So what has British Eventing done wrong?

[Tiddlypom]

What financial cut do BE take from organisers who are running an event under BE auspices?

Also, how long is a typical grassroots (80cm to 100cm) XC track?

 

[RachelFerd]

What financial cut do BE take from organisers who are running an event under BE auspices?

Also, how long is a typical grassroots (80cm to 100cm) XC track?

According to this article £5.55 of each entry fee goes to BE which supports the cost of the scorer, stewards, technical advisors, public liability insurance and subsidised ground care equipment.

The allowed length of cross country is -

BE80/90 - between 1600 and 2500m
BE100 - between 1800 and 2800m

(Novice is then between 2400 and 3120)

At Frickley the other week the normal 90 2164m (Optimum Time: 4:49) and the champs track was allowed to be longer than the standard rules at 2920m (Optimum Time: 6:29)

The unaff at Kelsall back in July was 1742m. XC Optimum Time: 3:52

 

[Ambers Echo]

Definitely something to sort out when there is no time pressure rather than when you're in a panic trying to enter something with a deadline.

FWIW, I've always found the BE entry system to be relatively painless -.

Ok I'm going to respond to this again - possibly boringly and misguidedly but this will be my last post on this.

So the website..... no people should not be expected to get all their membership sorted in advance. Anyone that does that is already fully committed. And so what if extablished, existing members find entering straightforward. Again those people are already customers. If you want new people to choose BE over unaff you just can't have a system as complex as it is.

I have 2 websites and both were designed with the clear focus on what is your 'call to action' for anyone browsing the site

- raising awareness - clicking through for more info
- signing up for more info or a mailing list?
- Buying something?
- booking onto something?
- joining something?

Once you know what you want people to DO when they look at a site then MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM TO DO IT.

BE equivalent: the event page makes the event look attractive. Tick. There is a big button with the 'call to action' bit ie enter. Tick. I press the button: ENTER THIS EVENT. Hurrah - the website has done what you want it to do...... then cue 3 bloody days of circling round the website to do all the multiple confusing steps required of me. (My Stafford exerience)

Every time an event FB page posts an urgent call for entries there are people underneath the post asking how or saying they have tried and can't. Those are all lost entries and possibly permanently lost customers. You could not design a less effective website response to that 'Call to Action' if you tried.

I am a strong supporter of BE. I want BE to thrive. I have gone BE myself as has my daughter and regularly volunteer. But I am so done with this sort of 'well it's not that hard if you just...' type of response. It is so shortsighted.

 

[LEC]

I believe they are trying to tidy up memberships. It’s very convoluted but also a bit of a response with the GO BE and PC to market forces.

 

[teapot]

Ok I'm going to respond to this again - possibly boringly and misguidedly but this will be my last post on this.

So the website..... no people should not be expected to get all their membership sorted in advance. Anyone that does that is already fully committed. And so what if extablished, existing members find entering straightforward. Again those people are already customers. If you want new people to choose BE over unaff you just can't have a system as complex as it is.

I have 2 websites and both were designed with the clear focus on what is your 'call to action' for anyone browsing the site

- raising awareness - clicking through for more info
- signing up for more info or a mailing list?
- Buying something?
- booking onto something?
- joining something?

Once you know what you want people to DO when they look at a site then MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM TO DO IT.

BE equivalent: the event page makes the event look attractive. Tick. There is a big button with the 'call to action' bit ie enter. Tick. I press the button: ENTER THIS EVENT. Hurrah - the website has done what you want it to do...... then cue 3 bloody days of circling round the website to do all the multiple confusing steps required of me. (My Stafford exerience)

Every time an event FB page posts an urgent call for entries there are people underneath the post asking how or saying they have tried and can't. Those are all lost entries and possibly permanently lost customers. You could not design a less effective website response to that 'Call to Action' if you tried.

I am a strong supporter of BE. I want BE to thrive. I have gone BE myself as has my daughter and regularly volunteer. But I am so done with this sort of 'well it's not that hard if you just...' type of response. It is so shortsighted.

I’m fairly sure there’s marketing research into something about how if it makes more than three or four clicks, people won’t bother. Food for thought.

 

[Snowfilly]

Ok I'm going to respond to this again - possibly boringly and misguidedly but this will be my last post on this.

So the website..... no people should not be expected to get all their membership sorted in advance. Anyone that does that is already fully committed. And so what if extablished, existing members find entering straightforward. Again those people are already customers. If you want new people to choose BE over unaff you just can't have a system as complex as it is.

I have 2 websites and both were designed with the clear focus on what is your 'call to action' for anyone browsing the site

- raising awareness - clicking through for more info
- signing up for more info or a mailing list?
- Buying something?
- booking onto something?
- joining something?

Once you know what you want people to DO when they look at a site then MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM TO DO IT.

BE equivalent: the event page makes the event look attractive. Tick. There is a big button with the 'call to action' bit ie enter. Tick. I press the button: ENTER THIS EVENT. Hurrah - the website has done what you want it to do...... then cue 3 bloody days of circling round the website to do all the multiple confusing steps required of me. (My Stafford exerience)

Every time an event FB page posts an urgent call for entries there are people underneath the post asking how or saying they have tried and can't. Those are all lost entries and possibly permanently lost customers. You could not design a less effective website response to that 'Call to Action' if you tried.

I am a strong supporter of BE. I want BE to thrive. I have gone BE myself as has my daughter and regularly volunteer. But I am so done with this sort of 'well it's not that hard if you just...' type of response. It is so shortsighted.

A while back, I had an office job which included designing and maintaining online sign ups for various projects. We were routinely told that 4 steps to sign up was the maximum and to aim for 3; we also tested all our various sign up pages by getting random people to test them - parents, partners, the work experience kids, whoever happened to be in the building or near a WHF set up - and if we got complaints about the process from more than about 5%, it got re-designed.

This was a small charity, with expected membership of about 100 people to each project.

If BE are making it that difficult to sign up, they’re doing something very wrong indeed.

 

[Ambers Echo]

A while back, I had an office job which included designing and maintaining online sign ups for various projects. We were routinely told that 4 steps to sign up was the maximum and to aim for 3; we also tested all our various sign up pages by getting random people to test them - parents, partners, the work experience kids, whoever happened to be in the building or near a WHF set up - and if we got complaints about the process from more than about 5%, it got re-designed.

This was a small charity, with expected membership of about 100 people to each project.

If BE are making it that difficult to sign up, they’re doing something very wrong indeed.

YES! And the most infuriating thing about it is that this is the new expensive website. The designers aren't stupid. It is perfectly obvious to web designers that putting barriers in the way of people joining and entering is going to confuse and frustrate a lot of them. So the only explanation I can think of is arrogance: We can make people jump through hoops because we are BE, and they will do it because we are BE. Well people clearly won't and aren't.

 

[honetpot]

YES! And the most infuriating thing about it is that this is the new expensive website. The designers aren't stupid. It is perfectly obvious to web designers that putting barriers in the way of people joining and entering is going to confuse and frustrate a lot of them. So the only explanation I can think of is arrogance: We can make people jump through hoops because we are BE, and they will do it because we are BE. Well people clearly won't and aren't.

My husband used to work on large projects for IBM, his job was the interface between the tec people who design all the software and the customer. This should mean the customer got what they needed, which not always, what they wanted,which was usually for it to be cheaper,and what the tec people thought they could cope with. A huge part of any contract is testing and service contracts, when the customer wants something cheaper they usually cut those bits, and try and do it in house, and it ends up a cut and shut.
So I would imagine either what their customer wanted was not fully explained, it wasn't tested, or they just wanted to save money. In a way it would be better with a downloaded form and send it by snail mail, at least everyone over thirty understands that process.

 

[teapot]

Even the home page though is like someone threw up on it

 

[Ambers Echo]

From the home page:

You and your horse can become members of British Eventing from just £30 combined with our Pay As You Go option! If you just want to give BE a try, we have GO BE where you all you need to do is register and no membership applies.

Annual memberships start from as little as £80 and gives you the opportunity to qualify for our National Championships held at iconic venues such as Badminton, Bramham and Gatcombe Park – plus the chance to win your share of £10,000 in our new grassroots leagues.

This is a load of word salad that does not leave you thinking 'yes I know exactly what I need'. If I were copy editing this my feedback would be:

- From just combined with.... is unclear. What will PAYG cost?
- Too many 'justs' and 'all' you need to do... You don't make something expensive and complex sound cheap and simple by using 'just' and 'all'. SELL IT rather than pretending it's cheap. And simplify it.
- Why stress the need to register to GO BE. If someone says YES I want to GO BE then make registration automatic as part of entry process
- You can qualify for most things with PAYG so what is the added benefit of annual membership?
- What new grassroots leagues? What can I win? Again the reality will disappoint given how far that 10k is spread. Don't sell something that is not really a selling point.

Why not something like:

Ride iconic parkland venues ONLY available to BE members.
Access subsidided training at fantastic venues with a range of highly experienced BE coaches.
Qualify for a range of exciting regional and national championships events.
Safeguard the future of our fantastic sport by helping us to continue to fund our tireless work on everything eventing related from course design, to fence safety and horse welfare.

There are a range of membership options from those giving the thrill of eventing go for the first time to seasoned eventers, going up the levels and aiming for teams, area festivals and national championships.
(All bold words are links)
GO BE - entry level membership to get you started. Just choose from the many events on our fixture list, hit enter and Go BE! (Does not lead to championship qualification or official results)
PAYG - the preferred option if you want to do up to 6 BE events over a season. A way to experience the benefits of membership at lower cost if you will only event a few times each year.
Annual Membership- this becomes better value for those eventing more often and is required for those targeting the prestigious national championships at Badminton, Birghley and Gatcombe Park.

So the Home page is not very good. But at least it has a clear Call To Action Button: Click HERE to Join Today. From there it gets worse: There are then 4 options - the likeliest of which is NEW MEMBER. CLick that and then the site descends into complete farce with this ridiculous page :

https://www.britisheventing.com/join/new-member

First the call to Action appears to be to buy some unexplained stuff called Inspired, Safer or whatever. At first glance they look like handbooks or motivational videos. The call to action is Click here to Purchase. Wait what? I thought I was joining BE? Scroll past.

What you need.... Rider Membership.

Of which there are 5. Not clear which you need as no clear differentiation between GOBE PAYG and Intro. So click on GOBE and .... WTF is that all about! You get a random bunch of meaningles tables at the bottom of which there is another of those PURCHASE buttons. Purchase WHAT! It literally looks like they are selling you stuff rather than signing you up. Why are they calling it PURCHASE not JOIN. And why keep inviting you to PURCHASE (or JOIN) before you know what you are joining.

Anway I could carry on but anyone can go to the site and use it from the perspective of someone who knows nothing and find out for themselves. The site is a disaster, an embarrassment. It needs binning in its entirety. It is poorly structured, poorly written and just awful on every page. Plus the structures themselves are overly complicated.

(And THAT really is my last post on this....)

 

[myheartinahoofbeat]

I heard today that BE have even cocked up with Burghley and are looking at running it at Bicton next year as it's a cheaper venue. Have they lost their minds??? Sounds like utter nonsense but they are discussing the pros and cons because it doesn't make any money. How can they even consider changing the venue of the iconic 5* The whole point of Burghley, is....well...it's Burghley!!!!

 

[shortstuff99]

I didn't think BE ran Burghley?

 

[LEC]

I didn't think BE ran Burghley?

They don’t. They get given a small amount of money by both badminton and Burghley though based on profit. The only event BE ‘owned’ was Blenheim but gave that up/sold rights to The Jockey Club. IMO BE was correct to do this as it’s a conflict of interest to run events as well.

 

[teapot]

I heard today that BE have even cocked up with Burghley and are looking at running it at Bicton next year as it's a cheaper venue. Have they lost their minds??? Sounds like utter nonsense but they are discussing the pros and cons because it doesn't make any money. How can they even consider changing the venue of the iconic 5* The whole point of Burghley, is....well...it's Burghley!!!!

Burghley has never made any money.

 

[LEC]

Burghley has never made any money.

Well it does make some profit or else the trustees of the house wouldn’t allow it to run as they are only interested in sustaining the estate. Just not the levels people think.

 

[Orangehorse]

From the home page:

You and your horse can become members of British Eventing from just £30 combined with our Pay As You Go option! If you just want to give BE a try, we have GO BE where you all you need to do is register and no membership applies.

Annual memberships start from as little as £80 and gives you the opportunity to qualify for our National Championships held at iconic venues such as Badminton, Bramham and Gatcombe Park – plus the chance to win your share of £10,000 in our new grassroots leagues.

This is a load of word salad that does not leave you thinking 'yes I know exactly what I need'. If I were copy editing this my feedback would be:

- From just combined with.... is unclear. What will PAYG cost?
- Too many 'justs' and 'all' you need to do... You don't make something expensive and complex sound cheap and simple by using 'just' and 'all'. SELL IT rather than pretending it's cheap. And simplify it.
- Why stress the need to register to GO BE. If someone says YES I want to GO BE then make registration automatic as part of entry process
- You can qualify for most things with PAYG so what is the added benefit of annual membership?
- What new grassroots leagues? What can I win? Again the reality will disappoint given how far that 10k is spread. Don't sell something that is not really a selling point.

Why not something like:

Ride iconic parkland venues ONLY available to BE members.
Access subsidided training at fantastic venues with a range of highly experienced BE coaches.
Qualify for a range of exciting regional and national championships events.
Safeguard the future of our fantastic sport by helping us to continue to fund our tireless work on everything eventing related from course design, to fence safety and horse welfare.

There are a range of membership options from those giving the thrill of eventing go for the first time to seasoned eventers, going up the levels and aiming for teams, area festivals and national championships.
(All bold words are links)
GO BE - entry level membership to get you started. Just choose from the many events on our fixture list, hit enter and Go BE! (Does not lead to championship qualification or official results)
PAYG - the preferred option if you want to do up to 6 BE events over a season. A way to experience the benefits of membership at lower cost if you will only event a few times each year.
Annual Membership- this becomes better value for those eventing more often and is required for those targeting the prestigious national championships at Badminton, Birghley and Gatcombe Park.

So the Home page is not very good. But at least it has a clear Call To Action Button: Click HERE to Join Today. From there it gets worse: There are then 4 options - the likeliest of which is NEW MEMBER. CLick that and then the site descends into complete farce with this ridiculous page :

https://www.britisheventing.com/join/new-member

First the call to Action appears to be to buy some unexplained stuff called Inspired, Safer or whatever. At first glance they look like handbooks or motivational videos. The call to action is Click here to Purchase. Wait what? I thought I was joining BE? Scroll past.

What you need.... Rider Membership.

Of which there are 5. Not clear which you need as no clear differentiation between GOBE PAYG and Intro. So click on GOBE and .... WTF is that all about! You get a random bunch of meaningles tables at the bottom of which there is another of those PURCHASE buttons. Purchase WHAT! It literally looks like they are selling you stuff rather than signing you up. Why are they calling it PURCHASE not JOIN. And why keep inviting you to PURCHASE (or JOIN) before you know what you are joining.

Anway I could carry on but anyone can go to the site and use it from the perspective of someone who knows nothing and find out for themselves. The site is a disaster, an embarrassment. It needs binning in its entirety. It is poorly structured, poorly written and just awful on every page. Plus the structures themselves are overly complicated.

(And THAT really is my last post on this....)

You have got the job, Amber.

 

[DirectorFury]

<Disclaimer: I'm too useless to actually do anything BE, so my comment is coming from the perspective of an outsider who works in techland>

YES! And the most infuriating thing about it is that this is the new expensive website. The designers aren't stupid. It is perfectly obvious to web designers that putting barriers in the way of people joining and entering is going to confuse and frustrate a lot of them. So the only explanation I can think of is arrogance: We can make people jump through hoops because we are BE, and they will do it because we are BE. Well people clearly won't and aren't.

Rather than arrogance, it's more likely that BE didn't want to shell out for a UX Researcher as the website was horrifically late and over budget. 3 months of UXR wouldn't be cheap, and the results would require changes to the website which would be more ££££. As you've pulled out in your later posts, both the copy editing and the UX Design of the site are very poor.
I'd say you've missed your calling as a UX Researcher/UX Designer, AE .

I'm generally a bit baffled about how the website was cocked up so badly and how it cost so much; as someone external to BE I can't envision an architecture that would have justified the price. I understand that they'd have been carrying some legacy systems and tech debt but for the several million that it cost these should have been updated and rearchitected. I'd give my right arm to see what their backend systems actually look like because the website design and flow feel like it has been built around the backend, which is a properly arse-backwards way of doing things.

The blame doesn't solely lie with the company contracted to build the website -- they can only work to the requirements they're given and writing good/clear/rational reqs is a difficult and skilled job. One of the many, many, reasons that I loathe hiring external companies is that they're usually stupidly expensive and it takes me longer to articulate the requirements than just doing the work myself.

IMO it seems (from this thread) that BE has much bigger issues than the website, but given it's the public face of the organisation it's something that will need addressing.

 

[mini_b]

From the home page:

You and your horse can become members of British Eventing from just £30 combined with our Pay As You Go option! If you just want to give BE a try, we have GO BE where you all you need to do is register and no membership applies.

Annual memberships start from as little as £80 and gives you the opportunity to qualify for our National Championships held at iconic venues such as Badminton, Bramham and Gatcombe Park – plus the chance to win your share of £10,000 in our new grassroots leagues.

This is a load of word salad that does not leave you thinking 'yes I know exactly what I need'. If I were copy editing this my feedback would be:

- From just combined with.... is unclear. What will PAYG cost?
- Too many 'justs' and 'all' you need to do... You don't make something expensive and complex sound cheap and simple by using 'just' and 'all'. SELL IT rather than pretending it's cheap. And simplify it.
- Why stress the need to register to GO BE. If someone says YES I want to GO BE then make registration automatic as part of entry process
- You can qualify for most things with PAYG so what is the added benefit of annual membership?
- What new grassroots leagues? What can I win? Again the reality will disappoint given how far that 10k is spread. Don't sell something that is not really a selling point.

Why not something like:

Ride iconic parkland venues ONLY available to BE members.
Access subsidided training at fantastic venues with a range of highly experienced BE coaches.
Qualify for a range of exciting regional and national championships events.
Safeguard the future of our fantastic sport by helping us to continue to fund our tireless work on everything eventing related from course design, to fence safety and horse welfare.

There are a range of membership options from those giving the thrill of eventing go for the first time to seasoned eventers, going up the levels and aiming for teams, area festivals and national championships.
(All bold words are links)
GO BE - entry level membership to get you started. Just choose from the many events on our fixture list, hit enter and Go BE! (Does not lead to championship qualification or official results)
PAYG - the preferred option if you want to do up to 6 BE events over a season. A way to experience the benefits of membership at lower cost if you will only event a few times each year.
Annual Membership- this becomes better value for those eventing more often and is required for those targeting the prestigious national championships at Badminton, Birghley and Gatcombe Park.

So the Home page is not very good. But at least it has a clear Call To Action Button: Click HERE to Join Today. From there it gets worse: There are then 4 options - the likeliest of which is NEW MEMBER. CLick that and then the site descends into complete farce with this ridiculous page :

https://www.britisheventing.com/join/new-member

First the call to Action appears to be to buy some unexplained stuff called Inspired, Safer or whatever. At first glance they look like handbooks or motivational videos. The call to action is Click here to Purchase. Wait what? I thought I was joining BE? Scroll past.

What you need.... Rider Membership.

Of which there are 5. Not clear which you need as no clear differentiation between GOBE PAYG and Intro. So click on GOBE and .... WTF is that all about! You get a random bunch of meaningles tables at the bottom of which there is another of those PURCHASE buttons. Purchase WHAT! It literally looks like they are selling you stuff rather than signing you up. Why are they calling it PURCHASE not JOIN. And why keep inviting you to PURCHASE (or JOIN) before you know what you are joining.

Anway I could carry on but anyone can go to the site and use it from the perspective of someone who knows nothing and find out for themselves. The site is a disaster, an embarrassment. It needs binning in its entirety. It is poorly structured, poorly written and just awful on every page. Plus the structures themselves are overly complicated.

(And THAT really is my last post on this....)

amber I really think you should email this to BE.

 

[LEC]

<Disclaimer: I'm too useless to actually do anything BE, so my comment is coming from the perspective of an outsider who works in techland>


Rather than arrogance, it's more likely that BE didn't want to shell out for a UX Researcher as the website was horrifically late and over budget. 3 months of UXR wouldn't be cheap, and the results would require changes to the website which would be more ££££. As you've pulled out in your later posts, both the copy editing and the UX Design of the site are very poor.
I'd say you've missed your calling as a UX Researcher/UX Designer, AE .

I'm generally a bit baffled about how the website was cocked up so badly and how it cost so much; as someone external to BE I can't envision an architecture that would have justified the price. I understand that they'd have been carrying some legacy systems and tech debt but for the several million that it cost these should have been updated and rearchitected. I'd give my right arm to see what their backend systems actually look like because the website design and flow feel like it has been built around the backend, which is a properly arse-backwards way of doing things.

The blame doesn't solely lie with the company contracted to build the website -- they can only work to the requirements they're given and writing good/clear/rational reqs is a difficult and skilled job. One of the many, many, reasons that I loathe hiring external companies is that they're usually stupidly expensive and it takes me longer to articulate the requirements than just doing the work myself.

IMO it seems (from this thread) that BE has much bigger issues than the website, but given it's the public face of the organisation it's something that will need addressing.

The big issue (I attended the EGM) was that a website with results and transaction was simple. The big problem is they also wanted it do do all their scoring etc which is where it’s completely fallen down and Event Scores does it. I also don’t know how it’s cost so much or been such a calamity especially using Salesforce. If you fancy boring yourself their are regular reports and IT updates on the website.

 

[Ambers Echo]

amber I really think you should email this to BE.

I am sure they know this thread is here if they are interested!

The arrogance comment was actually more about the structure - making people validate their horses in advance, upload info, go through multiple steps to join and enter. I once ran an NHS department and it was the same - endless hoops to jump through. And a rejection letter if you failed. I binned all that to have a totally streamlined pathway from referral to first contact. I felt it was arrogant (if they want an appt they'll do it), and it was clearly also discriminatory as it was a greater barrier to chaotic people, illiterate people, disabled people, non english speakers etc etc.

Re the actual layout of the site, I think DF is right. It was lack of proper test-site testing and feedback (I assume UX = User Experience?) They didn't (they CAN'T have) actually got anyone to test the site from the user perspective. And people who build websites are not necessarily any good at writing them so maybe they also did not bother empploying a skilled copy editor either. So the site 'works' and does all the things BE asked it to do. But it has still ended up crap because the most important parts were just not thought about.

 

[Alibear]

If the system uses Salesforce in any part, that explains the cost. Next, they'll move to SAP!

 

[j1ffy]

If the system uses Salesforce in any part, that explains the cost. Next, they'll move to SAP!

Sorry but this almost made me spit out my tea laughing... That would make the current costs look miniscule!

Another who has worked on and led many big tech transformations here ??‍ although I'm no techie. I'm not a BE member but I've had similar frustrations with other horse sites. There's no excuse for such a terrible user experience these days - if they paid an external company that much, they should have had the right advice. The whole thing smacks of development by committee, from the copy to the complicated membership routes and up-front information required. A small team with simple sign-off and governance, guided by a decent UX researcher / service designer, would have been far more successful.

Also I can't imagine how something like Salesforce could be customised to do entries and can imagine this adding huge amounts of upfront costs as well as ensuring it's very expensive to maintain and upgrade....again evidence that the advice provided was terrible.

Is a membership organisation such as BE subject to similar procurement rules and constraints as public sector organisations? I very much doubt it, and therefore wonder whether they could have asked the membership whether anyone could have provided some voluntary best-practice tech and tech procurement advice and played a non-exec director role on the programme board. Just this thread has thrown up a few experienced people...

 

[RachelFerd]

I am sure they know this thread is here if they are interested!

The arrogance comment was actually more about the structure - making people validate their horses in advance, upload info, go through multiple steps to join and enter. I once ran an NHS department and it was the same - endless hoops to jump through. And a rejection letter if you failed. I binned all that to have a totally streamlined pathway from referral to first contact. I felt it was arrogant (if they want an appt they'll do it), and it was clearly also discriminatory as it was a greater barrier to chaotic people, illiterate people, disabled people, non english speakers etc etc.

Re the actual layout of the site, I think DF is right. It was lack of proper test-site testing and feedback (I assume UX = User Experience?) They didn't (they CAN'T have) actually got anyone to test the site from the user perspective. And people who build websites are not necessarily any good at writing them so maybe they also did not bother empploying a skilled copy editor either. So the site 'works' and does all the things BE asked it to do. But it has still ended up crap because the most important parts were just not thought about.

I don't think horse validation in advance is an arrogant thing - you would do it for any other affiliated discipline too. It's pretty normal, is it not? My passport scans have been verified by BD and BS before competing. Now that I occasionally do a renewal, it goes through very quickly, because they've previously been verified. The BE website is much worse than either of those, which is fair. And the enforced entries through their system thing is unnecessary - however, the worst entry system I have ever used was Equine Affairs for the unaff stuff running at Houghton - it was truly horrendous and required me making multiple separate entries for one horse with a booking fee added to each one!

It is easy to go round in circles on how expensive and not very good the website is, but it isn't the product of the current leadership of BE - it is an ugly inheritance. And these things are so unbelievably expensive to amend when you've gone too far down one path... but amending the copywriting would be a big help. However, I totally get why it has ended up so wildly complicated this year, because the membership options have been iterated multiple times based on the financial climate we've been in - its no surprise it has ended up complicated, but it is a bit of a situation of not being able to do right for doing wrong.

As a regular user of the site though, it does take me less than 3 minutes to make an entry. I timed myself yesterday. So, once over the horrible peak effort of getting set up, it really isn't very difficult to use it.

 

[DirectorFury]

The big issue (I attended the EGM) was that a website with results and transaction was simple. The big problem is they also wanted it do do all their scoring etc which is where it’s completely fallen down and Event Scores does it. I also don’t know how it’s cost so much or been such a calamity especially using Salesforce. If you fancy boring yourself their are regular reports and IT updates on the website.

Well in one word you've just explained to me why it was so expensive and also why it's so crap . I do not have good things to say about Salesforce!
Thanks for the prod in the direction of the IT reports, I'll have a look at them later.

Weird how the scoring was the thing that broke it all - from a microservices perspective it should be trivial to integrate all the components so adding or removing something shouldn't break things.

[...]And these things are so unbelievably expensive to amend when you've gone too far down one path[...]

I'm going to say something that's probably unpopular with fellow tech workers, but they're only really expensive because outsourcing companies royally take the p1ss with their pricing, especially if they know the customer is non-technical or doesn't have a tech-literate person involved in the process. They could've hired (on 24-month/fixed-term contracts) an entire in-house full-stack dev team, plus a PM and UXR, for less than the cost of the website. I'm guessing BE are now locked into an extortionate service contract for the website too. And as it's a cloud (urgh) solution they're going to have massive ongoing costs there as well and there's just no need for it. It's wasteful.

When they come to redo the website it would be cheaper to throw the entire thing in the bin and start again from scratch, and this time get help from people who know or work in the industry.

 

[Ambers Echo]

I don't think horse validation in advance is an arrogant thing - you would do it for any other affiliated discipline too. It's pretty normal, is it not? My passport scans have been verified by BD and BS before competing.

Ok maybe it isn't arrogance. But I am a big believer in asking why? Why is that needed? What does it prevent?
Presumably, passport validation aims to prevent you competing on a different horse and getting a decent record on the wrong horse? But there is no rider validation? So what's to stop anyone dishonest from getting a pro to make their extremely average but validated cob to look like a Badminton grassroots contender but pretenting he's ridden by someone average. Or gettign a pro to get you your MERS for you. There is just an assumption that this is needed when I am not sure it really it. I have never ever had anyone check I am riding the right horse. And eventing is a small world - I am fairly sure anyone on the wrong horse would be outed swiftly. A lifetime ban for that would probably be enough to stop it ever happening. Unless I am very naive. Willing to be educated in why is it necessary if I am missing something.

Maybe once you are on teams then that is the point that checks come in? Or you take your passport to the secretaroes tent to collect winnings?

But also I BSed Lottie on impulse and did have to validate her but I could do that AFTER entering. The entry went in and I added her BS number the next day. What is so short sighted of BE is not letting people enter in the first place. If people are there online trying to enter, for heaven's sake let them! Insurance does that all the time too - coverage starts immediately and then you have to send additonal info over later.

 

[RachelFerd]

I'm going to say something that's probably unpopular with fellow tech workers, but they're only really expensive because outsourcing companies royally take the p1ss with their pricing, especially if they know the customer is non-technical or doesn't have a tech-literate person involved in the process. They could've hired (on 24-month/fixed-term contracts) an entire in-house full-stack dev team, plus a PM and UXR, for less than the cost of the website. I'm guessing BE are now locked into an extortionate service contract for the website too. And as it's a cloud (urgh) solution they're going to have massive ongoing costs there as well and there's just no need for it. It's wasteful.

When they come to redo the website it would be cheaper to throw the entire thing in the bin and start again from scratch, and this time get help from people who know or work in the industry.

Totally agree - and having run some major IT and website transformation projects while working in the third sector... there are some absolute p*ss takes going on out there. And very talented people who could do the job themselves or in a small team at an infinitely smaller cost. My NHOH is a video games developer and and builds unbelievably complicated things that enable online multiplayer functionality for computer games running across 5 different platforms. He does this himself as the sole programmer on the project... but you could outsource it and literally spend millions.

Ok maybe it isn't arrogance. But I am a big believer in asking why? Why is that needed? What does it prevent?
Presumably, passport validation aims to prevent you competing on a different horse and getting a decent record on the wrong horse? But there is no rider validation? So what's to stop anyone dishonest from getting a pro to make their extremely average but validated cob to look like a Badminton grassroots contender but pretenting he's ridden by someone average. Or gettign a pro to get you your MERS for you. There is just an assumption that this is needed when I am not sure it really it. I have never ever had anyone check I am riding the right horse. And eventing is a small world - I am fairly sure anyone on the wrong horse would be outed swiftly. A lifetime ban for that would probably be enough to stop it ever happening. Unless I am very naive. Willing to be educated in why is it necessary if I am missing something.

Maybe once you are on teams then that is the point that checks come in? Or you take your passport to the secretaroes tent to collect winnings?

But also I BSed Lottie on impulse and did have to validate her but I could do that AFTER entering. The entry went in and I added her BS number the next day. What is so short sighted of BE is not letting people enter in the first place. If people are there online trying to enter, for heaven's sake let them! Insurance does that all the time too - coverage starts immediately and then you have to send additonal info over later.

So a few responses to this

1/ yes it prevents people putting a good record onto a horse when it isn't the right horse - chancers have done this before in the past, it does genuinely happen. And when we're talking about selling horses for for £20/£30k as 'talented youngsters' there is every bit of reason to try and limit this type of fraudulent activity.
2/ fortunately eventing is a small enough world that any decent pro would be recognised as riding under an incorrect name, hence rider validation probably not needed
3/ at FEI level every horse is microchip scanned every time. I have also had microchips scanned at a 'normal' BE event and at a BS event. At BS particularly there is also a bit of incentive to ride the wrong horse and pick up fair amounts of prize money in lower level classes than the horse should be competing in.
4/ agree, it would make sense to validate horses after entering - removing all barriers to getting entries IN in the first place is much needed
5/ there is currently a bit more 'intelligence' in the entry system to prevent unqualified horses/riders entering things they don't have the MERs for - the onus for doing this could be placed more onto riders now that the qualification and eligibility online checker is out there in the public domain - but would people use it?

 

[Ambers Echo]

Fair enough, I did not realise it was a common form of fraud. But what would stop me validating 'Bay Useless Jumper' and actually riding Lottie? That could only be picked up if they scan microchip/check passport markings. In which case the validation is unecessary as you'd cathc the person via the scan/passport?

Am I missing something?

 

[RachelFerd]

Fair enough, I did not realise it was a common form of fraud. But what would stop me validating 'Bay Useless Jumper' and actually riding Lottie? That could only be picked up if they scan microchip/check passport markings. In which case the validation is unecessary as you'd cathc the person via the scan/passport?

Am I missing something?

You need an existing record to attach the results to though, right? Prevent duplicate records, and also collect useful data on things like breeding (although I think they could do a *much* better job on that front than currently happens).

In my idealistic little world, this would be where having an overarching record for each horse, which all results from different comps fed into, would cut out lots of hassle and wasteful duplication.

 

[LEC]

Fair enough, I did not realise it was a common form of fraud. But what would stop me validating 'Bay Useless Jumper' and actually riding Lottie? That could only be picked up if they scan microchip/check passport markings. In which case the validation is unecessary as you'd cathc the person via the scan/passport?

Am I missing something?

I know before it was done a horse who had a terrible record - it was renamed and started again! Luckily this has all stopped with strict rules about not changing passport names. I tried to drop part of my horses passport name and it was a hard no. Only name know changed was a Friends who had word bitch in it and was allowed another name for competing!

 

[Ambers Echo]

You need an existing record to attach the results to though, right? Prevent duplicate records, and also collect useful data on things like breeding (although I think they could do a *much* better job on that front than currently happens).

In my idealistic little world, this would be where having an overarching record for each horse, which all results from different comps fed into, would cut out lots of hassle and wasteful duplication.

In the fraud you outlined, dodgy dealer does not validate any horse but rides an established horse under the name of the young horse he is selling so young horse gets good record and can sell for 20-30K.
In my scenario, dealer/rider does exactly the same but validates the youngster first.

In both scenarios the dealer gets away with this unless someone actually checks at the event that he is riding the horse named on the entry. If that happens the person is caught regardless of validation. So if you check at the event you don't need to validate to prevent this. And if you don't check, validation does not prevent this.

But it sounds like validation does more than that as I don't know what you mean by duplicate records etc. Maybe something that applies higher up?