Training Log Archive: iansmith

Yay, reelected to the OUSA Board! I'm almost certainly not going to run for a third term in 2021, partly so I can heavily invest in these three years, to motivate more Board turnover, and because I've done my part. I ran for reelection because the organization is not yet where I want it to be, and I want to bring it to a more stable position before I depart.

OUSA Board meeting, Laramie Wyoming.

In attendance: Pat Meehan, Alex Jospe, Barb Bryant, Matthew Robbins, Kris Beecroft, Clare Durand,
Calling in: William Jameson, Ian Smith, Ellen Stefaniak
Absent: Nate Orwaschel, Lee Todd, Susan Grandjean,
Election results: Ellen Stefaniak, Susan Grandjean, Ian Smith, Matthew Robbins

Welcome and congratulations to Matthew, Ellen, and Susan!

Update from the AGM: Dave Yee updated everyone at the AGM about the progress and goals of the technology committee. The plan going forward is to focus on the website and move to a wordpress solution. Open question: what are we doing about our registration system? Eventreg is largely held together with duct tape and hope, and it looks like we aren't going to have the budget to update the registration system this year. We are also currently using NEON for our general database. Priorities over the next two years:
1. OUSA website
2. Back end, especially the NEON database
3. Registration system

Officer elections:
OUSA President: Clare Durand
VP Competition: Alex Jospe
VP Finance: Pat Meehan (who will not run for the Board next year; I will learn the ropes under Pat this year to ensure continuity of knowledge)
VP Youth Initiatives: Barb Bryant
Secretary: Kris Beecroft
VP Clubs: William Jameson

Barb discussion: there are four groups - (1) JROTC (Ron Fisnovsky, GAOC, Bill Jameson, Mike Minium), (2) Scouts (Brian Coleman, Clare Durand), (3) Schools [chair vacant], (4) Clubs (VP of Clubs). A big goal for clubs is having activities for children at events, especially national events. World Orienteering Day was a major initiative for youth initiatives. Other work: Safety with Nate Orwaschel, coaching with Alex Jospe. Barb is going to two different meetings with USOC to study how other National Governing Bodies have grown their youth programs.

Personal note: Bob Forgrave was an excellent VP Clubs and will be very difficult to replace.

And so ends the Kris Beecroft administration.

Finance update: We anticipate a budget shortfall of about $15,000 for 2018. Club dues, membership dues, and event proceeds are all down a bit. Our budget for 2018 was conservative, so this won't necessarily restrict our activities, but it is concerning.

Long range planning:

1. We are holding NAOC 2020 in BAOC. World Games is in Alabama in 2021; Cristina Luis is competition manager, and IOF is going to be heavily involved, especially with arena production. We are on the hook for a lot of manpower.
   
2. World University Games in 2023 will be in Lake Placid, New York - which will include Ski Orienteering (!!). The local club is EMPO (sort of), but they are heavily understaffed.
   
3. Alex wants more World Ranking Events and Trail-O World Ranking events. Ideally US Nationals would be a WRE.
   
4. It looks like we have a complete bids for all three national championships in 2019; there isn't a bid for US Champs in 2020.
   

On competitions/championships: for some clubs (e.g. OCIN, per Pat), the national championship events are the biggest sources of revenue. Other clubs like Cascade don't see much incentive for holding national events. It is proposed that we divide up the country into some number of regions (e.g. nine) and have a rotation of the championship events among them.

Question: (1) How many clubs have the infrastructure and capability of hosting national events? (2) How many clubs have interest? A subject of conversation between the Board and the clubs.

Question on course consultants: How many course consultants do we have? How many do we need? Is there training?

Observation: Rankings are complicated. Apparently this is a problem for results of Junior Nationals and the scoring system was brought before the grievance committee this year. Alex will convene a committee or task group to evaluate the rules for Junior Nationals.

Rankings: rankings are really hard because the data is not very clean or organized. We need to interface with a membership database (which we don't currently and probably can't really support). Valerie needs help. Short term solution is probably to get a minion to help with data cleaning.

This is the last in-person Board meeting currently scheduled for this year. Next Board meeting call TBD.

Action items:
- Ian agreed to be an assistant VP Finance to Pat to ensure smooth transition in the future.
- Kris will be the OUSA Board contact for Ed, especially concerning future tech development and registration.
- Alex will talk to the Junior team about resolving disputes concerning Junior team finances.
- Alex is forming a task group to address Junior national scoring and will recruit a helper to assist Valerie with scoring as a temporary fix.

C • clarifications 3

C • Congratulations! 2

C • Champs rotation 4