Training Log Archive: barb

The class was not a success today; need to rethink how to work with these 6 boys and 1 girl in grades JK-1. Three don't speak English too well; none of them did what I asked upon first request. I need to come at it with something that engages them more immediately, and doesn't involve talking.

Money.
When I was JTA, OUSA paid $14,000 for JWOC. I believe that was actually $7000 from the central budget and an expectation of raising $7000 in donations specifically targeted to the junior team. This covered costs for the week of JWOC. Erin asked the athletes to come for a week or two of training prior to JWOC, and we did fundraising to cover most of that cost. Athletes still had to purchase their plane tickets.
This year, OUSA will pay $4000 for JWOC, but also has a new requirement that athletes pay for insurance obtained by OUSA, which is estimated to cost $3000. That leaves $1000 for the usual JWOC expenses. There are more team members than there used to be. They are asked to spend more time in Europe preparing.

It is great to have a donor-paid coach, and to see the program becoming more serious. But I don't think it makes sense for OUSA to pull back from financial support of the JWOC team in this way, while also asking the athletes to spend more time in Europe before JWOC, which incurs even more expense. The cost has gone from a few hundred dollars a few years ago, to $2500, $3500 or more this year, particularly if you count the Finland training trip in preparation for 2017. (Which seems that it will be sparsely attended, perhaps partly because OUSA is not helping to pay for it.) Is this the right trajectory?

Frankly, I don't have a big problem with asking people to pay for it if they can afford it. But I also think that the organization should make absolutely sure that everyone who makes the team can afford to go. This is a time when families are facing huge college costs. The reduction from paying for all athletes to attend JWOC several years ago, to this year paying only a token amount per athlete, does not make sense to me.

It feels particularly strange when it seems there should be more money for the junior program. There is the junior coach / youth development position that is new in the past few years, thanks to PG - shouldn't OUSA see this as an opportunity to increase the resources that come from OUSA funds for juniors, to synergize and build on that opportunity? There have been various efforts to fundraise for juniors, but that money has been targeted elsewhere than the team. I am not sure of the rationale for reducing the financial support of the JWOC team, other than that budgets are tight. I don't know what is being prioritized over this team. I don't understand why the Board thinks that the JWOC team deserves such a large reduction in resources, despite all the hard work these kids have done, and the seriousness with which they have tackled their training, and the increased competitiveness as seen at the JWOC trials this year. It feels as though the new money that has come in has ended up raising the cost for juniors to attend JWOC, which seems backwards. More money equals less money.

I worry that we already have such a hard time growing the youth program; to add the financial hurdle seems counter-productive.

A math teacher in central/western Mass coaches a math team; many of them run track; many would likely be interested in orienteering. I don't have bandwidth to do outreach to them, but if anyone would like to take it on, let me know!

C • :-) 5

First day of classes at the Peabody school. The first class was 11 kids in junior kindergarten through first grade. I set the littlest kid right off the bat because I asked him how to spell his name. He doesn't know. He also can't read numbers. So next week I need to go back to pictures. In the second class there were only two kids. One is a high functioning Aspergers kid and the other is a big for her age 1st grader.

Today was the first day of orienteering after school classes for the spring term. Sadly there was far more demand than I was able to accommodate. I think I could have signed up kids for three classes simultaneously at every day. Instead I am teaching four classes at three schools and training with the middle school kids on Fridays.

Today I met the kids at Dana Park. They are in grades three through five. Isabel had set up the 10 controls we got from CSU. I like them because they are easy to set up. However, the children asked for the electronic punching. There were 15 children today. The many of them had been in the class with me last fall. That means they liked it! Also the teacher with them who is 17, Christian, was with me last fall. I told him about the mayors program. Maybe next week I can bring an application with me to give to him. Maybe I can bring extras so that he can give some to his friends.
First I blew the whistle in different patterns to indicate that they should make different patterns with their bodies. Then I gave them punchcards and they went around and found all of the controls in any order. I asked them to help other kids who needed help when they were done. I told them at the beginning that the goals for the day were to work on following directions, helping others, and giving directions. The theme of following directions came from a conversation I had with Erin this weekend. When they came back with their cards all punched I had them check each other's punches. Then I told them that they should run to each of the controls in order. Of course they didn't remember exactly what what are the controls were in but they ran around and figured it out. Next I had them draw a map of the park and put the numbers in where it's control was. Then I had them hide each other's cards and come back and tell that person where their card was without pointing, only using words

Event: NEOC: Needham Town Forest
 

Long at West Point. Super proud of the high school guys. They finished all their red courses except Jeffrey on the Long who had a late start and all the water at the water controls was gone. He was pretty badly dehydrated and couldn't think straight. Walter and Ethan both had races where they beat other kids. Walter was a minute behind Thomas Laraia in the long and four minutes behind AJ Riley. Pretty awesome. AJ was friendly to them. No doubt other team members were too which was nice. Making friends in orienteering is the number one predictor of sticking with it for a while.

C • making friends 1

Long - Green X - Splits

Middle - Green X - Splits

Sprint - Green - Splits

Just saw this Boston Globe article about CSU's Ari Ofsevit!

Somehow he didn't manage to get orienteering into it. :-)

Glad you're doing OK, Ari!

C • Warm Marathon 3

Classic Green Y - Splits

Middle Prelim Green Y - Splits

Middle Final Green Y - Splits

Hey hey hey! I am sending 3 boys from Cambridge to try out for JWOC! :-)

OK, here is an article about Esu and Danny. Danny may sign up for the 6-week orienteering camp this summer.

Yesterday Rose, Isak, Dave and Isabel manned a table at the CRLS summer jobs fair, recruiting teens for our 6-week orienteering program. We had about 15 kids sign indicating their interest; Isabel says a few of those might really be interested. One of the best track runners was among them, one of these guys I think:

A bunch of projects in the next few months; I count ~ 200 hours of program time, and around 1600 hours of person-program time.
I need help - and I have some, but am seeking more.
Various people are giving some of their time: Isabel Bryant, Jeff Saeger, Jason Tong, Katia Bertoldi, Liz McNerney.
I have hired Marina Carlson for the summer (May 15-Aug 15); she is a young woman interested in maps, a college student, and my cousin's daughter.
I'd love to have an experienced coach/educator take the lead on the summer program, as well as supporting me on some of the other opportunities.

I am hiring a computatinoal biologist, to expand our capabilities in chromatin research and the application of genomic techniques to drive drug discovery and clinical development. Pass it on! www.constellationpharma.com

I just received an email from a group that wants to have a corporate event. A small one. But a corporation I really really like.

Got a call today from Dan Fusco, the PE teacher I worked with last year, whose students took 2nd place this year at IS Champs. He has been forwarding the press releases and whatnot to his department head, and called to say that I'm invited to give a presentation at a PE staff meeting! So that would reach multiple PE teachers in Cambridge, and maybe could be the start of a PE curriculum. If we could can something that PE teachers could use, and then share that curriculum, it would be great! The person is Jamie DiIulio

Also got invited to go back to Girls Sports Day June 2nd.

Event: NEOC: Menotomy Rocks
 

hanging controls at Menotomy Rocks.
LOTS of people there today.
Word had gone out on the parents email list. I did that once before and we got a lot of people. Should do that for all meets.
Talked to Sylvie; I think to get people coming back it would make sense to have multiple meets at the SAME map in one season. If you are bringing out families with kids. Maybe the serious club meets could be on Saturdays, and then everyone volunteers to put on regular local meets on Sundays, to reach out and bring more people in. It worked for our guerilla Cambridge O in Nov & Dec.

A Newton teacher contacted NEOC; looks like we'll have another project in early May, 50 9th grade girls. Jeff Saeger, Jason Tong and Isabel will probably be involved too. Current plan is to do some learning and training the first day, using Edmands Park CSU map, then go to NEOC's Boojum Rock map for the 2nd day. I'll meet with the teacher tomorrow morning to talk about possibilities, and check in with Jeff, Jason & Izzy tonight to make sure we're all on board. Pretty nice to have a school willing to give us two days of their students' time for orienteering. Also nice to have access to girls.

C • newton, 12

Submitted a grant application to the City of Cambridge today asking for $21,700 to employ 15 kids + a supervisor for 20 hrs/week, 6 weeks in the summer, learning and teaching orienteering.

Isabel picked up two of the middle school kids at 3:00 and they did a Crossroads training in the snow at a nearby park. Keegan said he'd start a club at the school next year.

The two Cambridge teams:

Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School:
* Isak Prellner, grade 11
* Ethan Rothenberg, grade 10
* Pilli Cruz-De Jesus, grade 10
* Walter Ditrani, grade 12
* Jeffrey Chen, grade 10

Cambridge Street Upper School (all 7th graders)
* Keegan Harkavy
* Harlan Altepeter
* Nicolena Capello
* Alex Rosenberg

The CRLS kids won first in JV. Apart from Isak, the high school kids have been training for one month; prior to that, some of them did a couple of introductory park or street-Os we put on in the fall, but that's it. They didn't start woods orienteering or serious training until a month ago. They are all on the high school track team and some ran on the cross-country team. Isak did a great job teaching them, and deserves a lot of credit for bringing new kids into the sport and helping them get to this level so quickly, with trainings a couple times a week for 4 weeks. He contributed a lot to junior orienteering! Ethan was 5th in the sprint and 4th on Saturday; he lost his epunch today and we hadn't told him ahead of time that he should just continue and punch his map. So he DNFed. Walter was 4th today, 9th yesterday and 14th (of 25) in the sprint. Jeffrey didn't finish the sprint or the course yesterday (he was injured yesterday) but he rallied today and came in 5th. I think this is pretty impressive.

The middle school kids all came out of the school elective I taught last year when they were in 6th grade. Keegan is my neighbor, and had done a little more orienteering with me, but not really any in the deep woods - mostly park-Os and corn maze O :-)
Keegan won the sprint and today's race, and came in second yesterday by one second.
All of the CSUS students are 12 or 13, and were up against kids up to 9th grade (around 15).
The team came in second in IS Intermediate.
They trained 2-3 times a week for the past month.

They all had a positive, open, serious attitude toward training. They engaged naturally and deeply in course reviews and discussions about the sport. I am so proud of them all.


Keegan, Saturday.

C • Congratulations! 19

Flying_Pig_2016_Saturday_Classic_9 Green A - Splits

Event: OCIN Flying Pig XX
 

Flying_Pig_2016_Friday_Sprint_9 Green - Splits