Training Log Archive: barbIn the 7 days ending Oct 15, 2016:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| « | » |
| » now | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| Su | Mo | Tu | We | Th | Fr | Sa | |||||||
Tuesday Oct 11, 2016 #
Bicycling 24:00 [3]
Recent Navigation Games activity:
We are pushing hard this week to get the word out about the 5 upcoming Sunday events aimed at school kids (park epunch score-Os and white courses). We've gotten permission to flyer all the grade 6-12 public schools in Cambridge (Ethan is spending the day making and distributing flyers) and need to work outward to neighboring towns. We will start working with the Morse 5th grade next week. Last week we had the grand finale for the 8th grade with 100 people in the woods. On Sunday we were pretty much rained out of our first fall Nav Games event, although Ethan and I were there anyway. Along with Cristina's friends and Alex. We've started posting on Meetup and Facebook and EventBright. I guess we could add the kids' events to AttackPoint. Ethan is setting up some of the CSU Wed night trainings out of my house.
We want to keep the CSU trainings informal, free and run by volunteers, but I want to pay Ethan for his time setting up the courses that he sets up. At the same time I don't want to cast a wet blanket on the whole deal, because I completely love the Wed night trainings. Not really sure how to resolve it, but I think the most likely approach I will take is to go ahead and pay Ethan, treat this as our contribution to CSU community, and separately ask people to support Navigation Games financially as we try and get things up and running these first few years. I think in general it's fine for people to volunteer their time (which most of us do, while holding other jobs) and for others to get paid, depending on their circumstances. Sometimes we talk about how it's important to recognize the value of orienteering services by paying for them, but we also want not to keep people away because of cost. Ya know?
This is one example of many in trying to figure out how to make orienteering sustainable while also attracting new people and serving populations such as low-income urban kids. My general attitude for Navigation Games is that for the first few years, we are getting people and organizations hooked on orienteering by providing lots of free or cheap experiences, trying not to say no to any opportunity, and supporting the efforts with donations, volunteer time, and partner clubs' resources. Once we really get going hopefully we can apply for grants. And after that hopefully things will stabilize with recipients happily paying for services. It feels like a long road from this point. It's still really hard to get kids to attend events that cost a lot of money, like the national level meets. The cost for local meets is really low, and that should help - but part of the reason the cost is low is that the clubs aren't trying to raise money to invest in growth, outreach to schools, serving low-income populations, and the like. Vicious circle, perhaps.
We are pushing hard this week to get the word out about the 5 upcoming Sunday events aimed at school kids (park epunch score-Os and white courses). We've gotten permission to flyer all the grade 6-12 public schools in Cambridge (Ethan is spending the day making and distributing flyers) and need to work outward to neighboring towns. We will start working with the Morse 5th grade next week. Last week we had the grand finale for the 8th grade with 100 people in the woods. On Sunday we were pretty much rained out of our first fall Nav Games event, although Ethan and I were there anyway. Along with Cristina's friends and Alex. We've started posting on Meetup and Facebook and EventBright. I guess we could add the kids' events to AttackPoint. Ethan is setting up some of the CSU Wed night trainings out of my house.
We want to keep the CSU trainings informal, free and run by volunteers, but I want to pay Ethan for his time setting up the courses that he sets up. At the same time I don't want to cast a wet blanket on the whole deal, because I completely love the Wed night trainings. Not really sure how to resolve it, but I think the most likely approach I will take is to go ahead and pay Ethan, treat this as our contribution to CSU community, and separately ask people to support Navigation Games financially as we try and get things up and running these first few years. I think in general it's fine for people to volunteer their time (which most of us do, while holding other jobs) and for others to get paid, depending on their circumstances. Sometimes we talk about how it's important to recognize the value of orienteering services by paying for them, but we also want not to keep people away because of cost. Ya know?
This is one example of many in trying to figure out how to make orienteering sustainable while also attracting new people and serving populations such as low-income urban kids. My general attitude for Navigation Games is that for the first few years, we are getting people and organizations hooked on orienteering by providing lots of free or cheap experiences, trying not to say no to any opportunity, and supporting the efforts with donations, volunteer time, and partner clubs' resources. Once we really get going hopefully we can apply for grants. And after that hopefully things will stabilize with recipients happily paying for services. It feels like a long road from this point. It's still really hard to get kids to attend events that cost a lot of money, like the national level meets. The cost for local meets is really low, and that should help - but part of the reason the cost is low is that the clubs aren't trying to raise money to invest in growth, outreach to schools, serving low-income populations, and the like. Vicious circle, perhaps.
Note
Just got off a two hour finance committee meeting. It was really great to hear people who want many of the same things. I feel very optimistic. I loved how easy the discussion was. No uncomfortable tension. Just figuring out what we each thought and what the areas are to be tackled.
Sunday Oct 9, 2016 #
Note
Elthan and I put on our first Navigation Games Fall 2016 Series event today. It was very rainy, blustery, a bit cold.
How shall I say this? We've done two events in the past three days, and the average attendance was more than 50 people. Huge thanks to Cristina, who was directly responsible for recruiting 2/3 of today's attendees.
That is not just a fraction, it is a literal two out of three.
Still, we have some good courses at Magazine Beach ready to go. And we did a dry run (a very wet dry run) and know a few more things we need to organize better. Also, it felt really good to come home, get dry and warm, and do some cooking and baking. And watching Madame Secretary.
We made $10 today! (Costs were quite a bit higher, but I look at it as an investment :-). For the past three weeks at the middle school, we'll earn around $1000, though the sponsor from the last two years is cutting their contribution due to poorer than usual business this year. But I think the "Friends of" group will cover the cost.
How shall I say this? We've done two events in the past three days, and the average attendance was more than 50 people. Huge thanks to Cristina, who was directly responsible for recruiting 2/3 of today's attendees.
That is not just a fraction, it is a literal two out of three.
Still, we have some good courses at Magazine Beach ready to go. And we did a dry run (a very wet dry run) and know a few more things we need to organize better. Also, it felt really good to come home, get dry and warm, and do some cooking and baking. And watching Madame Secretary.
We made $10 today! (Costs were quite a bit higher, but I look at it as an investment :-). For the past three weeks at the middle school, we'll earn around $1000, though the sponsor from the last two years is cutting their contribution due to poorer than usual business this year. But I think the "Friends of" group will cover the cost.