Discussion: Calling all US juniors, coaches, parents! (2012 IS & IC survey)

Cascade OC is preparing a bid for the 2012 Interscholastic & Intercollegiate Champs, and we'd like to get some input from the orienteers who will be the focus of the event: the kids!

Even if you won't be eligible in 2012, if you've recently competed at IS or IC Champs, your responses will be useful. Also, if you've been involved with an IS or IC Champs event from the meet direction and planning sides of things, feel free to share your thoughts and experiences on this thread, too.

Participation
1) Have you competed in a previous IS or IC championship (as a student-athlete)?

2) Will you be eligible to compete in spring of 2012?

3) Are you a member of a school-based orienteering team?

4) How likely are you and your team to travel to Washington State for an event? (0 = not at all, 5 = for sure)

Scheduling
5) When is your spring break? (2011 dates are fine, since 2012 dates are not generally available yet)

6) Would you be more or less likely to attend if the event was held during your spring break?

7) Would you be able to attend festivities (eg: sprint race, opening ceremonies) on a Friday afternoon/evening?

8) Would you rather have Sprint, Middle, and Long races held over three days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), or condensed into two (eg: Sprint and Middle on Saturday, Long on Sunday)?

Terrain
9) How important is terrain variety to you? (ie: types of terrain used for the 3 races) (0 = not at all, 5 = top of my list)

10) How important is terrain complexity to you? (0 = not at all, 5 = top of my list)

Social
11) How important is the social atmosphere to you? (eg: an "athletes' village" for food & lodging, mixers and bonus events to meet other young orienteers) (0 = not at all, 5 = top of my list)

12) If a social atmosphere is important to you, are there any particular things you'd like to see? (eg: things from previous events you've attended, things you've heard about. they don't have to be orienteering specific.)

13) What mainstream social media, if any, do you use? (eg: Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla)

14) Would you be interested if our event used social media for promotion and information?

As a coach, I have concerns about the event being on the west coast two years in a row. I know that Cascade has an incredible junior program and it would be great to have the IS in your area. And I know that you have spent a lot of money and effort bringing teams east in the past, and that even next year's California meet will be a long and expensive trip for you. But speaking as a coach in the midwest, I know that it will be quite difficult and expensive to get students to travel that far two years in a row. I am sure that many other coaches in the east and central parts of the country will share that concern. Could I suggest the possibility of a 2013 bid with the event returning east in 2012?

Thanks for the feedback, Mike.

There are two reasons why I'd like to host IS + IC Champs, specifically in 2012. One is that our superstar WIOL alumni (Holly, Tori, etc) will be college seniors, and it would be nice to have an IC Champs back home for them, which would inspire the current crop of IS kids to continue orienteering in college.

The other reason is that I can't commit to serving in 2013 as event director, and I'm not sure that we've got anyone else willing to direct it. So if it doesn't happen in 2012, an IS champs (hosted by us) may not happen at all.

The timing of the BAOC bid was unfortunate, as I've had the 2012 vision for about a year now. Two consecutive west coast events is certainly an inconvenience to some. Though, it worked the other way around for me. After beginning orienteering and moving to Seattle, the first two US Champs were in Oregon (2005) and Colorado (2006), which were really nice motivators to keep me involved in the sport.

Yep.

Submit the bid and make it good. In it's 38 year history, Intercollegiate Champs has been held west of the Rockies a grand total of 1 time.

As long as the courses are in interesting terrain, with challenging and diverse route choice I could care less where it was in the US. I understand that people have to think about traveling costs but we have so many great places and different terrain and I feel that US orienteering would get so much better if we all exposed ourselves to different terrain more often.

Answering as parent and possible coach. First of all, want to say that just putting this survey out has got me thinking about building a team, so that is a good thing!

Participation Questions 1-3
I am not a competitor, but hope to develop a few who would be on a school-based orienteering team, and eligible to compete in 2012.
As to traveling to Washington state, the only way we could do this is by planning way ahead and raising money for the team.

Scheduling
5) When is your spring break? (2011 dates are fine, since 2012 dates are not generally available yet) 3rd week of April: 18th - 22nd in 2011.

6) Would you be more or less likely to attend if the event was held during your spring break? More

7) Would you be able to attend festivities (eg: sprint race, opening ceremonies) on a Friday afternoon/evening? Only if Friday is not a school day.

8) Would you rather have Sprint, Middle, and Long races held over three days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), or condensed into two (eg: Sprint and Middle on Saturday, Long on Sunday)? Because of the travel we'd have to do from the east coast, condensed might be better. Again, depends whether Friday is on a school day. If you run it the first weekend of the break, then you could use the Monday.

Terrain
9) How important is terrain variety to you? (ie: types of terrain used for the 3 races) (0 = not at all, 5 = top of my list) 1

10) How important is terrain complexity to you? (0 = not at all, 5 = top of my list) 1

Social
11) How important is the social atmosphere to you? (eg: an "athletes' village" for food & lodging, mixers and bonus events to meet other young orienteers) (0 = not at all, 5 = top of my list) 4

12) If a social atmosphere is important to you, are there any particular things you'd like to see? (eg: things from previous events you've attended, things you've heard about. they don't have to be orienteering specific.) any opportunity for kids to spend time together, preferably organized so that they could interact and have fun. Capture the flag...

13) What mainstream social media, if any, do you use? (eg: Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla) The first two.

14) Would you be interested if our event used social media for promotion and information? yes

Having worked with the juniors for many years and also a resident of the east coast I have a few things to offer out that might or might not help you.

1) With the changes in the way the Junior Team budget is being handled by the board, there is and will be a great deal of fundraising going on for the regular junior team activities, so for school teams to also fundraise for themselves could be overwhelming though the teams will have the right to fundraise as they see necessay for their team.

2) Spring break can mean a lot of different things to each school area. In eastern PA some schools give off a whole week with Easter and other only give off wed to sunday. There is no set standard even within the state. Also if the school district has to many snow days to make up the first place they take the replacement days is the Easter/spring break week. So this could be a problem for some of the east coast teams. Also traveling over a holiday week/weekend will most likely mean higher airfare.

3) Social is a BIG part of the junior lifestyle. The more the better for them.

4) Costs - it would be extremely helpful to the eastern teams if you can offer a lodging/food plan that is very very reasonable. This will help with the cost and also would be easier on them for planning purposes.

Hope this is helpful to you.

BAOC bid for and was awarded the interscholastics this coming April. That would be two years in a row west of the rockies. This may be good and may be bad. There also has been some discussion, in the very, very early stages, of having the intercollegiates at the same meet.

Based on previous meet director experience, I would not encourage a club to try running the Interscholastics and Intercollegiates at the same meet unless you feel your club can run two simultaneous A meets. The special rules for calculating results & all the special awards for each of these events mean that timing and results calculation are very complex. I would at a minimum plan on two separate timing and results crews that could each focus on the specific idiosyncracies of each event. Also, since Interscholastics draws such large numbers, combining it with other events should probably be avoided in any parks that want to limit / restrict participant numbers.

This idea of combining IS and IC has been proposed before. It sounds like a great idea for the kids, but beware of the logistical complexities! I don't want to throw too big a damper on the idea, but having done it once a number of years ago, I can tell you that I would not encourage my own club to repeat the experience.

I think it is fair to generalize that the southern clubs have been the #1 driving force behind the recent success of the Interscholastics event, (with a secondary nod to Northwest.). I don't see them represented among the posters on this thread, or AP in general. I won't pretend to represent their interests, but I would hope that their opinion(s) is (are) actively solicited. If there is a concensus opinion from the South, I would hope it would be the leading factor in decision making on this issue. They deserve it, and it is simply good O-business, for the future of this event, and Junior developement in general.

Thanks to everyone who has responded to me on AP, Facebook, or Clubnet. Reading the responses has been helpful and fun so far. But I'd like to get more.

EricW suggests that I solicit responses from the southern clubs. I haven't heard from anyone south of Kansas City and North Carolina yet, so I'd like to know which clubs/individuals I should target (NTOA and GAOC?).

Also, I know that other local IS leagues exist around the country (OCIN, BAOC, others?). So far, I've only heard from Mike. I'd like to hear from some others, as well.

Also, IC is in the mix, and I know that West Point will have a team. I haven't heard from them, either, but at least I know who to contact.

Thanks!

Sorry, the person designated to respond for WP is rather buried in school work. She will get it to you soon.

Schoolwork? What the heck sort of a team are you running at that place, Cadet Laughlin? ;-)

@kupackman, John Hensley Williams can probably help you get in touch with the right people for IS in the south - I think he's GAOC? He started college this year, so he may have input for IC as well.

No worries, Jordan, I'm not worried about you guys since you're on AP. It's the other folks I need help finding.

Thanks for the tip on John. What's the best way to get in touch with him?

He should be on AP, but I can't find his log - he may not be logging. Orienteeringmom or someone off the Junior Team may be able to help locate him, as well.

There are also a few active logs under the GAOC group - one is an M16 and might be a good contact.

I think there is less than a 1% chance we will attend becasue of the travel costs.

However for social activity, at NAOC this summer the juniors organized a bowling night and at the recent Moreau event it was Laser Tag. These are a little difficult to organize when you're from out of town and everyone is scattered at the event site so it might be nice if something fun like that were planned ahead of time for the juniors.

It is difficult to motivate a specific cow that is a double major and encumbered with large amounts of o team duties to fill out a little survey. She will do it really soon though.