Discussion: World Orienteering Day - May 11

There hasn't been much discussion or planning in North America regarding World O Day and the Guiness record attempt. So, which North American clubs are planning activities on the 11th?

Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

DontGetLost is planning activities next week. Between our two Wednesday evening ARK locations we will have ~200 kids participating.

In Ottawa, there is a high school track and field meet on May 11, so we will have a simple o course in the vicinity of the venue that the kids will be able to try while they are waiting for their starts. Also, Wednesday is the club's regular running training day and there are often elements of orienteering incorporated in the training, so the coach (fkawam) promised some orienteering activities for the adults taking part in the training as well.

http://www.ottawaoc.ca/index.php/important-updates...

Also, apparently Jennie (J Anderson) will do some sort of outreach event for 150 students on the same day, but I don't know the details.

By the way, the IOF has announced that there will be no official Guinness record - too expensive.

Saving all those funds raised from the new athlete registration fee for something more important are they?

+1 tRicky!

Although actually I think they may just have been behind the curve in promoting the event. Hardly anybody in North America is doing anything that day. And look at the event listings on AP - it just looks like any normal mid-week day. If there isn't a realistic shot at smashing the record (I have no idea if maybe there are gigantic school events planned in Europe or elsewhere), then why spend the money? This event definitely needed more, better and wider promotion.

It is only the first year of what will hopefully become an annual event. It can only get bigger.

Indeed, in a few years the 11th will be on a weekend.

It can only get bigger.

An interesting claim.

That's if it stays on the 11th rather than keeping it midweek. Our state association doesn't get the numbers for weekend events let alone weekday events to host one! Although I'm sure a standalone novelty event on that day might entice people along.

Eventor on the other hand shows eight events in Australia on that day, all eight of which mention the name in their title (although one was being run anyway).

A lot of the IOF effort has been directed at schools, but pursuing that wasn't really an option for Australia because it clashes with national exams for a number of year levels.

Australia needs to organise itself around the IOF a bit better. After all, they do a lot for our small nation.

Foothills Orienteering through SOGO adventure running is hosting something here in Calgary.

We are hosting an event in Kansas. Small, free. 100 controls on campus.

Good luck with this everyone...Future dates (according to bulletin 4 at http://worldorienteeringday.com/) are the 4th Wednesday in May for the next two years

World O-Day in Moscow, Russia: local o-event "Moscow Meridian 2016, 16th stage"...
There were 4 courses, 165 persons took a part...maybe not so much - but it was a working day (event was in the evening)...

It sounds like a good result. It takes lots of such events to build numbers.

There are now over 2500 events listed on the WOD site. Although North American numbers are disappointing. I've already posted the 2017 and 2018 dates on our club schedule and encourage all other USA and Canadian clubs to do the same.

If you click individual markers on the WOD website (scroll down) map, you can see that many events have uploaded maps (and/or photos) from this year. Fun to browse, even if it takes some work to find them.