Discussion: Parks & Rec and other OUSA news

I hope US orienteers are getting and reading the OUSA newsletters.
I'm excited about the interest we're getting in the Boston area from Parks & Rec departments. Here is a great article about Newton Parks & Rec, the Youth Mapping Program, Navigation Games classes, and permanent courses. In the past few months, Navigation Games has made a map and done programming for Brookline Parks and Rec, and we're in the catalog for Lexington Parks & Rec this winter, and working out final details for classes with Andover Parks & Rec. We've heard from a couple other Parks & Rec departments this week. Our class format ranges from a 2-4 hour one-time class to weekly classes, usually on Saturdays.

Here is other recent news from OUSA, lots of good stuff!

Great news and an active orienteering map puzzle to try. Thank you for sharing.

The word is getting around Parks and Rec Departments. In January I am going to be making a presentation to a second P&R Department in the Suncoast area of Florida. This one is ASKING for two permanent courses and inviting me to stage an event in one of their parks. The other one I have an open invitation to go back there with an event. A third one is willing to put orienteering into their school break camp program but it fell apart when I could not find someone to teach the orienteering.
Remember Parks people go to conferences and they talk to each other. They are always looking for new ideas to sell to their bosses and to help market their programs. Orienteering fits that bill.
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I remember quite a few years ago a discussion of how P&R departments would be a good avenue for promoting and teaching O' . It is a bit easier than getting into schools. It seems the word is getting around, through the work of Barb and Gord. Good job everyone!

This slide show went over well with one P&R staff group. So did the SI timing cards I used for their demo event.

Thanks for the puzzle. Jigsaw Planet, the site that hosts your puzzle has at least a hundred O map and orienteering theme puzzles. I was trying to break my addiction to that site when your puzzle appeared! https://www.jigsawplanet.com/

We are planning to put out a weekly puzzle as a Friday feature - on the website and social media. Might be current events, might be throwbacks to old events. This link will update automatically as new OUSA puzzles are put up.

https://orienteeringusa.org/category/puzzles/