A Recipe Book for Healthier Clubs?

[Gord Hunter]

I’m excited about the idea of a club president’s forum to discuss ideas for growing orienteering both at the club and national levels.

I have another idea that I’d like to float here. Rick Worner and I talked about it on the weekend. Rick reminded me that the idea is not entirely new, that for years Don Davis wrote a column in Orienteering North America  where he featured news and good ideas coming out of clubs across America. I know someone in O-USA went to a lot of trouble to digitize and display the ONA’s from the ‘Berman era’ but now they seem nowhere to be found. Too bad.

The idea I had is slightly different.  Anyone of a certain age has probably been involved in putting together or buying a cookbook, a collection of recipes of things to eat. The organization putting out the recipe book was probably doing it to raise money. Even Orienteering Canada got into the act and produced a book called Fit to Eat. If you can find it on eBay grab it. It was good. BUT I DIGRESS!.

What I suggest is that we, the orienteering clubs of America, start contributing to a central core, a recipe listing of things that can help our clubs grow because THEY HAVE HELPED YOUR CLUB GROW or in some way HELPED YOUR CLUB DO THINGS BETTER, MEET A MARKET DEMAND or the like.

So how about it? Would you like to chip in a ‘recipe’ that may help another orienteering club? I’m sure space could be found in a member’s section of the O-USA web page for our 'cookbook'.

What would you possibly write about? Well, without taking too much time, listed below are some ideas that I think would find an appreciative audience somewhere in this big country.

How would you write? Well first I think some would have to put aside your phone and dust off your computer. Smart phones are just not good for writing instructional pieces. Second. Look into what you know and what your club has been doing that has captured your attention. Are you having a youth training program? Working with Parks Department? I’d sure love to know how you got that going and what it takes to keep it going. Tapping into the Home School market? Ditto.

Here below are some of the ideas that strike my fancy.  Pick one or a few and write up what is working for you guys.  “What is working”. Please resist the temptation to say ‘that won’t work’ Every idea will work, EVERY IDEA, if the right person is pulling the levers. Feel free to add topics that would interest you.

Pick an idea. Post it here or send it to me at gor...@rogers.com I will collate the ideas and put together our ‘Cookbook for Healthier Orienteering Clubs. The clubs can then pick up and try the recipes they’d like to try.

Gord Hunter

Suncoast Orienteering

 

Benefits of having a growing program.

How to tap into the Boy Scout/ Girl Scout market

How to tap into the Home School market

How to tap into and grow the JROTC market

Recruiting and rewarding volunteers

How to develop and stage urban orienteering events. 

Competitive vs non-competitive orienteering- Is there room for both?

Does it have to be one-strike-and-you’re-out? One mis-punch, one missed control. Adventure races have no DQs, DNFs or MPs. Are they onto something there?

Can we bring back team competitions to an individual sport? Why? How?

Building and maintaining better websites

Building and maintaining a youth program + tapping into the volunteer power stored in the parents of youth program participants

Building and maintaining adult training sessions

Getting more maps of more parks at a cheaper price.

A Greeter program for orienteering events: Why? How?

Humor and Orienteering – a collection of funny incidents to place on websites.

How to approach park managers and land owners for event permissions

Sprint orienteering and how to make what could be a +/- 15-minute event into something more worth the trip.

[Janet Tryson]

Re: Orienteering North America. Use the search feature on the OUSA website to find the ONA page. Scroll down to find the archive.

https://orienteeringusa.org/home/orienteering-north-america/

Janet T.

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 26, 2022, at 6:34 PM, Gord Hunter <gor...@rogers.com> wrote:



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[RWorner LKohn]

Gord,

Thanks for keeping this going. ROC Recipe for Success over 40 years.  (My opinions) Many of these ideas were borrowed from other clubs over the years.

1. Offer 20 events per year or two per month except for Jan/Feb when we offer 1 Ski O each month.

2. Publicize events on multiple social media sites.  FB, Meet Up etc. Have a person designated to do this.

3. Maintain our website on a regular basis.

4. Have a volunteer coordinator so MD don't have to do any recruiting. This is what we use. https://www.timetosignup.com/rocvolunteers/sheet/220796/

5. Have a greeter at every meet.

6. Set up a String or Streamer O at every event. 

7. Offer free entries for all volunteers.

8. Offer and encourage online registration. Offer discount for pre registration

9. Offer a one hour registration period and a 90 minute start window so volunteers don't have to work so long and courses can close earlier.

10. Offer four courses at local events. Beginner(White), Intermediate (Yellow/Orange), Short Advanced (Brown/Green), Long Advanced (Green/Red)

11. Offer free beginner courses and free instruction at every meet.

12. Offer a course setting workshop every year or two and have an experienced consultant in your club willing to help new setters/

13. Approach experienced orienteers about setting courses. 

14. Offer a volunteer position to put out and pick up controls so setters can go home.

15. Offer food and drink at every meet so people will stay around and socialize.

16. Post all of the courses at the meet site so that people can see and discuss them even if they didn't run them.

17. Give volunteers a free T-shirt with the schedule on the back if they volunteers at 5 or more meets

18. Have an annual meeting with a pot luck dinner and some sort of activity.

19. Do a night O or Vampire Oevent every year.

20. Sponsor a trail race every year that raises $3-4 thousand  dollars to subsidize the local event schedule.

21. Try to hold an NRE or championship every two years to expose the membership to the wider world of orienteering

22. Produce a club newsletter tht is mailed out four times a year with lots of pictures and profiles of club members.

23. Alternate events with equal numbers of Saturday and Sunday events

24. Try to add a new map every year.

25. Coordinate our schedule with nearby local clubs and national events to avoid conflicts.

Rick Worner

ROC

[Joseph Huberman]

Thanks everyone for the great ideas.  

BOK caters to our workers first, then our experienced participants, and finally the general public.  When we make policy decisions the first concern is to make it easier for the event director.  

• SI boxes are attached to the controls which are hung from trees.  
• All our registrations are online, we collect no money on site.  
• We use the SI-Droid app on a tablet to run our events.  
• We have the option to schedule our participant arrival windows so we don't have a crush of people arriving all at once.  
• We have our beginner class skills on very short videos so we can answer beginner's questions individually instead of holding a class if the event director so chooses.  
• Event directors have the freedom to hold any type of event they want and what skill level they want to attract.   We have:
• "Open" events for everyone with White through Red or Blue (70-100  participants)
• "Advanced" events where the participant has completed an Orange or above course (20-30  participants)
•  "Expert" events where the participant completed a Brown or above course.  (15-20 participants)
• It is much less work to hold an Advanced or Expert course, so the ratio is about one open to two or three Advanced or Expert events.
• Radio Orienteering about 10 events per year (5-12 participants)

The event directors have total control when designing their events.  They can have as many or as few courses as they choose, and decide the skill levels.  They can have mass or individual starts and can control the number of people arriving per hour.  They produce some original event formats because they are creative and free to run the event any way they want.  Event directors write their own event announcements and results articles and post them to our Wordpress website.  We use Ecwid storefront for registrations because it is super flexible and attaches to PayPal.  They use our Members (workers) email list to get any help they want.  There are always people ready to help when needed.

In addition, we encourage participants to purchase a season pass which includes entry to all our events.  It is $45 for an individual, and $65 for a family. We have about 30 events per year.  Our entry fee is $7 and we charge $5 to rent an SI card.  We keep the rental cost high to encourage participants to purchase an SI card which we personalize with their name.  Then we don't need to enter their name in the computer or for the results. With our Advanced or Expert events we rarely need to enter a name.  You can see how this payment structure reduces the need to collect money, rent sticks, or enter names.

"Membership" is free.  One earns their "membership" by hosting events.  This gives members the "privilege" of receiving the emails that may contain:  questions from visitors to our website, requests for help at events, arrangements to coordinate equipment pick-up, and finally voting rights at our annual meeting.  

We don't promote our sport very much.  BOK has the problem that our parks limit event attendance, so we don't promote our activities beyond publishing our schedule.  Our events frequently fill up when the weather is good.  We used to hold an NRE every 2 years, but we usually attracted less than 200.  With our workers not enthusiastic, and our parks limiting attendance we haven't held an NRE since 2012.

Joseph

================================
Joseph Huberman

President, BOK
Raleigh, NC

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/orienteeringusa.org/d/msgid/clubnet/CAGTzKr7WZ_t%2Bin33FBg9ebp9GQWp-9rhOk0L7YN80aRi8OoG6A%40mail.gmail.com.

[Gord Hunter]

Thanks Joe and Rick for a good start to our 'recipe book'. 

Back 15- 20+ years ago I participated in several events at both your clubs, Backwoods and Rochester.  I think you both can be rightly proud of how far your clubs have come along. 

But folks can we go a bit deeper with this 'recipe book' idea. It is good to know of what you do but to really help each other can we -all of us, not just Joeseph and Rick - put down how we do it - a recipe includes the ingredients and how they are brought together and collect the work into an on-line resource for all clubs.

How you set out, secure and collect SI boxes and contols is one perhaps several clubs could do.

There are two guys I know in different clubs using different scoring programs who can each upload their event results to the web before they leave the event site. I think our participants or our new particpants would really be impressed with that. 

How to jazz up an event by using live tracking while the event is going on. 

How to get in good with the park administrators - steps getting in the door. That's something a lot of us could use.

How to use a simplified Ranking system to encourage the folks to keep coming back. I think I have a handle on that one and could share a recipe there.

Putting the sizzle into our social media - please someone must know how.

Getting your local tourist bureau involved in promoting your national events. We could spin a lot of wheels there but getting the know how from those who know how would be very helpful.

So many  things to cover. If each club could pick a few things they have seen go well and write up 100-400 wordsw on how they got it to go well we'd soon have a great resuorce for many years to come. Some may prefer to YouTube the idea. That's good, too but it is really hard to be a good YouTube commentator. 

Another big need I have seen is some instruction on how to set interesting courses that give people the feeling they really go their money's worth out there and the route choices they made really made a difference - good or bad. Does anyone have a recipe for good courses?

Can we get this back on track?

Gord Hunter

Suncoast Orienteering

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/orienteeringusa.org/d/msgid/clubnet/CAO60M%3Dh232aa-ebUV%2BNJnZi1eL3po4p2gkd6LcSog4O3F_JQzA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Gord Hunter]

For about 12 years now I have been making orienteering maps to support Suncoast Orienteering and Florda Orienteering as well as schools, scout groups and individuals across America.

Well, when it comes to maps outside Florida that help stops before the field work stage.  

Recently two things have become obvious to me and caused me to refine/ streamline some of my processes.

• US federal agencies have a great store of freely available LiDAR covering most of the country.
• The agency LiDAR, particularly that from NOAA, makes moving the LiDAR into an orienteering map a one-step process. It is very quick and easy, so easy that no club should ever again be paying anyone to produce a base map. 

Fieldwork? Now that is time consuming and if you don't have a volunteer expect to pay but the good news is that the new base maps make the fieldworkers jobs easier and quicker and therefore should cost less. 

After reading about one person's plea on a club Facebook page for advice on how to make an orienteering map in his area and cringing while he basically got brushed off, I stepped in to help. After spending some 60 minutes on the phone walking him through the steps - good thing he was a very fast learner- he got his map and I got the idea to collect it all in a slide show.

I got some help from the head of NOAA and my contact at OCAD and a couple of individuals in GAOC.

Here is my new mapping slides show. An Easy Way to Create a Real O Map.pdf

An Easy Way to Create a Real O Map.pdf Orienteering mapping has long been the domain of specialists and technical geeks. However, new technology has br...

I hope you find it useful. 

Yes there are other ways to bring all that information together and if you are used to them those ways will be easier for you.

But here I am confident that anyone with a fair bit of interest can become an orienteering mapper in a matter of hours.

Gord Hunter

Suncoast Orienteering

[pgwo...@gmail.com]

Gord has done a great job here. Because he has helped people in the past, he knows what the sticking points are and how to talk about them. He points to the needed resources and what to do with them. With the information that he shows you how to get, field checking is much, much easier and doesn’t require as much time or, I will also say, skill. Old time mappers working with information about contours and such taken from aerial photos spent a huge amount of time in the woods and really needed whole toolbox to make a good map. Gord has shown what is now possible and how people can now make maps in much, much less time. Yes, when there are large areas of forest, you have to be able to use the LIDAR but the contours that it provides make mapping much easier.

 

Well done Gord and I hope more people take on mapping projects. It is actually a great quite time in the woods, too.

 

 

 

From: clu...@orienteeringusa.org <clu...@orienteeringusa.org> On Behalf Of Gord Hunter
Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2022 1:55 PM
To: ClubNet <clu...@orienteeringusa.org>
Subject: [OUSA-ClubNet] A contribution to A Recipe Book for Healthier Clubs

 

For about 12 years now I have been making orienteering maps to support Suncoast Orienteering and Florda Orienteering as well as schools, scout groups and individuals across America.

Well, when it comes to maps outside Florida that help stops before the field work stage.  

Recently two things have become obvious to me and caused me to refine/ streamline some of my processes.

• US federal agencies have a great store of freely available LiDAR covering most of the country.
• The agency LiDAR, particularly that from NOAA, makes moving the LiDAR into an orienteering map a one-step process. It is very quick and easy, so easy that no club should ever again be paying anyone to produce a base map. 

Fieldwork? Now that is time consuming and if you don't have a volunteer expect to pay but the good news is that the new base maps make the fieldworkers jobs easier and quicker and therefore should cost less. 

After reading about one person's plea on a club Facebook page for advice on how to make an orienteering map in his area and cringing while he basically got brushed off, I stepped in to help. After spending some 60 minutes on the phone walking him through the steps - good thing he was a very fast learner- he got his map and I got the idea to collect it all in a slide show.

I got some help from the head of NOAA and my contact at OCAD and a couple of individuals in GAOC.

Here is my new mapping slides show. An Easy Way to Create a Real O Map.pdf

 

An Easy Way to Create a Real O Map.pdf Orienteering mapping has long been the domain of specialists and technical geeks. However, new technology has br...

 

I hope you find it useful. 

Yes there are other ways to bring all that information together and if you are used to them those ways will be easier for you.

But here I am confident that anyone with a fair bit of interest can become an orienteering mapper in a matter of hours.

 

Gord Hunter

Suncoast Orienteering

 

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