Discussion: Coach for a Day? (at GNC)

Are you going to be at the Georgia Navigator Cup this coming weekend?
Are you wondering what to do with yourself/ yourselves when you are not competing on Friday?
How about lending a hand and passing on your experience or a bit of it?
There is a high school JROTC team of ten coming from a rural community in North Florida. This is their first time venturing to a national event, to any kind of event outside the flatter areas of Florida, actually. They will be participating in the special event on Friday before the Junior Championships on Saturday and Sunday.
They are really nice teens but I'm worried they might be a bit shell shocked (hill shocked?) after their run on Friday.
I'd like to be there to talk them through it and do a course review. I will be there. Would you like to help out? No more than two hours and perhaps some time Friday morning, too. That would be up to you.
Contact me at gordhun (at) rogers dot com and we'll set it up. Thanks for considering this.

I shared your message with the OUSA Level 1 Certified Coach email list, Gord.

This is great. We have a team of three lined up to help the Florida kids. Great bridge building, I think. Thanks to all.

Thanks for the offers that came from all parts of the age spectrum - and on short notice too.
The offers I could not refuse have come from three young orienteers with national squad experience.
The leader from the Florida school tells me that his students are thrilled to be receiving that level of attention and support.

Awesome!

Gord,
My boy Ben was appreciative of the opportunity and gift. He says thank you. Hopefully they got something out of it:). It was good for Benjamin for sure.

Thanks for the note John.
I listened in on Ben for a bit and he was great.
I'm sorry that the weather turned so cold that the in forest instruction became impractical. But yes the learning was there.
It occurred to me that perhaps the national squad/ national juniors could regularly market themselves at warm ups to major events to give instructions in return for a donation to the squad. Do you think they would be interested?

I think they would all like to be part of something bigger and better TBH. I think there is a lot of room for further fun/learning/fraternity. The top juniors, if enabled and encouraged, could probably find a few more cracks to insert themselves into.

Model course events and structured warmups are a good suggestion that maybe their team leader (if one exists) can chaperone.

This is awesome.

I'd also like to mention that a number of the NT members (including those who didn't compete at Jr. Nats) supported the course review hosted online by the Youth Development Program this past Saturday. It was pretty amazing - the last participants signed off at nearly 10:30 eastern time, after 3.5 hours together!

I hope youth will seek out YDP as a way to connect with other youth, including NT members. This year, we'll be offering YDP resources to all the youth NT members because that's where OUSA's development effort is focused, including being part of the invitations to socialize, train together, participate in course reviews, and apply for grants for youth-focused activities. We're working to develop a structure to support the youth mentorship interaction you describe.

I like the model course / warmup idea. Perhaps we'll try that at a future NRE as our during-event activity.

More about YDP is here: https://orienteeringusa.org/resources/youth-develo...