss concerns about the assembly area at Edinchip

Arrangements for the rest day sprint are still being discussed. A possible venue is Glenalmond College. Possible models for finding the main officials, helpers and for the distribution of any surplus were considered.

EventScotland is to be approached about funding as usual, highlighting areas where enhancements beyond other orienteering events are likely to attract significant numbers of foreign (non-Scottish) orienteers. It was agreed that the tracking and use of the big screen in 2017 were not without problems.

The meeting noted the proposed allocation of clubs to days from RW and David Nichol, but felt that this was essentially a matter for the COT.

9. 2021 Six Day

JM has visited Arisaig, but there is little other progress. We should be announcing the venue in early summer though that did not happen for 2017.

A coordinator is being sought. Action: All

10. WOC 2022

Organisation

At the Directors telephone meeting of 15^th February it was agreed that the 6-Day Company will lead the bid and manage the risks.  Nearly 60% of event costs are provisionally covered through EventScotland and City of Edinburgh Council (50/50 split) but awaiting rubber stamping by a full Council meeting. The new British Orienteering chair is supportive and British Orienteering has written a letter of support in which they state “we understand the IOF are willing to contract the event directly with the Scottish 6 Days which we fully support”

Bid Process

A glossy document (currently Draft 4) has been finalised and looks excellent.  Costs of producing the document are being picked up by EventScotland, using their design company.

A draft of the Official Application was distributed and final comments / proofreading errors should be sent to CM urgently.

A Steering Committee has been proposed with representation from all interested parties. The 6-Day Company will be one of the participants with RAS noting it is likely that the Board representative will be chairing the committee. An Organising Committee will also be set up under the Event Director.

The 6-Day Company will pay the bid fee of €1500 Action: KR

Areas and Embargoes

Embargoed areas will be published by British Orienteering shortly. IOF are being reasonable about embargoes. Discussions are on-going about use of areas with Oriam/Heriot-Watt, Historic Environment Scotland and the Scottish Parliament. All previously used with exception of new area (Leith) which looked promising.

Next Steps

The formal bid is to go in at the end of the month and will be compared with other expected bids.  It is expectd that we will go through to next stage, which will be a visit by IOF’s Senior Event Advisor.  We will need to appoint an Event Director and Paul McGreal (from WOC 2015) is a keen and viable candidate.  A Technical Manager/Director and an Event Treasurer are the next key roles.  Suggestions are invited and an invitation will be made through British Orienteering. It would not be reasonable to appoint any paid officials until after the bid has been successful so members of the 6-Day Board should be prepared to act in those positions in the short term. CE offered to act as interim Technical Director. It is important that the Event Treasurer has a professional accounting background.

Website

woc2022.org has been registered but Paul Frost is not keen to take the role of website developer. The developer of the new SOA site may be approached.

11. Risk Register

This was carried forward. Action: RW

12. SOA Events Manager

Paul Frost is still willing to administer the 6-Day Company website. CM is working on some content for the SOA website, including a guide to orienteering and articles on mapping. BOC 2018 is now taking up time for CM.

13. SOA business relevant to 6-Day Company

RAS gave an overview of his report on the relevant business

The new Chief Operating Officer, Fiona Kerr is currently busy with child protection, the general data protection regulation (GDPR) and populating our Annual Plan, amongst other things. GDPR will have implications for the 6-Day Company, its entry system providers, results processors and clubs. It is likely that something will have to be published on the website before the next meeting.

SportScotland funding for SOA is more positive than was expected.

There are a number of vacancies for the SOA Board

14. AOB

CM sought clarification on the ownership of some items. RS explained that the 6-Day Company had paid for most of the SI kit and computing kit but that most orienteers referred to the kit as “Scottish” or “SOA” to distinguish it from the clubs’ own kit.

SEDS have been funded by SOA to upgrade the GPS trackers although they have not yet been put into action.

15. Future meeting dates

Wednesday 6th June 2018.

The meeting closed at 8:30 pm