Discussion: Notes from the Board meeting

I sat in on the meeting of the OUSA Board on Saturday afternoon. Here are my notes and thoughts. Note that this is just my take on things, not to be confused with official minutes or any official report.

Championship bids:
-- The Ski-O' events at Lake Tahoe in late January and early February (World Cup, US and NA Champs) got their final approvals from the Board. The Board will also have its next meeting there.
-- Backwoods OK in North Carolina has applied for the 2012 US 2-Day Classic Champs, with preferred dates being the first couple of weekends in March. Some concerns were expressed by various Board members, especially whether having this event, the Flying Pig March 30 - April 1), and the US Individual Champs (April 13-15) was too many major events in too short a time period and attendance at each might suffer. A decision was postponed for a couple of weeks, will be made by the Executive Committee after more research input.
-- Quantico OC expects to bid for either the 2013 Individual Champs (SML) or 2-Day Classic Champs, sometime in the spring.

Evolution of the OUSA website:
-- The plan, and it seems close to getting done, is to make the O-Sign-Up event registration system (developed by Kent Shaw of DVOA and currently used for a lot of A meets) available for use on the OUSA website, including a number of new features that will simplify the registration process for members on the front end and the hand-off to the rankings program on the back end. There will be a modest cost for using it (I think I head the figures of $35/hour if extra work customizing it is needed, and 10 cents/entrant). The Board agreed to move forward on this. It will also be available for local meet registration.

Sponsorship deal with Motel 6:
-- It will be extended for another year, for now. We will be getting about 4-5K per year. Meanwhile, Glen is exploring options with other chains that might offer a wider range of properties (budget as well as more upscale), so for now he doesn't want to be locked in to Motel 6 for more than a year.

WOC 2018/Denmark:
-- With very little interest from anyone in exploring the pros and cons of this, and some more info from the Danish fellow who originated the proposal (which did not seem to offer a very compelling case for doing it), this is now a dead issue. Instead, the Board will try to nudge up the organizational standards at our major meets, and then maybe in a few years, if there is progress on this, the idea of hosting WOC again will be reconsidered.

Report from the IOF Presidents Conference in August:
-- Really the only time in the meeting that I was dismayed. A total waste of time. Two months after the fact, when a report should have been sent out right after the meeting via e-mail and not wasted everyone's time at the meeting. Having said that, I will also compliment the rest of the Board, because they had all sent in reports on their areas of responsibility prior to the meeting. (They are posted here and here).

Eligibility for the North Americans:
-- There was discussion of the rule that makes foreigners here on student visas eligible for our various championships, including the NA Champs. This has been a source of contention at the last couple of NAOCs. There seemed to be a general feeling that this rule should be repealed. The Rules committee will review it in the next couple of weeks and report back to the Board, with the Executive Committee authorized then to take action. My guess is that it will be repealed; that is also my hope.
-- Just to review the other NAOC eligibility rules, for the NAOCs you need to be a citizen or green-card holder, plus a member of OUSA. For the BK and FC Cups it is more restrictive, you have to be a citizen, plus a member of OUSA.

The budget for 2012:
-- As it turned out, the Finance Committee had not yet agreed on a budget to propose to the Board, so that will have to wait a little. However, there was discussion on two major issues.
-- (1) Support for the Teams. In 2010 and 2011 there has been no support for the Teams from OUSA (there has certainly been support from individual members of the Board, but not from the federation as a whole). For 2012 the Finance Committee was initially directed to put together a budget that provided more than trivial support to the Teams, and also was balanced. Needless to say, that proved to be difficult, or impossible.

Nevertheless, there is strong Board support for the Teams. The current thinking is to aim for the federation providing 50% of the normal expenses of the Teams, and the Teams to raise the rest. Doing that will necessitate a deficit budget, but this is still the intent.

Regarding the Teams, there was discussion about how they are progressing, or not progressing towards the goals of the strategic plan, and that more attention should be paid to that, just like more attention should be paid to how other parts of the OUSA program are progressing. My own view is that this would be a healthy thing.

It was certainly nice to hear the positive things being said about the Teams.

-- (2) Balanced budget. Given that we still have substantial financial reserves, there was discussion about whether a balanced budget was necessary, given that it would serve as a substantial constraint on OUSA activities. Though there were a couple of expressions of concern, particularly about the possible size of a deficit, there seemed to be a general consensus that a deficit up to about 30K was not unreasonable. Of course there was also the hope that plans underway to increase revenues would bear fruit, limiting any deficit.

-- So this is still up in the air, but my sense is that they will end up with good support for the Teams and a modest deficit.

Digital ONA:
-- It seemed that there has been a good bit of positive reaction, and very little negative. In fact, Donna said the only really negative response she got was a call saying the person hated it, and then a day or two later the person called back to say he had learned how to access it and really liked it.
-- There was some discussion about more digital issues of ONA for 2012, and the need to be thinking about that and planning for it in the next few months, rather than just waiting until next fall, and then probably just doing one issue again.
-- And there was also some discussion about communications in general, and a possible e-newsletter. No details, but hopefully there will be movement forward on this in the near future.

That was about it. As I said at the outset, this is my recollection, and by no means an official record. But I thought folks might like to know what is going on.

Thanks Peter.

The current thinking is to aim for the federation providing 50% of the normal expenses of the Teams, and the Teams to raise the rest.

Do I understand correctly that the 50% is expected to be from unrestricted funds and thus Team restricted funds raised in the annual fund drive would count toward the other half?

Quantico OC expects to bid for either the 2013 Individual Champs (SML) or 2-Day Classic Champs, sometime in the spring

Plans are being thrown around for a return to Bend festival, with quite possibly some events in Boise and early-week Sprints in Portland, to be a CTOC/CROC/Get Lost!!/MerGeo production, sponsored and made possible by Visit Bend. For it to make sense it'd have to be one of the Championships, and we can't say we are exacly fond of the Classic Champs. The 2013 timeframe is insistently suggested by Visit Bend—they'd love to have it earlier but none of the other parties can do it in 2012.

Better get that bid in! I heart Bend.

Take me to Bend!

I don't think we'll be ready to get the bid in until we get at least one A meet behind us, so not until late March 2012 at the earliest.

unofficial planning calendar

The proposed organizers should contact Mike to get their "possibilities" listed so others know about them.

Do I understand correctly that the 50% is expected to be from unrestricted funds and thus Team restricted funds raised in the annual fund drive would count toward the other half?

Not quite -- the half from the Team restricted funds represents money raised specifically for the Team in what might be a variety of ways. Yes, specified donations, also proceeds from events organized to benefit a Team, or fundraisers such as the Juniors' food operation at the SML champs over the weekend.

This is still in flux because the budget hasn't been passed. But it is what was being talked about.

Regarding the Teams, there was discussion about how they are progressing, or not progressing towards the goals of the strategic plan, and that more attention should be paid to that, just like more attention should be paid to how other parts of the OUSA program are progressing. My own view is that this would be a healthy thing.

If you're curious, I extracted the parts of the Strategic Plan that deal with the Teams -- they are here.

It would be good to have an analysis of how we are doing. And also an analysis, because the SP is not supposed to be a static document, as to whether the plan needs any adjustments.

The finance committee will recommend a 2012 budget that includes support of the teams for 50% of their budgeted expense to come from unrestricted, that is funds other than those raised in team fund raisers or contributed specifically to the teams. I am confident that the board will approve that budget item.

That's great hear, Lou! Thanks for all of your hard work on the budget.

As Flying Pig director, I don't have any objections to BOK's plans for a March event 2 weeks before Pig.

On the student visa issue, there were past issues with college and high school age students who were in the USA long term but could not compete either in the US or another country. I'd like to see student visa eligibility kept at least for interscholastic and intercollegiate champs.

I agree. The NCAA allows foreign students to compete if they are enrolled at a US college: why should orienteering be more restrictive for its intercollegiate champs? The requirement should be enrollment at a US college (details of exactly what colleges qualify should be specified - is part-time study ok? Internet study?). Similarly for interscholastics.

For the other championships there are four possible levels of restrictiveness.
- US citizens only
- US citizens and green card holders only
- US citizens, green card holders, and those legally resident in the US for a certain amount of time (6 months?) before the race
- all comers.
I can see reasons for all four of these, so I won't weigh in. What I can't see a reason for is privileging one class of visa (students) over others (H-1B work visas, for example). That's ridiculous.

Well said.

If I made the rules, I would go with Feet's third scenario. It reasonably includes everyone who's living here, training here, part of the community, etc. It seems petty and unfriendly to exclude all the people who live here for 5 years on a string of work visas.

Yep, agree completely with feet and bshields. How does one go about actually changing the eligibility rules?

Legally resident or would being legally a "non-resident alien" who has the right to hang out in the country suffice?

Good point. I interpreted feet's criteria as legally being here for 6 months.

What I meant in option three was to include anyone who had been in the country for 6 months, with 'legally' stuck in just because. This is supposed to include long-term visitors like ndobbs and Becks in the third option (as opposed to anyone who just showed up for a week or so as a tourist - they would be eligible under option four, not the other three). For what it's worth, this is the Australian eligibility rule.

Again, I'm not going to weigh in on what is best, because I am clearly affected.

The fourth option mentioned by feet is basically what´s used in Sweden.

There are always discussions around these matters of course since many elite runners from (relatively) nearby European countries come to their Swedish clubs mainly for major relays and/or championships, but not necessarily take part in the local O community.

There are also other rules that - in the case of relays - won´t let runners participate in championship events also in other countries (i.e. usually their native country). This year the winners of the H21 relay (and a few other teams) were DSQ´d for using a non-eligible runner.

My understanding, and PEG can correct me if I am wrong--the BOD, under Peter Goodwin and the rules committe, under Clare, are going to be looking at this, with the goal of resolving it on short order, so that the Ski-O Champs can communicate the eligibility criteria as soon as possible.

That doesn't mean others shouldn't weigh in with what they think to guide that discussion.

Boris - this discussion is likely to have greater impact if we submit a proposal of some sort. Would you be interested in drafting something?

There's are other possibilities as well, that are more restrictive than any mentioned. Like the rule for US President: you must be born with US citizenship, no naturalized citizens need apply. Or, I know that in some European countries, one's ethnic background comes into play -- to be President of Greece for example, one must be ethnically Greek (I don't know what ancestry fraction is required). So we could consider restricting the championships to people who are ethnically American.

@feet--yes, as long as they don't do a kofols.

So are we talking about SML champs eligibility here? I got lost halfway through typing eligibility so managing rereading the whole conversation is a bit too much.

I'm not too bothered whether I can actually win the SML champs as long as I'm allowed to take part in the race - the current situation in other words. What would be cooler would be able to join the US types on some kind of team thing, seeing as we train together and do all that stuff. But the BK cup rules are the strictest ones right - the ones already decided.

I can see both points and to be honest, as long as I can race at these races, I don't really care whether there's the possibility of coming out of it with a trophy or not. If we weren't even allowed to enter, then I would be unhappy.

At home we have the Home Internationals, which is England vs Scotland vs Ireland vs Wales. That's when they relax the rules a bit (lot) and long term residents are allowed to represent wherever they happen to be, in a relay and an individual. But I guess there's no real equivalent here (informalish East vs West battle to the death?!).

I would be in favor of having the eligibility rules being the same as those for being on the WOC team; and I think that is that you must have a passport from the country you represent.

For which championship events?

I agree with carlch, same rules as for being in a WOC team.

I've known people with three passports.

The official OUSA Board meeting minutes have been posted.

If Orienteering USA wants to lose ~10%–15% of its members, it should go ahead and cut off the green card holders. Since there are clearly enough members, what with that stellar return on the Strategic Plan, another 20% or so, those useless accented feriners, should probably also be booted with the POTUSA rule. I think another day—a Thursday—could promptly be added to the SML Championship program so that proper papers could be examined by the Credentials Committee, and those found in violation could be duly passed to ICE for storage in Guantanamo (or Arizona).

This issue came up back in the late 1980s (I think the specific issue was whether green card holders should be eligible for US Champs relay teams, which they had not been before that), and the issue passed at the convention. The issue came into focus for me when I thought about who this affected, in particular, when one specific person in my club pointed out that he was a green card holder. For anyone who thinks it should be passport-only, who can you think of who would be excluded by such a rule?

I don't want to wade in on this, and despite the posturing, T/D has a point, but it is a bit sensational to suggest that OUSA would lose 10%-15% of their members (presumably the estimated percentage with green cards) because such people would not be eligble for NAOC awards every 2 years--NAOC being a Regional Championship, not the exclusive purview of OUSA.

In any case, the point of this exercise is to rationalize disparate rules in a tractable, poltically acceptable manner that doesn't produce rules, appendices, committees and so forth that are more arcane than what we currently have.

I might switch my membership to COF. Just sayin'.

I wa replying to the proposal on U.S. SML Champs eligbility.

I think it's ludicrous to exclude green card holders from US Champs eligibility. I would be very unhappy if OUSA went in that direction.

And this thread is becoming a bit much. The question the Board and the Rules Committee are considering regards the student visa rule, and that only. It now applies to all US Champs as well as the North Americans. The options are to leave it as is, or eliminate it from the North Americans, or eliminate it also from some or all other championships.

Nothing about changing the green card rule.

Whatever happens with eligibility, it needs to be very clear, very well defined for all corner cases, and needs to have procedures set in place for either tracking it all the time, or checking with everyone at registration.
Asking people to click a box if they are eligible when they register online does not work. Massive numbers of people ignore it, and then are upset with you at the meet when you don't think they are eligible, and give their award to someone else.

One example: What if someone is here on a student visa, but is not currently a student? That means they may be here semi illegally, but they do have a student visa. Are they eligible?

Indeed, and what if eligibility is expanded to H-1B and someone is on H-1B and "out of status"? What about them Canadians on a TN, which requires a stack of documentation at least as high as a passport is wide? Show me your papers! And since not carrying a green card with you at all times is strictly illegal, those aliens found at the finish not within possession of such can quickly be disqualified to the delight of those native born.

Are there really that many people in that position? It seems like a lot of effort for not many applications.

I would say that the student visa only thing is a bit silly. I am on J1 visa, the same as students, but with a different category "research scholar," which apparently makes me not eligible.)

But as I said before, I don't really care. Just let me race. I don't care if I'm eligible to actually "win" or not. Just don't make it a closed competition, and I can't see that you'll really offend anyone. So probably repeal the student thing, is what I think I'm saying.

@PG: (1) Rules is not yet considering anything (give smittyo time). (2) It seems better to decide what the best system is and implement it. Tinkering around the edges is silly if you don't know where you're trying to end up.

Not all students are on student visas (F-1). Some are on J visas, some come on E visas, occasionally they come on other categories too. Then there's the F-2 categories (dependents of F-1 holders). I think feet's point about the problem of some visas counting but not others is on the mark here. Otherwise it looks too much like cherry-picking.

Rules for who can be president are all very well, but last time I checked, running for US President wasn't exactly isomorphic to running a NAOC race.

My thoughts ...

1) For Interscholastics, an individual should be a student at a US school, or home-schooled US resident.

2) For Intercollegiates, an individual should be a full-time student (usually defined ast 3 or more courses) at a US College or University.

3) For NAOC, there must be one set of eligibility rules agreed on by OUSA and COF. The rules have traditionally been Citizen or Permanent Resident (aka Landed Immigrant or Green Card holder) and shouldn't be changed unless there is agreement from both federations.

4) For US Classic, SML, Night, Ultra-Long, Trail, and String championships ... The long-standing tradition is to include those who are part of the US orienteering culture (e.g., permanent residents) as well as those who are US citizens. How long and in what way you expect a person to be part of that culture seems to be at question here. I would consider including:
i) US citizens
ii) US permanent residents
iii) Any individual who has been legally residing primarily in the US for at least the last year.
This last statement gets around particular issues of the Visa category. Whether the residency requirement kicks in after 1 year, or 2 years, or 3 years ... is up for discussion I suppose. I personally figure if a person comes for 1 year ... that's marginal. If a person comes for multiple years, then they become "part of the local culture".


All that said, the only thing that I think really needs doing is to restrict the "full-time students in the US holding a current student visa" clause to Interscholastics and Intercollegiates.