Training Log Archive: iansmith

Another OUSA Open question:

There seemed to be some good discussion on the OUSA membership question, so here's another: What can OUSA do to increase local starts and membership? Can we have a campaign?

OUSA doesn't actually organize any events; events are organized exclusively by clubs, and often by a relatively small number of people in clubs. Consider OUSA starts data from Robin Shannonhouse that I modeled for 2009-2016. Local starts were negligibly up, while national starts, club members, and OUSA members all declined.

Let's set aside the national starts/membership with the premise that everyone who goes national starts local, so let's increase local first. When I was planning the NEOC schedule, no one from OUSA contacted me to say "hey, this year we're really pushing ;" there was no plan or concerted strategy, just a laissez faire approach. While the value of marketing nationally is still an open question, we can communicate intention to the clubs.

For instance, in 2018, say we said "our goal is to increase local starts by 10%. Please try to increase the number of events you have by 5-10%, and here are some resources (materials, marketing guidance) to try to attract people." Some big clubs might already have saturated markets - COC, QOC, DVOA, NEOC, but I don't think most (or any) clubs have reached the point where more events will result in fewer people attending. Maybe we can incentivize it, by offering small prizes for the top 3 clubs at the end of the year by %change - say new e-punch units or a teardrop banner or something.

Is this viable? Pointless? Would it move the needle by giving a concerted effort and direction to our federation?

C • How to move the needle on local starts 17

Event: Canada 150 Orienteering Festival
 

An open question: what benefits can OUSA offer that would make OUSA membership compelling for a larger fraction of US orienteering club members? At present, only about 25% of members of US orienteering clubs are also OUSA members. (~6000 and ~1500 respectively).

Unrelated, and without context: Canadian Border Guards don't use their guns very often. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cbsa-border-guards...

C • OUSA 14

C • Guns 1

Thoughts from Team USA's Greg Ahlswede about WOC 2017:
https://www.athletebiz.us/blog/not-seeing-the-fore...

World Games going on right now, exciting stuff! For reasons unknown, the US didn't send a team (edit- only one NA team gets to go, and Canada was ranked higher), so I'm cheering for my adopted home and native land, Canada. GPS and video coverage available at liveorienteering, and the coverage is very good.

Go Canada, eh!

https://liveorienteering.com/#/live?id=5713

Yay Athletourism:
https://www.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_3737/...

OUSA Stuff:
I found the mapping resource data on OUSA difficult to navigate. It took considerable effort and a google search to find this list of mappers, and it did not include any of the three mappers my clubs have used - Marcello, Zherdev, and Ed. I didn't intuitively realize a "service directory" was a list of mappers.

C • Service directory 2

I had been preparing for this day for a long time; this was my time to be one with the universe and test my nerves and composure in an epic struggle. Katie and I played golf.

I came in with a lot of confidence - relying on my inherent physical abilities and my experience dealing with stress. Equilibrium is necessary, but just as important is a cold focus and a drive. I have never lacked for ambition. As I readied myself to do battle, my mind put together a game plan. And that game plan was that while there are events whose outcome you can't control, you do have a choice with how to react to it, what your composure is. There is no excuse not to be mentally alert and focused. This meant making good decisions, patiently reasoning a course of action to execute those decisions, and then having the concentration to execute in the heat of battle. And of course, part of the objective was to savor the moment, for it will never come again.

It started well - I made par on the first hole, while Katie double bogeyed. But as quickly as things seem to come together, they fall apart - she bogeyed the second hole, while I melted down with a quintuple bogey. Katie by 2. Orienteering, like golf, can't be won by a single act, but it sure can be lost. This was my moment, my chance to weather adversity.

It took years of training and a deep inner strength, but I found my balance again. We were even on the next three holes, and then I pulled back four strokes on 6-9 like a regular Jordan Spieth. The stress and inner turmoil were broken up by waiting for some kids to finish ahead of us, and we jumped around on the back nine to avoid some groups.

Some days, everything just comes together, and as wrenching as the challenges can be, the ecstasy of those moments feels real good. On hole 12, I sank my tee shot for a beautiful birdie. Birdies are hard to come by, and they must be treasured. And just for good measure, later on hole 11 (out of sequence), Katie sank her tee shot for her hole-in-one. Sublime.

I came into the last hole with a 5 stroke lead, but I hit a miserable first two shots leaving me well off the green and above these cute little pegs on the fairway. I was a bit stressed, but I held it together for a triple bogey - losing two shots to Katie on 18, but keeping my composure to do what was needed.

At the end of the day, it's not obvious if I should be satisfied with my 14 over par 53, but I choose to be - partly because Katie shot a 56. Will I shoot 53 again? Maybe I can shoot my age if the stars line up and I do some sport-specific training. Maybe I should buy a putter. But today was a good day. And two holes-in-one will put a smile on anyone's face.

Ian: 29+24 = 53
Katie: 31+25 = 56

Kayaking in Orillia on an inlet of Lake Simcoe. A good day, followed by some beach time and swimming, pizza, and a walk around Barrie.

Link to some of the cool stuff Barb is working on with Navigation Games.
Also, I encourage everyone to check out Katie's JWOC blog; the photos portray an amazing experience and the lifestyle and activities of very motivated juniors.

My OUSA activity this week:

1. Making arrangements for Convention at NVCC on Friday November 10 in Alexandria. Contacted ROC, QOC, and NVCC to make the reservation.

2. Reached out to a number of speakers. I will solicit speakers on pertinent topics in the general announcements, to be made shortly.

3. Ongoing work with Philip and Boris for the website template development. We are rolling out prototypes to early adopter clubs now and making revisions. This is a good time for feature requests.

4. Board meeting, wrote up report for the convention preparation and the website; see Wed.

5. Giving a lot of thought to OUSA communications and project management. OUSA does almost all its business over e-mail among board members, which is hilariously opaque, unsustainable, and barely functional. It's hard to see the forest for the trees, to keep track of all tasks, and to engage the membership and accountability. Need to implement project management software asap.

Katie is visiting this weekend, and her flight was delayed. Quick evening run. In lieu of actual content, consider this blast from the past:

https://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/m...

In addition to Cristina's parody, I am greatly entertained by the following insights into Rosstopher's perspective on life:

Ross: "I am intrigued, a kebab (representing scandiland, say perhaps Sweden) mingling exotically with a burrito (representing, I suppose, El Paso)? A match made in heaven? A cautionary tale? Either way, I am curious to attempt said Kebab burrito."

Ross: (After preparing said keburribab) "It wasn't as good at the pizza with pasta topping that I made previously based on AP log chatter, but that did not stop me from eating two of them."

C • "WOC 2016. He will be there. " 2

Wheels are coming off a bit, but I am chugging along.

OUSA Board Call (a bit from memory after the fact):
0. The OUSA Convention will be held on Friday, November 10 in Alexandria, Virginia at the NVCC Schlessinger Center. This is my communications initiative for 2017, and I hope to get a wide range of speakers on pressing topics for clubs, including Events and Technology, Development, Marketing and Publicity, and OUSA offerings. If you have a topic that is relevant and informative for clubs and would be willing to give a short talk about it, please contact me. I'm expecting (and hoping) we'll have more topics than time, so I may not be able to fit everyone. Details to be announced later.

1. 50th anniversary campaign updates:
(a) Website template is progressing. We are rolling out a Wix template developed by Philip Westover to early adopter clubs. We plan to add features, test the website, and collect feedback before we make the template available to all member clubs later this fall. For more info, contact me, Boris, or Philip Westover. From our conversations and survey, there is a lot of interest from OUSA member clubs, though it remains to be seen exactly how many will use the template. A major open question is building unified national databases for membership, events, and results (or using Eventor, e.g.).

(b) Peter Goodwin is organizing mapping clinics, including some this fall to be held in conjunction with the Rochester and QOC national meets. The clinics will be led by experienced mappers and presumably open to the public. There weren't written details, so contact Peter Goodwin if you have questions. Of the three 50th anniversary projects, I am least convinced of the efficacy of this. How many weekend clinics does someone have to attend before they become a competent mapper? How many maps must someone make before they have the experience to make accurate maps? Do we know if anyone will show up, and will they follow through on the path to becoming a competent mapper? Some discussion was had about alternate approaches, including OUSA bringing a Euromapper to the US and contracting out their time, but the visa process appears opaque. We need to further investigate what other clubs have done like DVOA and NEOC. Developing mapping is worth a shot, and hopefully if we build it, they will come. I am skeptical.

(c) Bob Forgrave is working on a pipeline to help clubs market themselves, present a coherent message, and do Search Engine Optimization. He is working on building a base of common knowledge - a how-to or manual for how to attract people. Clubs must work their way up the tier, beginning with having good visibility infrastructure like websites and social media before we spend money on SEO and messaging. Details remain to be seen, but marketing is something that it's more straightforward to write a check for. The Board allocated $14.7k to this project, and hopefully we will come away with useful resources and a cost/benefit analysis for each of the marketing methods, including SEO, Facebook ads and Google adwords, and messaging.

2. Alex reported on the 2018 World Cup Ski-O; it is progressing, and many people seem to be planning on attending - the hotel is nearly booked. OUSA's contribution is largely financial - waiving OUSA dues and providing initial seed money, to be repaid. It is an exciting event, and the organizers have OUSA's support; I hope we will use OUSA's publicity machine to keep everyone appraised of the event.

3. Pat Meehan gave a regular update on our finances, which are looking much rosier than they were at the end of 2016. OUSA has money in the bank (which shows up on our statements), but we have three balances: restricted, designated, and unrestricted. Restricted money is that which was donated to a particular purpose, like the 50th anniversary money - and must be spent there. Board designated money is (almost entirely) money allocated to the teams, which we have told them is available for them to spend. Unrestricted money is money that can be used to any purpose - ONA, salaries, projects, venues for the convention, and so on. At the end of 2016, we had negative unrestricted money, i.e. the money in the bank couldn't cover our commitments of restricted and designated funds. At present, due to a severely austere 2018 budget, we have over $43k in unrestricted money and project to have about $65k by the end of 2017. The cost of the Executive Director was the largest contributor to our budget deficits over the past seven years.

This gets the organization back on sound financial footing, and very close to our financial goal of maintaining a balance of (100% restricted + 100% designated + 25% of annual unrestricted) in the bank at all times. Importantly, the Board will be able to allocate more funds to projects in 2018 - club services like website development, marketing, database infrastructure, communications, and mapping; the teams, which received no OUSA Board support in 2017; development goals like coaching, and some limited staffing engagements as needed. I need to draw up some 2018 budgets to see what is feasible, so we can prioritize a growth-based agenda for 2018.

Actions taken:
1. Allocated $750 for venue rental for the OUSA Convention.

2. Approved NEOC's ISIC Junior Nationals bid for Mt. Tom in April.

C • how many clinics? 11

No burritos were consumed during this run. More seriously, my burrito count for 2017 is no greater than 20. It's amazing that I am still alive.

C • Your log entries 2

I have achieved Kenny-esque levels of description of my activities. This was unintended.

To compensate, here is today's techno folk song remix:

And appropriate wikipedia article.

C • I think 2

Run with Klepperton around High Park and the surrounding. My pace fell off a bit as I tired.

Long Live the King:


It's been a pleasure to witness. French federation post.

While I don't have any international experience running for Team USA, I have had the pleasure of running into some world elite at Oringen and North American races. On Day 5 of Oringen 2013, I bumped into Tove Alexandersson, Simone Niggli, Valentin Novikov, and Kempster during my run. I'm just some scrub, but getting to see these amazing orienteers in their natural environment was incredible and inspiring.

I met Thierry for the first time when he came to Harriman in 2009. His devotion to his craft was apparent even then (though not to bowling), but I was most impressed with how approachable and friendly he was. I was a terrible orienteer at the time, but he still invited my questions, inquired about my experience in the woods, and took the time to give thought to my inquiries. I have bumped into him at Oringen 2013 (Seven Wonders) and at the US champs and NAOC in 2016. He ran by me on Day 1 of the US classic champs, which was sublime. Thierry is world class in every sense of the word - an amazing athlete, competitor, and fanatical student of the sport, and his character is of the highest caliber.

Athletics is ultimately a self-indulgent activity which does little tangibly to advance society. But to witness true greatness, even at a contrived activity, is to grasp what is possible and to understand the apex of the human condition. I have witnessed true greatness. Perhaps one day, I will get to race it in the corn.

THIERRY! And TOVE!! Kempster!!!

I've been a bit busy with life, but let it be noted that I am participating in Fantasy WOC with 7 other managers. The premise is simple: you draft orienteers at WOC, and your score is the sum of the places of those you draft. The person with the lowest score wins. We've been drafting four orienteers for each of the individual races (men and women) - with the top three counting, and two teams in each of the relays.

My picks:
Men's Sprint: Aleksi Niemi, Jan Petrzela, Oystein Osterbo, Vilius Aleliunas
Women's Sprint: Lina Strand, Anastasia Rudnaya, Nikoline Schjerve, Kateryna Dzema
Sprint Relay: Norway and Czech Republic

Long Men: Eskil Kinneberg, Jan Sedivy, Kenny Kivikas, Aleksey Alekseyonok
Long Women: Merja Rantanen, Anastasia Rudnaya, Adela Indrakova, Liis Johanson
Middle Men: Thierry Gueorgiou, Lauri Sild, Jan Sedivy, Jonas Gvildys
Middle Women: Tove Alexandersson, Inga Dambe, Sari Anttonen, Hanna Wisniewska

I had a rough sprint, but I have done well in the other events. I'm sitting in 2nd with 292 points behind Clem's 263. The Relay is make-or-break.

C • As it should be 2

Happy 150th, Canada!!