Training Log Archive: barb

!!!!

This morning, my dad shared with me and Doug the memorial service he has designed for himself. It's great.

In Chicago with my parents and brother, and family friend.

The CRLS team training went well yesterday. Seven were in attendance; Jackson was absent. Tuesdays focus more on physical training. I don't attend these; I just hear the reports.

Ethan and I are planning for next week's outings on Monday (for donor's firm), and Friday (for 8th grade). Ethan is also designing the classes for Thursday and Friday after school.

It will be interesting to see how many kids come to the middle school orienteering practices. We're down to 2 middle schools. I think I could have made 5 happen; I just did not do it.

Last night's revelation was Ari's creativity and enthusiasm for the middle school coaching project.

Ari came over to plan the activities for the 5 or 6 weeks of cross country + orienteering that he will be coaching at the Amigos middle school. He and Ethan came up with a plan, and it was just so fun talking about different possibilities - quidditch O, marathon xc practice (if enough kids, they run a marathon in one practice if you add up all their distances), etc.

This morning Ari and I will meet with the PE teacher at Amigos to go over the plan. This afternoon Ari will meet with the athletic director at the high school to get all the paperwork handled.

UPDATE: We met with Patrick at Amigos this morning. He's great. I discovered something I knew before but this time I really thought it through a little better. They are supposed to put on these intramural programs at the middle schools, but the sticking point is finding coaches willing to work with the kids. Patrick asked Ari if he'd be willing to coach other sports, and he hasn't even seen how he is with the kids yet. My point is that if we can help them by finding good coaches, for all the middle school sports, we'd be doing them a huge favor, and that would be a good thing.

Had a short but thought-provoking phone call with Deb Humiston this morning. She has more business than she can take on for her orienteering-based business, Ultimate Treasure Hunts. She would love to work with someone else, but is concerned about teaching someone and bringing them on but then not having them stick around for long. She has done some work with students learning to be teachers, and made a powerful argument for that being the point where we should focus. Teachers sometimes do learn something about orienteering, but it is sort of old school, coming from the military/scouts take an azimuth, heavy on the compass. Teachers will report to her that their students love working with the compass, but Deb argues that where kids need to start is not with the compass at all - just with the map, and playing games that cast orienteering as fun. The compass comes much later. Anyway, she says that if we can get into the teacher colleges, and work with those soon-to-be-teachers on developing a fun and modern orienteering curriculum, that would have a big impact.

When she works with groups, she often has to make a map "on the cheap", but says that it is adequate for the introductory purposes she has. She generally will take GIS data from the town, trace it, and then make one visit to the location to finish it up, before the event.

We also talked about the kind of pricing that is needed in order to make a business like hers sustainable.

She learned a lot from Chris Cassone, ~15 years ago when she was getting started. I had previously had the idea of starting a series of phone/online monthly meetings to share ideas, but never made it happen - want to do that now. Chris would be a good person to hear from.

There are a lot of models for spreading orienteering.

C • ditto... 1

Had NG board meeting.

Key points from conversation with Juanma, Violeta, Ethan, Sara Mae, Dave, Vilppu:

Focus on orienteering for PE classes. Do one demo class, then provide materials so teacher can continue for a week.

Charge for elite training. Can't afford to keep paying Ethan with no return, sadly. Elite training grant would help - do they exist?

Programs like Danehy Girls in Sports Day and Madrid O Olympics are efficient: they bring the schools to you. And in a good, challenging location. Spread out different ages (or skill levels) on different days). Winners get to go on to the next day, so younger kids can stick with it if they do well. Focus generally is on participation tho.

(last board meeting, Ethan:) train teachers

Catering to both recreational and competitive is good; they feed off each other and synergize. So don't abandon teams - just balance, and try and get others to coach them.

[
Idea for posters. Two nearly identical. Complicated maze.
1. If you can solve this while running, we want you. CRLS Orienteering.
2. If you can solve this while running through it, we want you. CRLS Varsity Orienteering.
]

Tired.

Met with teacher at Morse school this morning; planned the fall and sketched the spring.

Met with 8th grade team at VLUS later this morning to talk about the program for the next 2 weeks.

In between, went to work meetings.

Met with one of my favorite IT guys in Boston today, to talk about the cloud. I found an opportunity to talk about orienteering, of course. His girls are 12 and 14, and he thinks they would enjoy it. They live in Concord and he mused that their middle schools might be interested. So, another connection to work with, this time to a new school system.

Team parent meeting tonight.
A parent has offered to coordinate rides to NEOC events.
He was at a party last night and mentioned to a fellow musician that his kid was recently running around in the woods with a map. The other guy said, oh, orienteering with Barb Bryant?
Always a good sign when the people already know about orienteering. It is a measure of how comprehensively you are raising awareness.

C • snowball effect 2

Was cc'd on this email from Ethan today:


We will be moving orienteering practice inside today. Meet in room 114 by 2:45.

Those of you who are cleared for full participation will be doing physical training with Mr. Salvi and Ms. Pearl supplemented with some basic orienteering challenges.

For those who are not yet cleared for physical participation, we will be in the classroom doing some "arm-chair" orienteering exercises, so be prepared to use your brains.

Tonight I heard from a city councillor. I had written to him on another matter, and he wrote back asking if I was the one organizing the "orientation ". I allowed as to how I was. More exchanges happened and it looks like he would like to help with the trip to the Junior Nationals next April.

C • Fantastic! 1

Day 2 - Brown X - Splits

Day 1 - Brown X - Splits

The classes at LS yesterday went really well. Our coaches had designed a memory-O, where you get a map snippet at each control. They talked with teachers Amanda and Chris over lunch about orienteering. At least 3 of the students expressed interest in doing more orienteering outside of class, and Amanda feels pretty sure she'll be able to bring a team to IS Champs (or whatever they will be called). I wasn't there, which is great.

The first real team practice at CRLS went well. There were 11 kids who came, so that's something. They had fun. I wasn't there, which is great.

This weekend we're bringing Keegan, Vilppu, Tyra, Isabel, Juanma and Violeta to Letchworth. Ethan's foot is bothering him so he will not come.

Violeta, Juanma and Ethan are going out to Sudbury today to teach orienteering to three classes on Ed's new map.

Yesterday we found out that the high school will pay for a head orienteering coach, and for an aide (who will also coach one of the middle school teams). The cross-country coach chatted with us and was SO supportive. The athletic director addressed the team and was SO supportive. The trainer was really kind and agreed to show us around the training room later this week. Wow.

Let's just pause and celebrate, shall we?

C • celebrate 12

Drum roll

15 kids came to team introductory meeting.

C • Which school(s) 3

To work, to school

Fun - brown course at Pawtuckaway (time is approximate). Lots of logging happened.

I am advocating creating a VP Youth at OUSA.
I'd like to switch from Secretary to that role.
Youth VP would have EC-level access to OUSA leadership, to support coordinating different workgroups (scouts, JROTC, club programs, school programs, school competition, safety, etc); synergize with other areas (such as JTESC under VP Competition); grow youth participation in the USA.

This past year I feel good about my contributions to the financial analysis (showing steady $40k loss of operating assets/year and little support for teams and clubs due to unaffordable ED in a stagnant period of growth). I feel good about managing World Orienteering Day and helping clubs make new contacts to schools and youth groups. I feel good about taking board meeting minutes, working with the EC (eg transitioning ED's work onto volunteers), and watching others on the Board take on new initiatives in creative ways given our desire to minimize spend. (eg Boris & Alli's newsletter is awesome. eg SF is doing a great job handling mail, including connections with dozens of national and local organizations that our ED was in communication with.)

But this coming year, I'd like other people to continue to focus on improving various parts of the organization and i'd like to focus on growing our youth programs.

I just finished a very exciting phone call with Amanda at Lincoln-Sudbury high school.

Ed Despard made a map of the school that she'll use.

Amanda has already begun teaching her Adventure Fitness class. They have talked about the map and how to orient it.

We will prepare a list of activities and progression of O skills for her.

There are THREE classes that we will work with. Amanda teaches two of them, and her co-teacher is Chris.

Ethan, Violeta and/or Juanma would come out there twice.
On one of those days, they would talk in some depth about their experience as an orienteering athlete: talk about some competitions (maybe show GPS tracking), and training.


On one of those days, we would also give a 1-hour professional development seminar to teachers. This would probably include me talking about the curriculum with middle schools; Violeta/Juanma/Ethan talking about being an athlete; Violeta/Juanma/Ethan talking about coaching; us talking about the LIFE SKILLS that kids can get from learning orienteering. I told her that I see the high school potentially using orienteering in 3 ways: (1) as they are now in focused class, (2) develop a school team that competes, (3) team-building for other groups or classes as we do with the middle schools.

Amanda told me she is being encouraged by her administration to develop a full 20-hour course on orienteering or navigation more generally. It takes about a year for the course to get approval, so she would submit it for approval in 2018 with the expectation of having it approved by the school board and then start teaching in 2019.

We both want to document what we do this fall. I told her I'd like to publish it in ONA and on OUSA website as a model for others. She needs to present it in other contexts.

She was very excited to get the map. She is thinking of sending the kids out this coming week on the old map that they have, to find the old markers on trees, because the contrast with the new map will be educational.

C • I know Sam's taught oriente... 4

School to work.
Today's recruitment effort was not very fruitful.

Isabel and I met up with my friend Moira from high school in Scotland. During the conversation, because it was obvious she remembered a lot of shared experiences that I do not, I told her that I was having trouble with my memory, and gave her some examples of things that are getting harder for me. She paused and said, "That must be scary." Which was pretty refreshing. Everyone else seems to want to minimize the problem - as a natural part of getting old, as not really that bad, as a side effect of having so many things going on in my life. Instead, she accepted my description as real, and had an empathetic response, and that was kind of eye-opening. Anyway, I love Moira. Even if I don't remember specifics. It was wonderful to have Isabel there to meet her.

Event: 2017 Corn Maze Champs
 

Time is a guess. Did 3 races in the corn maze. It was fun.
A lot of Henry Street residents were on the podium.

Sprint - A - Splits

Classic - Splits

Night - Splits

Great meeting this morning with Cristina. We discussed action items for programs and administration of Navigation Games.
Violeta and Juanma arrived last night. It took Juanma a while to get through Customs; I fielded a call from an official asking about what he'll be doing here, where he'll be staying, what I do for a living, etc.

C • Getting personal 2