Discussion: attracting non-club folks to orienteering events

Added this comment on the event comments for the upcoming 4-hr rogaining event in Arizona's petrified forest park. I noticed the same for the Python rogaining event registration. My point is that an event registration should not be "flavored" to be O-centric-minded, if one is to attempt to attract newbies to the sport, and be more generic and attractive to the general population. Feel free to comment and discuss.
-cheers
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was looking at the registration page and here are my comments:

the information being asked to would-be participants is very "orienteering-centric", asking, for example, the primary O club, and the OUSA member ID. That, IMHO, is a repellent to folks outside the traditional O venues and communities. To make matters worse, the OUSA member ID field is labeled with a red asterisk, as to say it is mandatory.

I thought it was a great observation in the other thread, and something to figure out before a potential minor bump in navigation interest coming when the only televised feeder for nav sports returns in 2020.

Both of those Event Register questions have "Other" and "None" as response options. If you select None, the OUSA ID# field and red asterisk will disappear.

I have signed up for MTB races where it asks for a team name (I don't have a team) and for my USA Cycling license number (I don't have that, either, and therefore I pay a small surcharge for a one-day license).

Neither of those things has dissuaded me from registering and participating.

I don't think most people are such weenies as to be scared off by questions on a registration form...

I've suggested before that "none" should be first on the drop-down list (instead of last). Its got to be puzzling to newbies to have to scroll through the long list before finding "none" at the very bottom. And for events with lots of newbies, it would be a nice courtesy time-saver for them, while not having any significant effect on how far regular club members have to scroll to find any club that doesn't start with A, B or C...
(this should be an extremely easy modification)

I have also suggested that when "other" is selected, Event Reg automatically generate a blank box for the entrant to input their club name. When people from new clubs or non-North American clubs enter, that would save both the entrant and the registrar a lot of time and hassle in following up to get the correct club into the results program. The Event Reg administrator could then decide whether or not to accept the new club as a permanent addition to the drop-down list.
(this one could be a bit more work to set up, requiring a bit more programming time and effort)

We've also asked for "none" to be the first on the list, default choice. Many newbies seem to think that they are supposed to pick our club name and don't scroll all the way to the end to find the "none" option.