Nopesport

boy scouts in canada

Nopesport bumped into Alastair (Pyrat) Brunton as he returned from Canada with an orienteering entries system under his arm. We grabbed him for an interview:

Nopesport

So you have written an online entry system. Why bother when there are a few others which are already out there?

Alastair

I didnt feel that any of the current solutions made the task of entering and hosting events very easy. I thought there must be a simpler way of doing things, avoiding unnecessary, bloated functionality.

Nopesport

Sounds good. So why isnt there a content editor for describing events, multi-day functionality and a snazzy cutting edge design.

Alastair

Keep It Simple Stupid. Ive included less features rather than more to avoid it becoming an unwieldy beast. There are so many things which you can make an entries system do but instead of forcing people to work in a complicated manner I have made the system very configurable so you can bend it to fit your own personal needs.

Nopesport

Are you calling me stupid?

Alastair

No. (Silence)

Nopesport

So are you charging extortionate rates for people to enter online with a view to becoming rich from orienteering?

Alastair

(Laughs) Rich from orienteering?! Dont think that ones gonna happen until Orienteering becomes an olympic sport ? Seriously though, the rate of additional cost for using the entry system is relatively small at 3% per entry. Its mainly to cover the cost of development and day to day overheads. I ate Kraft Cheese Dinners and went snowboarding every day so I could write this. Instead of working at a full time job, getting out of debt. I also plan to start an offer where it doesnt cost anything to use initially to build up a userbase.

I am more interesting in building up a great system than making money.

Nopesport

Oh poor Ally! Such a hard life you lead! One final question. What is your vision for oentries.com in the future? How do you want it to shape orienteering?

Alastair

Thats two questions. My vision? Hmmm (pause). I hope that its possible to standardise the entry process in British Orienteering by building up a large number of events and clubs which use the system on a repeat basis.

This makes life a lot easier for joe orienteer who can either enter a load of events in one sitting or rely on another popular non-british method where the secretary enters the club.

There is also an opportunity for a central results database something which I would like to be integrated into oentries. Ideas of gorging through statistics on your last 10 years worth of results, and comparing these with your rivals is an orienteer’s wet dream.

If anyone wants to write this and integrate it with oentries let me know as I wont get round to it in the next couple of months.

Nopesport

Thanks for your time Ally. Always a pleasure.

Alastair

Aye cheers. Have a good run at the JK.

Nopesport

You too.

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You can check out the new online entries system over at http://www.oentries.com