I've joined JTESC (the USA Junior Team Executive Steering Committee). There has been a lot of activity lately, and I expect you all will be interested to hear about it.
- Junior training opportunities: Erin Schirm has been named junior team coach. He is planning to attend Boggs & NAOC A meets, and to have a junior training camp the weekend before NAOC. Next steps are to invite juniors and work out the logistics of each program.
- I am taking over the Administrator position from Janet Porter. Janet has put enormous effort into the juniors over many years; many have benefited, and I am grateful to her. Thank you, Janet!
- As Administrator, I help to manage the JTESC budget and report on spending. I haven’t yet received the financial data from OUSA but I have been told that we have approximately $3000 left in our budget for this year, and that money will mainly be used to pay for Erin’s travel expenses this fall.
- Paid junior development position. A number of people
(including here on AP) have suggested it would be a good idea to create a paid position; we’re working on writing a job description to help us fundraise for it. A major goal would be to expand efforts beyond the small set of JWOC-bound juniors, to work with clubs on their development programs, train new coaches, and expand outreach to younger and less experienced kids.
- Guy Olsen, the JTESC Chair, is seeking additional members for JTESC. Current members are Guy Olsen (Chair), Erin Schirm (Junior Team Coach), Amy Williams, Samantha Saeger, Barb Bryant, Eileen Breseman.
- Clare Durand is working on revising the OUSA rules, and JTESC has been discussing the junior portion of those rules. The proposed rules will be presented to OUSA membership for comment before the Board votes on them.
- Erin Schirm and JTESC are planning to build the junior development and junior standing teams. This will likely include a commitment from the juniors to training goals and a training plan.
- Metrics and goals for juniors and for JTESC. Erin and JTESC and other advisers (e.g., Carl Childs, Jeff Saeger) have renewed efforts to define goals and metrics for juniors of different ages as they train to improve their orienteering. Goals for JTESC will be important to have as we go into budget planning for 2013.