Training Log Archive: barb

Spanish orienteer Luis Nogueira is in my house!

VERY fun guerilla orienteering. There was a Halloween party for kids planned from 3-5 in Dana Park by the Community School we teach at, and the local neighborhood association. There was going to be a bouncy house, face painting, etc. But it was "weather permitting" and it was raining a little, on and off.
Ethan and I figured we'd go and bring our animal O set-up (modified to be Halloween-O), and see if we could fit in. When we got there, there was no bouncy house, and no face painting - the organizers had apparently called it off -- but there were 30 kids in halloween costumes, and parents who asked me (since I was wearing the silly hat) what was happening. So we set up our equipment and had 30 kids running around doing epunching for an hour. It was great! The kids all got it, too - only a couple that didn't have all the controls in the right order. And, it was aimed at the right level - the kids ranged from preschool to 1st or 2nd grade for the most part. There was only one older kid who had worked with us before was a little sad that we didn't have a map. Instead, he focused on memorizing the order and racing as fast as he could, and trying to get faster and faster. He also got Ethan to race.
One nice thing was that there were kids that are in our afterschool class, which made it super easy to get going. They knew what to do, and were enthusiastic to get started. And it meant we got to show their parents the activity, because there were parents around, unlike at our regular classes.
Best of all, we got to "save the day"! All those kids, all dressed up - at least they had a game to play! I wish we could have come up with something more group oriented, but we were pretty much all out the whole time and didn't have time to come up with something else. It's really nice to be able to have an activity like this ready go, and just grab the equipment and be out the door in 5 minutes.

C • love it! 5

Working all day on homework. Due at 4:00 every Saturday.

Last night's EC call topics were prep for board meeting, financial (budget, moving to QB online, insurance), technology, taking over membership tasks from Robin, club benefits. We will be meeting every two weeks on Thursday evenings.

Night-O at Nobscot. I got confused looking for 15 and bailed from there.

Traveling to Lincoln-Sudbury today with Ethan to work with Amanda on our conference presentation about teaching orienteering.

Today I will be teaching with Violeta at the Amigos school

Hanging controls for the Morse 5th grade annual outing to Fresh Pond. For the first time, they took a bus instead of subway, which meant they had a lot more time. So in addition to the team score-O, we added short epunch courses. It was awesome to be able to say: if you enjoyed the races, consider joining the middle school team next year.

To Fresh Pond, then the high school, then home.

At the high school, I met with all 5 of Vlippu's teachers + coach. It was good. Got in some orienteering talk, naturally.

Some night riding, with Vilppu and Dave

Sunday - Brown X - Splits

This week is not quite as busy as last week. In addition to the regular team trainings and classes (total of 9 sessions Mon-Fri), some of the CRLS team members will attend the A meet, and we held the first orienteering session for 46 5th graders at Morse School on Wednesday. Greg Ahlswede is in town and came along to the CRLS team training yesterday, and caught the last of the grade 3-5 class at Dana Park, which was led in Spanish by Greg and Violeta.

As is now common, a number of the 5th graders had experienced orienteering with us before, including in the summer program where our teen employees fanned out to a dozen different camps to teach orienteering.

Today Ethan, with Juanma and Violeta, coached the CRLS team at the NEOC meet, with 5 kids in attendance.

C • CRLS team 2

Today Ethan, with help from Violeta, Juanma, Dave and Keegan, put on a Forest-X with about 21 runners.

Hanging controls for 90 8th graders. Another successful outing. The first one of these was 11 years ago, I think. This time I gave a motivational speech to the ~13 parent chaperones about why orienteering is so good for kids. Then Leah got down to the nitty gritty of each person's tasks.

Later, I made hot sauce for the first time! It's really good.

For the field trip:

Map navigation video

Route planning video

Safety video

C • Nice videos 2

Today, we worked with ~90 8th graders; they did a relay on Ed's VLUS map.

Then Violeta and Becca coached 17 kids who signed up for a middle school orienteering team, and Ethan and Juanma coached 45 kids at another middle school.

Relays for ~90 kids at Vassal Lane Upper School. With Juanma and Ethan.

There were 11 kids at the Amigos cross-country practice with Ari and Juanma today.
Violeta has a good plan for tomorrow's orienteering practice; she and Becca will be coaching. Can't wait to hear how many kids show up, out of the 30 that signed up. (We expect attrition due to, among other things, lack of medical forms, concussion test, and permission slips.)

Rumors of many children signing up for the CSUS Orienteering Team.
This week marks the beginning of a month of middle school orienteering team practices at 3 schools.

The CRLS team orienteering jersey has been ordered. Ethan's design.

Today we are doing a corporate orienteering outing; it was a perk for a company that made a donation 2 years ago for our first IS Champs foray.

This week we will work with ~80 kids at the Vassal Lane Upper School. Wednesday: relays on school grounds. Thursday: map navigation lessons and team route planning. Friday: orienteer in the woods.

BUSY!!!!

Orienteering at Boojum Rock today.

Upcoming schedule

TUESDAY 10/3
2:45p-4:45 CRLS Training (Ethan, Violeta)
3:00p-4:30 Amigos Training (Ari, Juanma) - cross-country
7:30p-9:30 Prep for VLUS activity, 116 Henry St (Barb, Ethan, Violeta, Ethan, Leah, Mary-Ann)

WEDNESDAY 10/4
12:45p-3:00 (including setup) VLUS relays (Barb, Ethan, Violeta, Juanma) -- EVJ leave early
2:45p-4:45 PAUS training (Ethan, Juanma) - note, Juanma could go to CSUS instead
3:00p-4:30 CSUS training (Becca, Violeta)
6:30p-8:30 CSU orienteering training at 116 Henry - all welcome (tell CRLS team?)

THURSDAY 10/5
1:15p-2:45 VLUS route planning (none of us!)
2:45p-4:45 CRLS Training (Ethan, Juanma)
3:00p-4:30 Amigos training (Ari, Juanma) - orienteering
3:15p-5:30 Amigos CS classes (Barb)

FRIDAY 10/6
6:00a-8:00 Hang controls (Barb, Juanma)
7:30a-8:00 Help set up transition area (Ethan, Violeta, Leah)
8:15a-9:00 Meet with parents and review their jobs and how to orienteer
9:30a-2:00 Orienteering field trip (we have specific tasks)
3:00p-4:00 Kennedy School CS class (Ethan, with Juanma or Violeta)

SATURDAY 10/7
8:00a-3:00 Forest-X (Ethan, Violeta, Juanma

SUNDAY 10/8
10:00a-2:00 CRLS team practice at Noon Hill NEOC meet (including travel time) (Ethan, Juanma, Violeta)

Hi!