Discussion: USOF seeks full-time Executive Director

A Position Description has been posted on the US Orienteering Federation's website.

If you know of anyone who might fit the description, please feel free to pass along the USOF site address and/or the e-mail address of the recruiter (at the end of the article).

This seems like a great initiative from USOF, and I hope the right person for the job is found!

I am sure there has been a lot of discussion of the wording of the job description somewhere, but it's very disappointing to see USOF once again describing orienteering as "an attractive recreation choice for outdoor enthusiasts, for education, personal development and environmental awareness" and as an "activity", mentioning the word "sport" only in conjunction with (!!!) adventure racing and mentioning the competitive aspects of orienteering only as an afterthought. I realize that there are plenty of recreational orienteers out there, so maybe this is the majority opinion, but it's still upsetting to me. As far as I can tell from the job description, the goal of hiring an executive director is to swell the ranks of USOF's recreational members and, if anything, downplaying the competitive side of the sport when trying to sell its product. Please tell me if I am simply misinterpreting this, and I'll happily stand corrected.

Boris, get real. The goals of 3000 or so of USOF's 3500 members are purely recreational, so they get to call the shots. This being the case, there are certain rules and requirements a sports federation has to follow in order to retain its affiliation with the U.S. Olympic Committee, and we aren't far from a point in time in which USOF's compliance with the Ted Stevens' Olympic and Amateur Sports Act can be called into question. Section 220522 states that

An amateur sports organization is eligible to be recognized, or to continue to be recognized, as a national governing body only if it—

(1) is incorporated [...] as a not-for-profit corporation having as its purpose the advancement of amateur athletic competition; [...]

(emphasis added). USOC has powers to decertify National Governing Bodies and it is the ultimate arbiter if more than one organization claims to have the authority to be a sport's NGB. This happened, for example, with team handball in the mid-2000s. A dysfunctional federation was removed from governance of the sport by the Olympic Committee, and another organization was certified in its stead.

Affiliation with the IOF is something that would be much less controversial. I would think that the IOF would respect whoever USOC recognizes. I'm not asking for a coup d'etat or a split in the organization, I just want to get some awareness into USOF people that their circle of responsibilities is not only to the membership, but in a certain sense, to the society as a whole. There are certain things that must be followed and competition development is one of them.

I'm certain people will point me to USOF's Mission Statement, in which competition seems to be at most a third of the focus, but is at least present, almost as an afterthought. The first two items in the Statement focus squarely on recreation and education. And I'll ask: how has USOF furthered the competitive progress of orienteering in the United States in, say, the past 15 years, after WOC 1993? Where is this sense of responsibility to the greater society? Consider all the great and remarkable things that happened in U.S. orienteering since the World Champs in 1993. There weren't many. VWC 1997? in some sense, MNOC was abandoned to own devices. Permanent multiday festival? Swampfox. Relay Champs? PG's invention. Sprint Series? ditto, definitely not a USOF effort. Top 10 JWOC? an impressive result despite the lack of a consistent, centralized training program. Coaching? have funds, no takers.

End rant.

I usually stay refrained from sharply criticizing USOF, since I consider myself as a part of USOF, but this document is so bad, that I cannot help it anymore.
The amazing thing about our board of directors is that every individually taken person is absolutely normal, when you get to talk to them, but when they get together, and start working as a collective mind something bad happens, these great individuals become this 'paper producing monster', that is so far from orienteering reality and our every day club life that is not funny.
Here we have a great idea, that came around, and this collective stupor produces a paper that normal human being, while reading it, must realize: it is a position for an idiot who has to be a business genius and willing to work for nothing. Good luck.
The person, described as a potential candidate, possessing all those skills, usually has 6-7 figures salary in the corporate world. Or, you think, that this recession will put on the street all those CEOs, that we will be able to get a dozen for a dime. I would not want any of those to run USOF.
Nowhere in the document has it said that the person has to have simple love for the sport, passion which drives us to excel!
I understand, it is a first step in this direction, but my dear friends from the Board, are trying to hit a hole in one, standing ona tee at par 5, while holding a putter for first time in their lifetime.
Get a grip of reality. I would have a description of the job in 5 short simple sentences:
Must have a passion for what he/she is about to embark upon;
Must have a vision of developing the sport of orienteering in the country (not necessarily approved by the Divine Board); must strive to implement that vision.
Must be a leader.
Must understand the realities of club structure of USOF, and work hard to improve it:'Stronger clubs means stronger USOF';
Must seek and find sponsorship on all levels (not just for USOF, if a club or even individual athlete get a real sponsor or government support that will be a great step forward at this point).
In reality you have money for 1.5 yr position, and you wrote a document for a lifetime commitment.

And to add: so why would USOF, an organization focused primarily on recreation and education, need the U.S. Olympic Committee anyway? What good has come USOF's way from Colorado Springs? Not much in the past 15 years. A recreational/educational 501(c)(3) probably does not benefit much if at all from a continued relationship. So maybe the above post is mostly moot.

Greg's rant is really quiet lovely! I have to give it high marks.

I share the inclinations of my dear naturalized American friends who were first to comment on this proposal. I, too, want USOF to represent me as a competitive orienteer, and to represent more competitive orienteers when I am further into my dotage. And not only that--like Boris, I want USOF to develop competitive orienteers.

As Vlad noted (sagely, as with all his other observations) most USOF people could not care less about competition, and some may even find "sport" anathema. Who knows if it is 500/3,500, or even 2,000/3,500? What is clear is that USOF is a Big Tent, with diverse values, mores, and proclivities.

So, what can an E.D. do? I personally fervently hope that this office will strengthen Orienteering in the USA, which is what (I think) this proposal is aimed at and what the USOF BOD wants as well. Now, I am not the most pragmatic person; indeed, I often feel inclined to be crucified on the cross of my idealism, but somehow, IMO, strengthening USOF seems congruent with my ideals.

Granted, a stronger USOF may decide to force every man, woman, and child to do TrailO from morning to night, and God forbid, may institute National MicrObe Day. Who knows. I hope not. However, I am inclined to think a stronger USOF will help all of us, and I do not have a problem getting behind that.

And if this is the language and formulation necessary to have this proposal get off the ground, so be it.

Finally, that really was a great rant Greg. I am afraid to touch it.

I suspect the problem is rooted in the decision to use an executive search firm. Such an entity has no clue about why people orienteer -- and will probably recommend similar candidates. My two word suggestion to get this effort pointed in the right direction: Ditch 'em!!

I posted the pos. desc at the request of the hiring committee, so let me defend them a little bit, from my understanding of the process.

The goal of hiring an ED is to increase membership/competition, by finding someone who can do the national fundraising and public relations that we sorely lack at this time. Jon Nash, an able and extraordinary PR person, backed off from that role a while back, and US orienteering is stagnating. USOF's website and ONA can only do so much.

I believe the hiring committee and the board based their thoughts about the responsibilities of a salaried ED on results of similar recreational entities (in size/budget to USOF) who have hired full-time staff to promote them, and seen marked increases in participation in and knowledge about that entity's existence and goals. I may be wrong.

I think this is a better approach than debating things endlessly on AP, as sometimes happens. :-) Though debate has its place -- that's what the committee was for. If you didn't serve, can you now complain about the result?

At least they're going forward with an idea. Whether it works or not is to be seen.

Thanks Janet. My post was certainly not in disapproval of the idea of a professional Execituve Director. I support the idea wholeheartedly. I will still support it, albeit less enthusiastically, even if the ED were to only cater to the recreation and education parts of the Mission, as this is certain to at least increase the revenue, and I have at least some hopes the recreation-and-education majority would let the competitive crowd enjoy at least a nominal share of the spoils. I will support the position, although this support can then be best described as lukewarm, if the ED were to be a non-orienteer who could care less about the sport itself.

My post was to point out the general loss of focus in USOF that followed the 1993 World Orienteering Championships. The stagnant numbers just might have something to do with this loss.

In looking at the math associated with this initiative, I do not believe it will be successful without a large base of "recreational" orienteers to support it. So like that or not, I think that is necessary, at least in the initial period (which I would define as 3-5 years).

But we'll see; WDIK? We can look at the numbers again in 3-5 years. I'm not sure how to quantify the recreational/competitive breakdown in the orienteering base (not "USOF base" as a non-trivial portion of recurring support may come from non-USOF member starts). FWIW, I consider myself a "recreational" orienteer, tho I suppose there are many people who are "more recreational" (if there is such a concept), than myself. So I'm not sure what this whole recreational thing means and why it matters.

A more interesting way to look at this is metrics for success for the initiative. I know I have my own ideas of how those metrics should go. In talking to a couple of board members about this, it seemed there would be metrics, but it was not clear to me what they would be specifically, or whether they would be quantatitive/qualitative, subjective/objective, whatever. Obvioiusly, those closer to the process probably know.

So, will success be measured by start growth, membership growth, revenue growth outside of starts and memberships, or competitive international results, or some blend? I think these are reasonable ways to do it, and none of them really care about "recreational", per say.

Perhaps this has all been decided, and published in recent stuff that has come out (which I'll admit I have not read). If not, USOF members who care should probably ask their representation to try to impose metrics along the lines they care about (any of the growth factors above), because, after all, they will be paying the bills, at least until (when and if), the initiative becomes self-supporting.

I think there is some significant under-estimation of the number of "competitive" orienteers in this community, and perhaps the USOF post if I'm reading it's summaries right. Who hasn't seen an orienteer who walks most the course, but then hustles down the finish chute, walking or running, at a speed much faster than they'd otherwise move? And how many rivalries are very much alive mid-way down the ranking lists?

I think most orienteers are competitive at least for part of their orienteering race, at whatever level they compete, and that's part of the fun of getting out here. There's a lot of room for common ground improvement here between the 'fast' competitive orienteers and the rest of the recreationaly-competitive orienteers.

For those who have information, please find a pure recreational activity that has sponsors. As far as I understand sponsorship, it supports competition, not recreational activity.
to Janet and to all on ED committee: if you design a new aircraft and you think it is great, but then somebody points that there is a flop and it will never fly - it is time to go back to drawing boards before all the money go waste in production of born dead idea. I am for a pro in charge of USOF, but the way it is worded in that document it will never work. The goals have to be narrowed and job description has to become not idealistic but realistic.

One more note: John Nash was one of the rare people in our sport who had right education - sports marketing. John offered to USOF BOD his services, but required financial compensation. From what I heard: board declined, reasoning that no one gets compensated in USOF for volunteer work, any we are an amateur sport and not looking to become professionalized (commercialized?). (anybody, who has better and more precise information on this, please correct me). Historically - big mistake, 15 years ago it would lay a way to things we are trying to get started now.

Analogy to a comment Obama had in his inaugural address: "The question...is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works." For USOF, maybe the question is..."not whether USOF is too recreational or too competitive...but whether it is growing our sport."

Greg, I'm not on the committee, just the messenger.

Maybe the ED description was written with Jon in mind? Who knows (not me)?

Those who think there are major problems with the pos. desc. should contact the committee via the USOF board, not ramble on here.

I'm one of those recreational-competitve orienteers. I'm not built to be a champion, but I do have a competitive streak, and have been working to improve what I can. That's why I keep coming back to A-meets, and supporting the sport with annual donations in addition to my membership fee.

Some of us tried to contact the Committee via the USOF Board, and were rudely told to keep opinions to ourselves, to put it mildly. This is not to fault the Committee, but the specitic person on the Board who seemed to be the best conduit at the time.

I think telling people to stop rambling on is not a great way to solve problems on an open forum. People are entitled to their opinions and, if I were on the ED selection committee, I would go out of my way to seek out the opinions of those few who actually care about the development of orienteering, both competitive and recreational, in the US. Alienating part of your base of support does not seem to me a very wise way to get this ED project to a flying start.
I am not on the selection committee (was there an open call for members? If so, I am sad I missed it. If not, then none of can be accused of complaining about the results without having served.) Who was/is on the committee, out of curiosity?

You're right, Boris; I shouldn't tell people to stop debating. I apologize for that. There are always many sides to every issue.

I don't think the intent of this Position Description was to alienate the "base of support." If that was the impression you received from my comments, I apologize again; that's not how they were intended.

Anyone can be a lurker on the Board net, though you can only comment through a board member. I keep a little better informed by listening in to their messages. I suspect most would pass along other points of view on topics discussed there (though that apparently wasn't Vlad's case).

As to who's involved and when they started, the Task Force for seeking profession staff was apparently formed last May (see May board meeting minutes). It looks like it was largely Board members who attended that meeting, and thus formed the committee.

Minutes of ALL the board meetings are always available in the Virtual Binder, specifically here, within a few weeks after the meeting, and the schedule of meetings is also always available in the VB. It would be nice to have a more timely summary available for those who can't attend meetings and don't want to sift through the minutes, but that's not the case. The May meeting minutes talk about the task force, which is presumably the committee that formulated the position description. I don't know if they're also the hiring committee or not.

The VB will eventually move to the USOF site and have different web links, but Robin's site will direct you there once that's been accomplished.

I need to add here, the previous board secretary did an excellent job of providing summaries to ONA and the website. Thank you.

If you read anything on the USOF site about the Capital Campaign last fall, it stated the hiring committee was approved at the October Board meeting, so review those minutes for clarification.

The information is there. It's available, it's just not always noticed.

Thanks for the info, Janet. It's nice having the minutes of the Board meetings available on the web.

Ideas and suggestions about this are always welcome, and will be encouraged in the future as they have been in the past. In fact, that's exactly how the consensus behind this has developed.

The discussion probably had it's most public start almost 1 year ago, when at the February 2008 USOF Board meeting a large donation was offered to help support a transition to professional staff for USOF if basically (1) it was matched by USOF, and (2) USOF committed to the initiative within 1 year.

Among some of the more obvious calls for input are the following:

On 04-29-08, an announcement was made on USOFClubnet discussing the idea and calling for input and people to participate.

On AP, the discussion was started 05-29-08 by Cristina, a USOF BOD member, via this thread, which also includes a later link by PG to the Transition report released in August 2008.

In O/NA, it's been prominently discussed in articles in the 2008 Aug/Sept, October, and Nov/Dec issues.

As for the USOF Committees: the Staff Task Force kicked things off last year, composed of Gary Kraght, Greg Lennon, Cristina Luis, Stephanie Martineau, Mike Minium, Robin Shannonhouse, Lisa Carr, and Gale Teschendorf.

The Hiring Committee consists of 3 Board members (Lisa Carr, Donna Fluegel, and Greg Lennon) and 2 non-Board members (Phil Martineau and Clem McGrath), the latter of whom got involved at least in part thanks to the ongoing AP discussions about this initiative. Clare Durand (as USOF President) is also integrally involved in both Committees.

Not surprisingly, the initiative has been discussed at every USOF Board meeting over the last 11 months and at the 2008 AGM.

Is everyone of one mind about all aspects of this? Of course not. We're forging ahead through consensus, so it's always important for us to solicit not just constructive advice but also the serious commitment of time it takes to serve on these committees. There will still be as much volunteer effort needed as ever after this future ED is hired, both for the sake of ongoing (and new) programs as well as to ensure that he or she does the best job possible, so stay tuned and stay involved!

For those who have information, please find a pure recreational activity that has sponsors. As far as I understand sponsorship, it supports competition, not recreational activity.

Amatuer radio, car clubs, garden clubs, Knights of Columbus... You can find sponsorship for just about anything. There are basically three ways to gain sponsorship:

1) Convince the sponsor that they can milk it for PR. The United Way is the undisputed master of this strategy. Companies want to do well in the UW campaign so they can plaster that fact all over their own advertising. This, obviously will not work for orienteering since no disinterested party gives a crap if a company sponsors USOF.

2) Convince the sponsor that the organization/event receives enough publicity to the sponsor's target market that the sponsorship essentially represents an ad buy. Price accordingly. I would not expect to get very far with this line, either.

3) Convince the sponsor that the actual participants in the organization are so tightly aligned with the sponsor's target market that the sponsorship essentially represents an ad buy. Price accordingly. I don't see this one going too much further than it's already been taken. We simplly don't have the numbers.

Furthermore, unlike the Corvette Club, which can honestly tell a sponsor that at least a few of their members have cash to burn, it would be pretty hard to convince anybody that the crowd standing around the refreshment table in their 10-year-old torn O-suits represents an attractive market segment. I'm not saying this to be insulting, just pointing out a reality: we don't come off as ideal consumers and that impression is largely correct.

If sponsorship is the goal (I'm not sure why it should be, but more on that in a minute), then broadening the recreational base to improve option 3 is probably the only way to get it.

However, there is another option: screw sponsorship; pay for it ourselves. If a meet can't be run on $22/day, charge more. Our event fees are tiny fractions of what most amatuer sports charge. You're worried that families can't afford it? Have you looked at the price for youth soccer lately? It hasn't slowed that sport down any.

I'd much rather have our ED looking into how to make the sport BETTER rather than how to make it more attractive to sponsors. I have no problem with a big part of that being developing recreational activities as I think the clubs are doing a reasonable job of putting on meets with the help they currently get. What I hate to see is so much talk and energy being devoted to this chasing of sponsor dollars that do not and most likely never will exist.

Never will exist? Luge has more sponsors than orienteering with 1/100th of the participants. End proof.

The problem with putting recreational ahead of competitive is that by definition, a recreational attitude is less serious than a competitive one, and more forgiving of suboptimal ways of doing things. I say this as a recreational orienteer (other sports I do, I do more seriously). This attitude permeates USOF on all levels, organization-wise, and the results are quite indicative; one of the main arguments of having the ED as a contractor instead of an employee was "so that our accountant wouldn't have to deal with figuring out the taxes" (later that argument was wrapped into some more sensible concerns). The same attitude persists in most aspects of the organization's functioning. Examples? Coaching, insistence on shoestring budgets, "growth" programs targeted at dredging the pool for similar-lookalikes. Why did adventure racing grow without any such growth programs? Its competitivness just might have something to do with it.

Youth soccer made it this far because kids and, more importantly, parents are fiercely competitive.

Never will exist? Luge has more sponsors than orienteering with 1/100th of the participants. End proof.

A sponsor of the US Luge Team get's to put those five little rings on their package. That's the strategy 1 sponsorship route and it's not open to us. All you've proven is that being an Olympic sport opens up sponsorship opportunities. I think we all knew that.

ebuckley: Furthermore, unlike the Corvette Club, which can honestly tell a sponsor that at least a few of their members have cash to burn, . . . : we don't come off as ideal consumers and that impression is largely correct.

According to the 2007 USOF survey, 57% of USOF members who took the survey make $70,000 or more (42% make over $100,000). Corvette owners just dress nicer while they are participating in their "sport."

...57% of USOF members who took the survey make $70,000 or more (42% make over $100,000)

Which makes it all the more disconcerting that the sport's culture expects hard-working volunteer event organizers to take it seriously if people complain about a $12 entry fee being increased to $15. Ebuckley is absolutely right: no sponsor who is familiar with the sport would look at us as ideal consumers, even though the demographic information looks positive. One of the reasons adventure racing grew (for awhile) was that many adventure racers spend hundreds of dollars on clothing and gear for AR every year.

I bet those lugers just snap up this sponsor's products:
http://www.nortonabrasives.com/..
..and everyone needs some of this:
https://www.allianzlife.com/
This company COULD get a lot of business from us I bet:
http://www.jetblue.com/
I think we would be super advertisers of this product:
http://www.stickwithhenkel.com/
I know I can always use more of these:
http://www.tekosocks.com/
USA LUGE has 24! sponsors. One must ask the questions, How? Why!
Look them over, http://www.usaluge.org/sponsors.php ,
and read about their sponsorship. Many of them talk about being associated with a sport which has dedicated individuals and high ideals.

Are we looking for outright money from sponsors, or just their products? Product is not too hard to get from my experience. A pair of $100 shoes do not cost the company much at all. What they want is exposure to customers, and a way of getting a sheen from the sport.

I think a bigger and a better question that should be asked first, is:
What are we going to do with sponsorship money?
What are our goals? Then make a plan. Then you go looking for money and workers to implement the plan....

Not too different than an athlete training for the WOC, eh?

I can imagine recreational lugers driving that sport right out of all their sponsorships, but that is not going to happen

Dear USOF Board of Directors: time for change has come: orienteering is NOT A RECREATIONAL ACTIVITY, it never was. It is a competitive sport. Period. Hiking with map in the hand is recreational activity, but it is not orienteering. Until this mission statement exists we will never get ahead. The simplified and ultimate goal of orienteering is to get from point A to point B in shortest time possible. The minute we say it, it becomes competition (remember words: shortest TIME possible). If we are a recreational activity, forget about national rankings, A-meets, timing systems (SI, etc.). Ladies and gentlemen you are lost, long time ago.

As for the mission of USOF, every sport site I have visited has a statement such as this from the US CURLING Association:

"As the national governing body for the sport of curling, the USCA strives to grow the sport and to win medals in world championships and Olympic Games."

They do not just talk about competition, but winning medals.

Greg, Was something lost in translation?

Who needs those 5 gold rings to lure sponsors anyway, we should join this organization:
http://non-olympic.org/

And just look at your budget - most of your income comes from competitions, not from recreational activities.

danf>>Extremely well said. I could not agree more, and I am sure there are plenty others on attackpoint who share this sentiment. I think local clubs would benefit greatly in the long run by replacing half the local events with training days or, better yet, adding training days and evenings to the existing schedule of local events.

Perhaps there are not two groups, but three-

1) elites (of all ages), who would place high at a national champs and think about international competition, maybe 5%(?)

2) competitors (of all skill levels), who participate frequently and would like to improve (65%?)

3) recreational, occasional participants (30%?)

There is no inherent reason for conflict among these groups; they can support each other. One of the greatest things about orienteering is group 3 people get to interact with group 1 people. That doesn't happen in other sports. But resources must be allocated.

Most meets focus on the middle group, which is the largest.

I would paraphrase much of this thread as suggestions that

A) more focus should be placed on group 1

B) more effort should be made to move people from group 2 to group 1, and perhaps from group 3 to group 2

Is this a fair summary?

danf>>Extremely well said.

Yes, I agree. danf for president! :-)

By the way, for my club (Cascade OC in Seattle, WA), the numbers of group 1, 2, and 3 participants are something like 2%, 35%, and 63%. (Terry Farrah just did an analysis of our 2008 participation patterns, which I hope to post more about soon.)

Eric - I assume that % breakdown is based on unique participants. Please do also break it down by % of total starts and % of total entry fee revenue. I'm curious, leaving aside the fact that group 2 people have to come from somewhere, as to how significant group 3 is financially under whatever member vs non-member fee structure COC uses.

danf writes << I wonder if an oil company might be a good sponsor >>

Mobil was a sponsor of WOC ' 93. I am not sure if they were an IOF sponsor at the time or a direct sponsor just of WOC. But, I am digressing from the main topic of this thread, so I'll stop there.

A certain member high up in the USOF heirarchy also worked high up in the Mobil heirarchy. A one-time sponsorship, USOF only.

Quote from a bay area hiker/blogger and first time orienteer - "If you?re not competitive by nature, stick to hiking. Orienteering is a race, the point of which is to either a) win outright; b) finish higher than you did last time; or c) best somebody you find really annoying. Not playing to win is sort of like going to the horse races and not betting."

It's a pretty positive article but was generally approaching it in ways that one might typically ascribe to 'recreational.'

the rest of the article: http://www.tommangan.net/twoheeldrive/index.php/20...

Just curious from afar. Are you going from NO employed manager or DE to a full-time one, or have you already started down the track with a part-timer and are essentially increasing the hours?

Our current ED is a volunteer, but has received an "office allowance" She originally took on the job of record keeping for membership and finances, but over the years, anything that no volunteer or committee will do has been shunted her way. She is essentially working full-time as a volunteer, and there are many things (such as marketing or promotion efforts) that she is unable to do. The last couple years, we have employed a part-time national coach as well. But essentially USOF has been an all-volunteer organization, and has had no growth in individual or club membership or sponsorship in the last couple decades. There has been a modest increase in number of days of events and number of starts.
Our current ED is willing to continue in the record-keeping role she originally signed up for, which means a new professional ED will be able to focus more on marketing and growth of the organization and the sport. And yes, that includes competitive development. The USOF mission statement is weak on competition, but in reality, competitive development is critical to driving growth.

The USOF mission statement is weak on competition

I would be quite happy if USOF were able to "improve the competitive performance of US orienteering athletes to world-class levels." For that matter, I think it would be wonderful for USOF to make significant progress on any of the three goals in its mission statement, because I think it would likely bring progress on the other two.

Much of what is being said here has also been discussed within the Board. For many years it was a specific goal of USOF to simply increase participation. The theory was that if more people orienteered recreationally, some would become more competitive and we would grow at all levels. About four years ago, we sat down and agreed that this just hadn't panned out and we needed to try something different. Thus, the current USOF focus on Junior training and competitive development. We've spent the last few years encouraging clubs to build Junior programs that are specifically focused on the SPORT of orienteering. We hope that in the long-term this will lead to a stronger volunteer base and improved elite performance. But changes like this take time. All of the people currently being targeted are still in their teens.

I also want to point out that aside from providing the most basic services necessary to maintain clubs and memberships, almost all of USOF's available funding is spent on competition. It isn't nearly as much as we might like, but we hope that an ED will help us to increase our funding.

That actually has been an action item (I think on myself and Donna Fluegel) which fell by the wayside as the Executive Director thing got so busy. I'll try to get it worked on.

...57% of USOF members who took the survey make $70,000 or more (42% make over $100,000)

Which makes it all the more disconcerting that the sport's culture expects hard-working volunteer event organizers to take it seriously if people complain about a $12 entry fee being increased to $15.

It seems unlikely that the people making those salaries are the ones complaining. I'm not sure which is more offensive, the affont to logic, or the affont to sensitivity.

Anyway, only 25% of the US population at large make those salaries (and that is data from a boom year (references on my blog)). And I thought the idea was to grow outside the (apparently affluent) base. Heck, even the NFL, who has a product with reportedly tremendous inelastic demand, has decided to lower prices (for the first time in recorded memory, AFAIK) for its product during this (and the data now confirm) deep recession. But the people who run orienteering are smarter than the people who run the NFL. (Where is that CAGR chart of orienteering consumption vs NFL consumption since 1967 when you need it)? Nevermind.

The people who are complaining about price increases during a deep recession are not doing so because they wish to offend volunteers or anyone else who might read this, it is because they think it is a bad idea. If they didn't care, they wouldn't post.

It seems unlikely that the people making those salaries are the ones complaining. I'm not sure which is more offensive, the affont to logic, or the affont to sensitivity.

Au contraire, what is offensive is that people in that demographic have definitely been among the ones complaining to and shortchanging my clubs. Apparently things are different where you live, but in my experience it has almost always been about the principle and tradition of not spending very much money - and of undervaluing volunteer time. It has had little to do with an actual inability to pay the cost. And when I say "cost", that's exactly what I mean. With rising venue fees, insurance, refreshments, map printing, SI, etc., it's hard to make money on a $15 meet around here. And that's with volunteers absorbing some significant costs personally, rather than asking to be reimbursed.

Having said that, I think it's great if people who can afford it choose, as a charitable endeavour, to subsidize people who legitimately would not otherwise have the means to orienteer.

Au contraire, what is offensive is that people in that demographic have definitely been among the ones complaining to and shortchanging my clubs.

That's possible, and I would find that offensive as well, perhaps. It just seemed unlikely. I would think people in that demographic would find $15 trivial, and not bat an eye about it. much less complain about it.

With rising venue fees, insurance, refreshments, map printing, SI, etc., it's hard to make money on a $15 meet around here.

I can't speak to all of these issues, but part of what I do for a living involves analyzing the insurance business. At least in my universe, insurance costs are decreasing. Moreover, and I am not an expert on this by any means, but it is my understanding that LIDAR and other technologies are lowering the input costs of producing the product as well. (I'm not going to go into other deflation in the chain such as lower commodity prices, which ultimately should lead to lower end prices).

it's hard to make money on a $15 meet around here

And why does money need to be made anyway? I thought this was basically a non-profit enterprise? When I see some of the outragious balances reported, it just makes me wonder about the whole thing.

But I'm sure I, and most of orienteering, have a different frame of reference on all this stuff, so I should just fade away. If I go away, and two people join because of higher prices, orienteering has made a profit, and that is the goal, isn't it?

One of my clubs will have 3 figures in the bank after our debts are paid - that's my "frame of reference". If some of us weren't willing to pay for stuff from our own pockets, the club couldn't exist.

Amongst other things, our events need to generate cash to:
- replace equipment that gets lost, broken and worn out
- buy and update legal copies of software
- pay affiliation fees to provincial and national associations (over and above participation-based fees, which count as event costs)

This club doesn't own a single map, and I doubt we will ever be able to afford one. But for larger clubs, the profit generated from races is needed for mapping projects, youth events, promotion and other such endeavours. Yes, the sport is non-profit - but it's OK to invest money back into other non-profit ventures.

We were talking about the apparent difference between the Ontario way of financing O'clubs and the US way.
As I understand it, you do not charge entry fees for club members. So you are financing the club solely through memberships. This is like having an open bar in my opinion. When running a meet, much of the costs are incremental. It costs 50cents to print a map, 50 cents per person for cookies. The rest is fixed overhead. Do you have to pay a lot to get permits? Permits are zero to maybe $20 in this area.
So for a typical local meet, we charge $5 per person. If we get 50 people, then we make $250 and spend maybe $30 for maps and $10 for food.
I guess if you have to rent a map you might pay 50cents per copy?

As for owning maps, virtually all of ours were made by volunteers before 1995. Most of our maps since then were by hired mappers for maps for A meets. Updating has been done sporadically by volunteers, and paid for complete updates.

For the Blue Hills Traverse, we get about 60 entries at $18 per. We have T shirts (about $6 each?) and lots of food, and a permit costing $17. We make about $600 on that, plus another $300 for the Rec meet (Beginner and intermediate course, plus a Green) which is at the same time and place.

I think you get more money out of people if you charge per meet. For example, in NEOC we charge $15 for membership (electronic newsletter) and $5 per meet entry. So, over a year of 10 meets, we get $65 from that person. If we charged $65 for a year membership, would they join?
We pay the federation $3 I think, so profit $12 on the membership.

I realize you may all feel overworked at this point, but making maps is easier these days, and I sure remember running on B/W USGS maps 25 years ago. Certainly a sprint map can be done fairly easily with municipal maps these days which have accurate contours, roads and buildings. If you could get a few cheap maps, then running sprints is almost pure profit.

This should be on another thread me thinks..........

Agreed - wrong thread. I think the different models make it difficult for us to learn from one another, but since you took the time to write such a thoughtful post, I'll address it briefly in the other thread.