A few thoughts of mine on some current challenges in US orienteering:
- The decline of national meet attendance and production, with emphasis on championships. We only have a National Championship meet due to some scrambling and a late OCIN bid; there isn't a national championship currently planned for 2019.
- Lack of organization on the OUSA Board. We have a lot of vision, but we haven't devised a strategy or plan of execution. Part of the immediate problem is getting organized with documentation and project management tools. The organization is also still very opaque, especially to the community.
- While the US senior and junior teams continue to improve, highlighted by the BK and FC cup victories, we still suffer from lack of unity of team. Especially among the seniors, everyone is training in isolation. We need more training camps and opportunities to come together.
- While OUSA's club offerings continue to improve, many clubs are not receiving levels of support and resources that the federation could provide if its ducks were in order. These specifically include technical support (databases, web services, website integration), publicity guidance, opportunities to interface with other organizations, and additional exposure.
- Membership growth - right now, OUSA doesn't offer enough value to the typical US orienteer to be attractive to a majority of community members.
- Youth growth and strategy - increasing the visibility of orienteering to young people is paramount.
- Communication and a clear strategy for the direction of the federation. Who even knows what we're doing right now?
Solutions (sort of spitballing, but I want to make some SMART goals out of this):
- On national meets: rather than waiting for clubs to sign up, recruit them. Perhaps we do some sort of regional rotation - divide the country into ~5 sections, rotate the national champs among them. A more supervised calendar rather than a laissez faire one can also ensure that all regions have some competitions every year, which might help increase attendance. We could also try to encourage multi-event festivals like Laramie or like the 2018 NAOC, with more than 3 races in a period longer than a few days, say from 2 or more clubs coordinating.
- OUSA needs (1) a wiki and (2) a project management tool like basecamp or Asana. Ideally, most of the projects would be completely public so people could sync up and get involved. This is a pet project of mine; basecamp is looking like a leading contender.
- I would really like to see a series of national team training camps - say one on each coast twice per year. The camps would ideally be partially funded to reduce cost to the team members, perhaps centered around national events. Juniors and seniors could use the same infrastructure but train separately much of the time. I certainly progressed dramatically during formal US team events or club training camps. The cost probably wouldn't be prohibitive. Need to talk to Schirm and GSwede.
- OUSA needs a coherent club support program, with dedicated efforts to add components to it. Bob Forgrave did a great job assembling best practices into the club handbook; we need a central club support area on the OUSA website regularly populated with articles, videos for training, funding opportunities, and OUSA-researched avenues for collaboration with other entities like park services and educational programs.
- Membership growth is an open problem; some of our technology offerings may help increase the appeal of joining the federation. A longer term strategic plan might also help motivate enthusiasm.
- Youth development: execute Barb's grand plan.
- Communication: communicate with member clubs. Routinely check in with clubs, and listen to them. The OUSA board can too easily become disconnected from the concerns and interests of the membership.
Agenda for the next year:
- Build a wiki and set up a project management tool to help organize the Board.
- Set up a strategic plan with objectives for club development/support, youth programming, elite development, competitions and events, and member engagement.
- Select a small number of achievable goals and throw the energy of the federation at those objectives.