Discussion: OUSA Board meeting and 2012 Budget

At its most recent meeting at the SML Champs (see my notes of the meeting here, there were several items of unfinished business. The Board will hold a meeting this Sunday via phone to address those items.

One item of interest is the budget. I've posted the proposed budget here. In addition, there is a letter with information about the budget here.

The most significant change from 2011 is that there is non-trivial support for the various teams. Basically the federation will fund 50% of the budgets for the Senior, Junior, and Ski-O teams, a significantly smaller amount for the Trail-O and no support for the WUOC (team to the university champs) teams. This support will come from general revenues (club dues, unrestricted donations, sanctioning fees, etc.). The remainder needs to be raised by the teams via restricted contributions and fundraising events.

Specifically, that means that there are the following numbers for OUSA support:

Senior team: $17,000 budget, $8,500 to be raised by the team, $8,500 support from OUSA.

Junior team: $14,400 budget, $7,600 to be raised by the team, $6,800 support from OUSA. Note that I assume there is a typo someplace, and the split should be $7,200 / $7,200.

Ski-O team: $4,500 budget, $2,250 to be raised by the team, $2,250 support from OUSA.

Trail-O team: $5,000 budget, $4,500 to be raised by the team, $500 support from OUSA.

WUOC team: $4,000 budget, $4,000 to be raised by the team.

Note that while there has been no support for the teams the last couple of years (see here for some of the history) because of financial constraints, there has been strong support all along from individual members of the Board. But it's nice to see some significant numbers for the teams from the federation as a whole in next year's budget.

Overall, the budget calls for a deficit of $16,150, which based on discussions at the last Board meeting, seems sufficiently small based on the federations overall assets so that it will be supported.

Other items on the agenda include Championship bids and rules changes regarding championship eligibility. I haven't seen anything yet to indicate what is being proposed.

This is spectacular! It is great that through 2011, the organization stopped bleeding red, local-event starts are up, and there are rumors of an imminent substantial sponsorship. I am confident that all things that were expected to happen with the major change in 2009 will indeed happen... some of them just take more time and effort as originally anticipated. As they do with almost all worthy projects.

I will be happy to rejoin Orienteering USA once this budget is passed.

Peter is correct that there is a typo in the Jr. Team numbers. The Orienteering USA support will be $7,200 - half the budget.

Thanks Vlad. We're trying!

How is a $16K deficit (and third five-figure deficit in as many years) not bleeding red?

If you cut Team support to the average levels of the 2000s, I believe you get a surplus. Is this what you want?

How is a $16K deficit (and third five-figure deficit in as many years) not bleeding red?

Besides looking at any one year, or even any three years, you look at trends. And if the trend is going in the right direction, then 3 years of deficits can be quite manageable. Because the expectation is that in short order the deficits will disappear.

Given the fact that OUSA has significant net assets (surplus of assets over liabilities), I think exceeding 200K, I can't remember the exact number, then it could easily be argued that it would be irresponsible not to be spending some of those assets to try to grow the sport and the federation. OUSA doesn't exist to be a bank and hold money.

The question here, as in so many things where judgment is required, is in finding the right balance. My sense is that Lou and the other numbers guys have done it about right. Time will tell.

So you're talking about just the teams, not the federation as a whole.

We've had the $200k in the bank for the past two years as well, so why was none of that spent on the teams in those years too? I believe we did ask for something. The Strategic Plan goals for the team include hiring a professional coach. If the money's in the bank, what are we waiting for?

You just feeling contrary tonight? :-)

I just don't like spin. What if Corvette doesn't come through after all? Then where are we?

The major changes appear to be a $27k increase in projected income for 2012 (not sure how this compares to actual, not projected, trends), a $13k savings from lower insurance fees, and a $9k reduction in club benefits (website, marketing).

The budget deficit could easily be $30k higher if the third-party grants and sponsorships, major gifts, and third-party sanctioning line items don't come through.

Yes I'd say the third-party sanctioning goal for 2012 is aggressive. Get Lost!! singlehandedly provided the $1k of sanctioning in the 2011 budget (well, I still have to send in the check for the rogaine, but $1k is about right) and we aren't going to exceed that in 2012. Perhaps MerGeo and another non-club operator will put on a couple sanctioned rogaines, perhaps one of them the Championship, but even with that it's hard to see much over $2k. O USA better figure out quick how to make more of what we do sanctionable!

Out of curiosity, why no support to the WUOC team?

Does the Jr team budget assume 12 runners? It looks like we are well on our way to being unable to field a girls relay team again. Perhaps the unlikely to be used OUSA "matching funds" could be redirected to WUOC? (BTW, I don't see any chance of nate going to WUOC - I'm just hoping that the team that does go, will get some support)

Why do you want OUSA to pay for the glorified vacation that is WUOC? The only argument for funding WUOC teams is that it contributes to development of runners that will later either be on a WOC team or be major contributors to orienteering within the US in some other way. Is there any evidence of that? (Perhaps West Point runners, maybe? But they're mostly JWOC eligible and should be trying to go there first.)

I'm delighted to see no money being wasted on that.

I have to agree with feet on that one.

I can't say I disagree with the WUOC comments above. However, I think it is still important for OUSA to go through the process to select a team for WUOC even if it is predominently self funded. Alison is a definite candidate and it is one of her goals for 2012. She is now based in Edinburgh where the orienteering competition is stronger and more frequent than here. At least with RyanAir and EasyJet the travel costs would be much reduced for her.

I completely agree with jcampbell. By all means select a team and don't deny anyone a chance to go. Just don't expect OUSA to pay for it until the organization is a lot richer than it is now.

IMO, $0 allocated to WUOC is a slap in the face. Even just $500 (likeTrail-O) would at least indicate that some support exists from OUSA.

How much money do NCAA athletes get from USATF? For that matter, how much money do World Championship athletes get from USATF?

How much money do any orienteering athletes get from OUSA? Zero.

All the money goes into event registration, travel and other team support. I don't see top NCAA athletes paying their own way into competitions either.

I continue to agree with feet.

WUOC is a great competition, and features many top elite-level athletes. But, it doesn't serve the same development role as JWOC, or serve as the peak competitive test that WOC or Ski-WOC do.

If I am not mistaken, college students rarely remain JWOC-eligible beyond sophomore year. If nothing else, WUOC can help maintain interest during those last two years of college, when most former JWOCers are still 3-4 years from being WOC-ready/worthy.

Interesting how WTOC has barely been mentioned in this thread. Is that potato just too hot?

For that matter, how much money do World Championship athletes get from USATF?

I looked into this at one point and remember seeing grants of around $2500, with review being based on both performance and financial need. There is more info on their website.

I have no axe to grind whatsoever with a $500 grant to the Trail-O Team. If the grant were the same order of magnitude as for the Jr. Team, I may have said something, but $500 is the least the organization can do to support its less able-bodied members in international competition.

What did you call Joe?

Ha

Ммм Да!

In the past too many have been sent to WUOC and the amount of training that most of the runners (including myself) completed before the champs did not justify the cost. GuyO is correct in that it does bridge JWOC and WOC but registration/housing should only be funded if the runners have shown that they are training hard... which would probably mean that one or two runners get funded per WUOC.

I think the qualification standards should be raised for juniors to compete at JWOC and WUOC. There is of course the counter argument that we need to expose as many juniors as possible to the higher level of competition but with that philosophy we water down the juniors we send by not holding them to a higher standard. Low qualification standards reward ineptitude and cost OUSA money.

"We've had the $200k in the bank for the past two years as well, so why was none of that spent on the teams in those years too?"

I think Eddie raises a fair, in fact rather central question.
I haven't seen or heard a response, here or elsewhere.

I am very glad to hear that Team funding will resume, and I recognize that reserve funds may serve a function.
What is the declared function or policy for these reserve funds?
What has changed?

When you have reserves, and also a budget where there is a deficit, then one of the fundamental judgement calls is deciding how much of the reserves you want to spend in that year to balance the budget. Factors that go into the decision include the relative sizes of the reserves and deficit, and also the trend that you foresee for the future.

Whether or not there is reasonable expectation that things will improve in future years affects the willingness to spend reserves in the current year. If the problem seems to be short-term, then spending some reserves can be prudent. If the problem seems to be a long-term structural one, then it's tougher to commit much in the way of reserves, and usually some cutting of programs is required.

I don't know enough of the details of the budgets for the last few years to answer Eric's questions with full confidence, but I think that the deficit being looked at particularly for the 2010 budget was such that a number of things didn't get funded, including the teams.

For the 2011 budget, and this is from my point of view, there was a lot of mumbo jumbo going on about new ways of structuring the budget to respond to the recommendations of an audit, lots of discussions (though not a lot of clarity) about restricted funds and unrestricted funds and other such things, but almost zero discussion about support for the teams. I think the feeling was that the teams had made it through 2010 raising the money themselves, so just do the same for 2011. But that last comment is just speculation on my part.

For 2012, I and I assume others had discussions with our new prez and our new VP finance over the summer, and support for the teams was determined to be a priority. And Peter and Lou have worked to get the teams back in the budget.

The Board has a policy for setting a level for reserves, i.e. that they should not fall below this level. This was passed at April's Board meeting:

"Reserve Policy
Approved the following Reserve policy: “The board will adopt a formal operating reserve policy linked to our annual expense budget, which will be reviewed at every Board meeting. As of April 2011, this policy will establish a minimum reserve of 3 months of our expense budget, and an average reserve of 6 months of our expense budget, based on the $266,800 expense budget for 2011. This is to be an actual cash reserve. This cash does not include endowment funds." (Yes – 10, Abstain – 1)"

Note that 6 months of the 2011 expense budget is $133,400. The reserves are well in excess of that. At which point, it is up to the Board to determine to what extent, if any, reserves should be used to balance the 2012 budget.

My guess is to what has changed is that in 2010 there was the added expense of the ED position, but no indication as yet of increased revenues, so a desire to keep the rather substantial deficit as small as possible. For 2011 there was still more added expense of the ED position, but also improvements in some areas (lower insurance costs, greater revenue from club starts due to increased fees, other non-starts revenue increases), but no willingness to increase expenses any more than necessary.

I think the revenue increases have been pretty substantial, ditto for the cut in the cost of insurance. And so for 2012 a serious look was given at supporting the teams. And maybe there was also some embarrassment at the lack of support, given that part of our mission statement reads: "Establish world class competitive excellence within our national team programs."

I'm sure others could give a more detailed answer. But I think (and hope) I have the gist of it correct.

Thank you Peter.

Board meeting, part 2
================

The Board held a meeting this evening via conference call. My notes --

1. The budget was approved. There are some relatively minor changes from that presented at the SML champs, but nothing of great substance. Support to the teams is as given in the first message in this thread. The deficit is about 13K.

2. Classic Champs for 2012. Backwwods OK of North Carolina has had a bid on the table for the second weekend in March. Since the previous Board meeting, there has been an expression of interest from RMOC and LROC to host the event around Labor Day. The question was whether to approve the BOK bid, or defer a decision in order to get more details on the RMOC/LROC possibilities. The Board decided to defer, but only briefly, meaning that anyone wanting to give input needs to do it by Wednesday, e-mail to the Prez (pgwolfe66 at gmail.com). And the Executive Committee will decide in the next 10 days.

3. Contract with Robin (director of membership and accounting). There seems to have been a real problem for the web development committee in trying to get a data base on line. The revised contract with Robin (which I haven't seen) basically tells her to give them what they need.

4. Eligibility for Championships. The Board directed the Rules Committee to come up with the proper language to accomplish the following -- that the rule making holders of certain student visas eligible for all our championships be changed so that such persons are now only eligible for the team competition at the Interscholastics and Intercollegiates. Eligibility for the other champs, including the North Americans, also including the individual competitions at the I&Is, will be limited to citizens or permanent residents (green card holders).

The deadline for getting this finished is December 1, with it being effective immediately.

Thanks for the summary, Peter.

Unfortunately (fortunately? :) I was unable to listen in last night. In case people don't realize, Robin is paid $18k/yr for keeping the federation's books, plus an additional $3k to cover office expenses (an increase of $500 over last year).

This $18k and the ONA $19.5k are (almost always) the two largest line-item expenses in the federation's budget after the ED. After that its insurance and the teams.

The $19.5k 2012 ONA budget represents an increase of $1.5k over last year's $18k. Was there a mention of what this $1.5k is for? I asked about this in a previous thread, but there was no answer given there. I was hoping it would come up at the meetings last month or last night. i.e.:

Finally, the tentative proposed 2012 budget shows $19.5k for ONA. Does this represent an increase in the expected production cost for 6 print issues next year, or something else?

Did it come up?

Neither one came up in the relatively short discussion of the budget.

In general, my experience has been that posting something on AP can often have no impact on the decision-making process. Partly because lots of people, including members of the Board, don't read AP, or don't read it much. And even if they do, comments can get lost in the often lengthy threads.

You need to contact the powers that be directly, and let them know your thoughts. Doing that doesn't mean they will do what you want. But at least they have heard your message.

Both of these issues are not simple. There are individuals involved and that matters, and it also limits some options. I'm not saying that that is a good thing or a bad thing, just that it is reality. But because individuals are involved, and they have been involved with the federation for many years, then a public forum is not the best place to pursue possible changes. So these are complicated issues, not necessarily easy answers, best dealt with in private. There are ways to make progress (slowly), but sometimes all that gets accomplished with posting stuff on AP is to stiffen backbones. Too bad maybe, but true.

Separately, I got the following e-mail, thought it would be useful to answer it here --

Can you tell me exactly what were the concerns about the North Carolina bid for the US 2-day champs?  Was it only the proximity to the SML champs a month later?  Or where there other concerns among the board? 

Best as I remember, the concerns with making the NC bid the classic champs were:

1. This would put both our major champs in a 5-week period in the same part of the country.
2. Most northern clubs are still in winter mode in early March.
3. The classic champs have traditionally been in the summer or fall.

Given that there was supposedly a bid in the works from RMOC/LROC, there was a willingness to hear them out.

On the other hand, there was an agreement to move very quickly because if the BOK bid is approved, the sooner they know, the sooner they can start doing PR.

Note that there were no concerns about the ability of BOK to host the champs.
 

Leif wrote "Low qualification standards reward ineptitude and cost OUSA money."

Couldn’t agree more. But why limit this to WUOC and JWOC and not extend it to Senior teams as well? With limited exception, they have a long history of ineptitude (i.e. poor performance) and are once again receiving USOF money which will probably be distributed equally among all WOC members.

As a start, reasonable likelihood to make an A-final seems a good minimum qualification standard to receive any funding. As it's structured now, a 40-year old who couldn't make the A-final in his prime receives the same funding as someone who is in his prime and has made an A-final and receives the same funding as a 22-year old who has great potential to make an A final in the future. Where's the meritocracy/pay for performance in this system?

Sally wrote: "How much money do NCAA athletes get from USATF? For that matter, how much money do World Championship athletes get from USATF?"

Another good point. Don’t know about USATF but pretty sure other NGBs such as Triathlon and Adventure Racing do not use member dues/fees to send US Teams to the World championships. My info may be out of date but it seems that athletes from those organization spend much of their time either training or looking for sponsors.

What effort have the teams put into finding their own sponsors? I suspect the answer is that no one wants what they are selling, so USOF becomes the easiest (only?) “deep pocket” to tap.

"... athletes from those organization spend much of their time either training or looking for sponsors."

While athletes in the US spend a big whole pack of time putting on events, organising training, collecting controls, travelling insane amounts to train...

Maybe OUSA should select teams based on the number of controls they pick up? Then again, CSU meets typically only have one course so that might be considered discriminatory.

Sammy--so nice to see you again. It has been too long. I'm not surprised that you weren't able to bite your tongue anymore as Eddie has been racked by another bout of mad vituperating.

While impolitic and perhaps too strident for his own good, we know where he stands. He is easy to find. Won't you come out from behind your thin digital cloak so we can all "get it on," so to speak? I'm sure it will be good, clean fun. And I know you're up for it.

Gee sammy. USA Triathlon is funded mostly by sanctioning fees, and some of these are passed on directly to athlete development, including stipends. It didn't take me five minutes to google that.

Hey, you guys are on to something. OUSA should fire these losers and replace them with real athletes. Then, the deposed crowd will have a fire under their a**es and will quit their jobs so they can try to unseat the scabs that replaced them. Clearly, this will be the way that we can all be proud of the team, save OUSA money (pay the scabs less), and improve the fields at A-events (because we will magically be drawing in new blood from outside our backwater sport once the dead wood is gone.)

Sammy, what truly inspired screeds you produce. Might carry a bit more weight though, if you could own up to your anonymously-professed views by signing your real name.

USA Triathlon is funded mostly by sanctioning fees, and some of these are passed on directly to athlete development, including stipends.

I wonder if these stipends comprise 10% of USA Triathlon's operating budget.

OUSA should fire these losers

This is actually a very good idea. The money could be used to develop infrastructure for a HPP in the USA. The only part of your post I disagree with is the likelihood of the deposed crowd training enough to improve significantly (with limited exception).

I wonder

I can google for you for $99/hour. The actual number is over 40% of the op budget of USA Triathlon is spent on "Competitions and training".

OK, let's explore this. What would the $18,000 buy the HPP? Clearly, the devil is in the details, but you seem bright, so how would you go about this?

(But, maybe you should amortize, or average out this $18,000 to be fair. Because if you are just spending OUSA support for the teams, you will have to include some zeroes and sums well less than $18,000 per annum to reflect actual OUSA support over time.) In other words, this iminent largesse is an outlier. The current crop of "losers" and their predecessors had thinner gruel.

Then again, CSU meets typically only have one course so that might be considered discriminatory.

Of the past 101 CSU events, I count 30 that had only one course offering. Two of those were trail races, one was a beginners' clinic, one was a Billygoat, and 10 were in the first two seasons of park-o races.

So the one-course CSU meet is hardly typical. Please do a little research before making future unjustified claims.

And if you feel the need to hide yourself behind a mask, at least be courteous about it. No need to fling around sarcastic insults to CSU members who vet, set, and pick up a heck of a lot of controls at CSU and NEOC events, not to mention the 250+ controls that went into the 2011 SML champs, along with a number of God-forsaken sawhorses. Thanks.

The actual number is over 40% of the op budget of USA Triathlon is spent on "Competitions and training".

Sorry for wading back into this mudfest, but I had to look the above up. It seems that "Competitions and Training" is a very broad term - see page 14 - including advertising, bank charges, insurance, payroll, legal fees, merchandise, office supplies, etc. There is a line item in 2010 for stipends at $$169,068 out of an $11,124,451 budget, or 1.5% of the total budget. To be fair, it's not clear how much of the other line items, such as $622,710 spent on meals and lodging, might be elite athlete support. It's interesting that $17,740 of the stipends are listed under "Event Sanctioning", which reminds me of T/D's plan to subsidize course consultants' travel costs.

Well the proposed 2012 U.S. O Team support isn't all cash stipends, either. Actually perhaps zero of it is cash—maybe the Team decides to spend it on meals and lodging, or perhaps on airfare, or hopefully on training camps (also lodging and airfare, but certainly not a two-week vacation). Kudos for wading into the trap set up by Demagogues Anonymous.

or hopefully on training camps (also lodging and airfare, but certainly not a two-week vacation)

This would be nice. I have proposed something similar to the Trail-O Team, but there the mission is broader because the Team makes up a large portion of the volunteer base for Trail-O. Recruitment, retention, development, marketing, and resource development, e.g. map making or training manuals, would all potentially be financially resourced. Not sure how far we could stretch the USOF money, but by broadening the mission from simply supporting participants in WTOC, I am hoping we might be able to improve fund-raising.

Assuming my Trail-O idea gets off the ground, I feel that the key driver in the decision making process should be return on investment. Focusing on ROI forces the goals to be specific and attainable with current resources, which I feel is one of the major flaws with USOF's current Strategic Plan by the way. For instance, if hosting a series of training camps doesn't lead to measurably better performance at the national or world level, then we should focus on alternatives that do.

Someone above asked about what would a HPP look like. This depends on what your goals are. I think, for the Trail-O Team anyway, that a good metric would be the number of competitors ranked above X, Y, and Z at the national level. Such a goal has both participation and development components and deemphasizes improvements in current team members, although that is still a component.

One of my issues with across-the-board funding of the WTOC Team's expenses is that the Team members are going to travel and compete regardless of whether they get funding or not. This is by definition a zero ROI and gets back to my earlier point about finding more efficient ways to use resources in support of high performance.

I don't see how funding WOC travel is zero ROI (applied to whichever Team). Scenario one: John Jansson works six months overtime at his backbreaking $10/hour job to self-fund a trip to WOC. Scenario two: Orienteering USA funds John Jansson's trip to WOC, freeing up two hours per day for him to train. ?

I would definitely support allowances for financial need and hopefully made that clear in my off-site Trail-O proposal. I am unaware of any individuals currently on the Trail-O Team who are in John Jansson's position with potential for greatness and looking to commit to an additional two hours a day to training if unencumbered by financial constraints, but we should definitely have a mechanism to support the efforts of such heroic individuals.

I've received an answer to my question via e-mail. The additional $1.5k for ONA in 2012 breaks down as follows:

$1000 for another issue of Digital ONA (separate from the 6 print issues, just like this year)

$500 for increases in postage and paper costs for the print versions

This is all I wanted, simply an invoice along with the bill. I have no problem with either of these, I just wanted to know what we were being asked to pay for. Averaging across the year, the per-issue cost of print ONA for 2012 will be $3083.

All this talk about "what to do with all that money" is kind of moot. Once the team expenses of participating in WOCs are covered, there just isn't much left.

Once the team expenses of participating in WOCs are covered

It is my understanding that the teams can spend their budgets how they wish. The WOC/JWOC/WSOC/WTOC expenses need not be prioritized (or even included) simply because they have been historically.

EDIT: "how they wish as long as it is consistent with the Strategic Plan and improving high performance."

It seems like the s***ys would question the point of parting with any OUSA ducats to send team(s) to WOC(s).

They seem to feel that this newly earmarked $18,000 (up from) $0 is not well spent on sending people to world championships, where they clearly do not win. The implication is that these funds ($18,000 spread across say 25 junior and senior amateur athletes) will not produce desired results (whatever those results may be.)

Perhaps it is better to not send anyone to the world championships (or at least the old people who somehow manage to best the throngs of up-and-comers the organization is producing.) Or don't allow any money to be spent on WOC--we either don't go, or allow it to be like the America's Cup, where you can just buy your way in.

The $18,000 can be deployed to performance development somehow. This $18,000, which is a fraction of what a middling Little League team spends every year, will somehow produce a thriving competitive climate on these shores. Invest today; reap the rewards tomorrow. I say the best strategy would be to take that $18,000 to Vegas if it isn't going to be spent on WOC, because all evidence is that any other course of action will consume those funds with less to show for it.

Anyway, I pause here, to offer a picture.



What is it?

Expected value of American dollar relative to CAD (2011 to 2019).

$18,000 as a %age of 1% of investible assets of richest 1% of Americans, 2001- 2009

Interesting, but no... closer to the matter at hand. Color is relevant.

OK--that is the number of ranked competitors on the blue course in the US, 9 being the most recent year, and so forth.

You can go back further and the trend is still strong, but it would have required some more data massaging for me to come up with the numbers.

My point is, ceteris paribus, you'll have a better team to deploy internationally if you have more competition here. And how can it be the fault of the people who play by the rules and are the biggest fish in a shrinking pond? If it were the case that blue competition was shrinking but elite juniors were increasing, I wouldn't be as worried, but I don't think that is the case.

Incidentally, the largest drop in elite mens' competition occurred most recently, when funding to the teams was $0. Of course, this is a coincidence, but still worth noting.

j-man wrote: ” It seems like the s***ys would question the point of parting with any OUSA ducats to send team(s) to WOC(s).”

It may surprise some to know that I fully support USOF’s stated goal to “Establish world-class competitive excellence within our national team programs.” What I question is USOF/Teams current approach to getting there. The same tired approach that has been used for decades and has failed (with a few exceptions) to get results. Forgot who said it but "One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result."

The harsh reality is that many of the current team members are just not capable of “world-class competitive excellence”, no matter how much money, training camps or coaching they get and certainly not on the limited amount that can ever be provided by USOF. I just don’t see how an experienced orienteer near his physical prime who finishes a WOC qualifier at 125% of cutoff and 150% of winning time can ever have a “world class” result in a final. Perhaps I’m wrong but the gap seems too large or perhaps my definition of “world class” is too high.

So it’s time to look to the future and different approaches. For example, continue to fund athletes who may be capable of “world-class excellence.” The others would still have the privilege of representing USA but would pay their own way (perhaps with some provision for economic hardship). Use the rest of the funds to try something different (e.g. see if the AliC model can be replicated –turn great athlete into orienteer) or some form of HPP.

Some feelings may be hurt but this isn’t grade school T-ball where everyone gets a trophy and there are no winners or losers. USOF claims they are trying to build world class teams.

So, what's the budget? How many multiples of $18,000 will you be willing to have OUSA devote to this undertaking every year? As you will undoubtedly admit, a single Scandinavian O-club spends much more than that every year, and they can field a team of 10 men and women that will beat the best in the US.

Or, alternatively, put your (own) money, so to speak, where your mouth is, and join the OUSA BOD. I think they are somewhat serious about building world class teams, may not know how to do so, and would welcome help across the board. And I think you probably have some ideas about how to do more with less. This sounds like a suitable challenge for one with your wherewithal.

My last comment was more flip than it needed to be. I always bristle when people say things to the effect of "if you don't like it, why don't you do it better?" I personally think that is a really weak rejoinder, and smacks of frustration. It is a sort of cop-out.

Anyway, my frustration comes from the fact that you and some others feel entitled to slam the US Team(s) for underachieving. And your complaint seems to derive its moral foundation from the fact that they are being "paid."

Yes, $8,500 to the senior team is great, and much appreciated. I am not going to research what sort of support USOF has provided in the past, but surely it hasn't been much larger than this. And we know that it has been nothing for the past several years.

Are you crazy? What better uses for $8,500 (if the objective was HP) would have been achieved if they were used for some reason aside from sending a team to WOC? Or, what would we do differently if we had $18,000 to spend on improving performance in elite foot orienteering?

How much does Canada spend on funding elites and elite juniors? Maybe we can learn something from them, as they face many of the same challenges. And, frankly, generate comparable results, give or take.

I fervently believe in new things and improving performance. But, trying something new doesn't guarantee better results.

Hmm. Where have I heard this argument before? Let me think.

OK--that is the number of ranked competitors on the blue course employment rate in the US, 9 being the most recent year, and so forth.

You can go back further and the trend is still strong, but it would have required some more data massaging for me to come up with the numbers.

My point is, ceteris paribus, you'll have a better team economy to deploy internationally if you have more competition employment here. And how can it be the fault of the people who play by the rules and are the biggest fish in a shrinking pond? If it were the case that blue competition overall employment was shrinking but elite juniors employment opportunities for college grads were increasing, I wouldn't be as worried, but I don't think that is the case.

Incidentally, the largest drop in elite mens' competition employment occurred most recently, when funding to the teams the sum of money set aside for job creators was $0. Of course, this is a coincidence, but still worth noting

They seem to feel that this newly earmarked $18,000,000,000 (up from) $0 is not well spent on sending people to world championships job creators, where they clearly do not win create jobs. The implication is that these funds ($18,000,000,00 spread across say 25 junior and senior amateur athletes executives) will not produce desired results (whatever those results may be.)

The $18,000,000,000 can be deployed to performance development increase employment somehow. This $18,000,000,000, which is a fraction of what a middling Little League team European country spends every year, will somehow produce a thriving competitive climate on these shores. Invest today; reap the rewards tomorrow. I say the best strategy would be to take that $18,000,000,000 to Vegas if it isn't going to be spent on WOC job creators, because all evidence is that any other course of action will consume those funds with less to show for it.

Disclaimer: Like my previous posts, this was an attempt at humor and no CSU members were harmed in the making of this post, at least not intentionally.

Please take your bullshit elsewhere.

My point is, ceteris paribus, you'll have a better team to deploy internationally if you have more competition here.

For example, continue to fund athletes who may be capable of “world-class excellence.” The others would still have the privilege of representing USA but would pay their own way (perhaps with some provision for economic hardship). Use the rest of the funds to try something different (e.g. see if the AliC model can be replicated –turn great athlete into orienteer) or some form of HPP.

So, what's the budget? How many multiples of $18,000 will you be willing to have OUSA devote to this undertaking every year?

Ten multiples? Twelve? Whatever the entire OUSA budget is. Why not?

Thanks sally. We agree, I think.

I don't know why I continue engage you. T/D is smarter than I am; I persist.

You (incorrectly) reconstitute arguments and do not stake out clearly articulated tenets of your own. A gadfly, and yet your sophistry beguiles me, even as it sullies our virtual community.

You seem to like to use money as the cudgel in your arguments. While I am not going to fully descend into your fanciful rabbit hole (although I will give you props for creativity), I will agree with you insofar as $18,000(,000,000) is not enough for US orienteering (or for the economy in your parody.)

I agree with you that if we were going to spend our way to full employment, we could. We could also spend our way to orienteering success, but it would cost much, much more than the OUSA budget. So, in both cases, unconstrained spending will get us what we want, but obviously at great cost. Spend enough, you will put everyone to work in America (we can't afford it, and it isn't economically efficient); spend enough and you can do quite well at WOC (orienteering is still pretty inefficient in this regard, the diminishing returns don't catch up nearly as fast.)

What is your point? You can build a ski slope in the Middle East and fund an alpine ski team. But, unless you spend a heck of a lot of money on it, your team won't be competitive with the Austrians. How could you expect it to be? It seems like you would, and when your team isn't a world beater, you impugn the athletes rather than looking around for some snow.

j-man wrote “trying something new doesn't guarantee better results.”

I agree but I also feel that continuing things as they are will lead to the same results as in the past.

Last point and then give j-man a well deserved break.

In a perverse bit of irony, the teams had their best results during the last two years when USOF provided $0 funding. This was, of course, largely attributable to the addition of AliC (and the continued performance of Sam and Sandra). This tells me that lack of funding is not necessarily the barrier to great results nor will funding be the panacea. It might be worth analyzing this recent success and determining if, and how, it can be replicated.

I apologize if my previous posts seemed harsh -I sometimes forget there are some good people behind those numbers.

Final final point is that, while I prefer my anonymity(however thinly veiled), I at least have the integrity to use only one alias. I hope no one is confusing me with sally or any other anonymous posters.

Perhaps not, sammy, but if you have been following the logs of Ali, Alex, Ross, Sam and others, you will see that money plays a part in race selection, gear selection (reliable $500 headlamp vs $100 time bomb) and so on, all factors in high-level performance. Strong encouragement from one's federation makes it much easier to justify investing one's own money and time. And token financial support (WOC costs are a small fraction of yearly training costs) partly embody this encouragement.

The great French results over the past years are in part due to the system working to ensure the athletes have a career after their elite days are over, so the athletes can concentrate on performance.

Yes, I will avail myself of a ceasefire. We'll see how long I can endure it. I've been pretty good at steering clear of Trail-O in full view of innocent bystanders (and I hope that has been noted and appreciated.) However, Trail-O, per se, is not a core concern to me, whereas this subject is.

In case there was any doubt, my summum bonum is competitive orienteering in the USA. It is a fixation that I don't think is too controversial, but it is not shared by everyone. Some may extol it, others tolerate it, and it rubs some the wrong way. To me, however, it truly is the prime directive, much like evangelism is the prime directive of most religions.

As someone who was involved in the general OUSA strategic plan and crafting the language of the US Senior Foot O Team's subsection, I've given some thought to goals and how to achieve them, as have the s***y's, and most people on this site. In any well-spirited debate of this nature, there are going to be different priorities and perspectives. Politics is about allocating resources, and we all have our own pet projects and predilections.

I was very happy when the OUSA strategic plan settled on increasing starts as the prime directive. What a tractable and quantifiable goal! Obviously, there could have been other priorities; this goal could have been stated differently. But, it dovetails so nicely with my own agenda, and also seems that it should be acceptable to the vast majority of the other OUSA stakeholders, or at least those who are rational and not self-loathing.

Of course, articulating sweeping goals is one thing, implementing them is something else. That begets more nastiness.

Anyway, back to the subject of the US teams... I think we struck a decent compromise.

There was a desire to use the status quo as a starting point, which I was quite circumspect about. The fact of the matter is that the results of the US Team (recently and over time) are completely idiosyncratic. They are not the result of a process. What can we possibly learn from fixating on these individuals? Aside from the fact that they've achieved results for different reasons, and incidental (although not entirely unrelated) to OUSA. I do think there is more to say on this subject, but it is not appropriate to dissect individuals on a forum such as this.

The only way to encourage long-term success is to establish an infrastructure and system that can take inputs and work on them in predictable ways, and produce results with reasonable tolerance. That is how it works in engineering, in business, and in most other pursuits, including sports.

Or you can count on lightening striking, but if that is what you want, you still better your chances if you make the conditions most favorable. Viz., increase starts, increase ranked runners, increase competition. Spontaneous innovation/productivity happens without central planning, too--look at Silicon Valley--but, it still depends on infrastructure and favorable conditions.

Anyway, we have battled about this subject, and all the permutations, in this thread and others. It is going nowhere. The only reason I have gotten into a heavy lather has been due to the tactics employed.

Board meeting part 3

===============

One of the items of unfinished business was awarding the 2012 Classic Champs (the traditional 2-day champs). This has now been decided and they will be hosted by the Backwoods OK in North Carolina on March 10-11, using part of the Uwharrie National Forest near Asheboro, NC.

In case there is any confusion, Asheboro, NC, is a small city in the NC Piedmont, 30 miles S of Greensboro, and 75 miles W of Raleigh.

Asheville is the large city in western NC near the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains -- 180 miles west of Asheboro.