Southampton Orienteering Club

This idea is based on something they have in Norway. We would create packs (A4 envelope) consisting of one of each of our permanent orienteering course maps, a leaflet introducing orienteering and some information on the club. These would then be sold via the website (something like Google Checkout makes this very easy to do at minimal cost) and posted out and also via specialist sports shops (e.g. Just Run, Wild Sports etc). The latter would be offered a small display stand to (hopefully) sit on the counter. The packs could be sold to the shops (£3?) for them to resell at a higher value (£5?) or on sale or return. In the Norwegian scheme you can send off proof that you have completed each course (letters off the controls) and get a certificate in return.

The aim here is two-fold. Firstly, we get a presence on the counter of each sports shop. Secondly, rather than just finding one permanent orienteering course at their local park. People hopefully get hooked and work their way round them all until they then need to progress to something bigger and better... A further benefit is that it allows you to consider permanent courses at venues where there is nowhere to sell a map.

The main issue I foresee with this scheme is whether we have some existing agreement with the locations that they have sole rights to sell the maps.