Discussion: friendly email

It does seem that there are a lot of people in the orienteering community who just don't seem to know how to do it.

What is it about members of Orienteering club board that jump to worst case senarios at all times? I've seen examples of this that they work so hard to prevent areas from being used that by the time there's another "serious" event, the map's out of date or houses are being built on them.

The one time I remember being on the "authority" side of things was when I was chair of the Team ESC. And the Team "owned" the WOC-93 maps. And we would charge a royalty (a dollar a map??) when a club wanted to use them.

And I think it was HVO came to me, they were converting one of them to OCAD, so putting in a bunch of work, and wanted to know if we could reduce the royalty.

And my response was, sure, why not, you're doing the work, and the main point is to use the maps, so whatever figure they suggested was fine with me. Because the maps were being used.

I'm not sure we even ever collected.

I was, and still am, of the opinion that you make out a lot better in the long run by doing the right (and friendly) thing and generating good will, rather than being a hard-ass. The benefit is usually much greater than what little bit you give up in the short run.

Christina is right that many in the O community just don't seem get it.
I don't know Joanne but she seemed to be trying to bring up a valid point in a friendly way. Her note included 2 smiley emoticons and even an attempt at humor, I think (suggesting you join the NEOC board).
A far better approach than the scorched earth approach by NEOC prez on copyright issues.

Perhaps better to defuse the situation rather than posting her e-mail and ridiculing her publically.

Think of the email response that could have been written:

Hi Joanne,
Thanks for the note. I share your concern about remaining in the good graces of the DEP. We expect only 8-10 people at this event so it shouldn't be a problem.
Thanks again to NEOC for letting us use the map.
Peter

I'm not sure that the posting qualifies as "ridicule". And Peter's response may well have been very close to what you suggested.

Saint that he is, Ross had already written just such an e-mail to Joanne before I could get to it. And is collecting the royalty fee. So that was taken care of.

It seems like the actual number of participants might reach 8, 2 of us hanging streamers early in the morning, 4 going out training later in the morning, and possibly 2 showing up in the afternoon.

By the way, who are you Sammy? One of the nice things about AP is you almost always know who is participating.

Let's not be silly. Sammy is entitled to his/her anonymity, because after all, that is what allows us to give his/her observations and suggestions the credit they deserve.

Is Sammy trying to throw off the scent by carelessly misspelling Christina? Would we fall for that?

In any case, Sammy clearly knows the zeitgeist. Just like Grand Central Station, everyone has to pass through PG's log eventually.

Anyway, what I find amusing is "makes up over half of our most useful maps." How many is that? And what do they mean by that? Losing access to some of those maps may be a blessing in disguise.

So if you have any knowledge or thoughts about it, I think it would be useful if you'd respond to Joanne's actual question, which was about relationships with the land managers. Outside of making sure we are obeying the letter of the law, it's a great idea to keep thinking about how to have good interactions with landowners and managers. It seems you interpreted Joanne's email as a veiled reminder that you need to make sure you pay attention to the rules about 25 people or whatever, but you could also interpret it as a real question on an important matter, asked with respect of someone whom she clearly respects and thinks might have some wisdom on the topic (that would be you).

@By the way, who are you Sammy?

I am a relative newcomer to AP and stumbled into the anonymity thing by accident. As a habit, whenever I register for anything online, I try to provide the minimum personal info as possible and AP required very little. This was before I was aware that most APers provide real name, age, location and e-mail and that info is accessible by clicking on their user name.
I was going to add my personal info but never got around to it and then started to appreciate the anonymity- mainly because it meant I would never have to deal in person with that small % of APers who seem to be real jerks. Plus there is some history with a few of the regulars and is probably better for all to let those sleeping dogs lie. From experience, I know there is no better way to ruin a weekend of orienteering than to be cornered by some nutter who starts ranting about something posted here.
Hope you can judge me by the content of my comments and not the…

BTW that whole Christina/Cristina thing was an oversight on my part. Believe me, I’m not smart enough to think of doing it deliberately. Really:)

On dealing with land owners/managers --

I have little experience with the matter in the past 20 years, because any efforts I may have made in that time to organize O' events have not included the responsibility of dealing with the land owners/managers. But I did get involved with such matters earlier in my O' life. With reasonable success.

Things were different back then. You generally didn't need permits. You didn't have to have insurance. But you still had to deal with the whoever the authorities were.

At Mt. Tom, we dealt with the park supervisor. Always cleared stuff with him. He was quite lazy, didn't really care what we did as long as we cleaned up afterwards. And the main thing in it for him was that he got to list orienteering as another activity going on in his park. So his annual report looked a little better. We were happy to let him take credit.

At Northfield Mountain Ski & Environmental Center (private, but state regulated) they contacted us, interested in starting an O' program. We made a deal, nothing in writing, just a handshake, we'd get a good map made if we could put meets on from time to time. Had several meetings with them before the first A meet there in 1981, and there was a good level of trust in both directions. On the weekend of the meet, we had a night O' scheduled for Saturday evening, we were given free use of the whole visitor center, and at some point as the night O' was wrapping up, but we were still cleaning up, one of the guys who ran the place came to me, game me the key to the building, said he was heading home and I should lock up when we were done. Amazing. Personal relationships matter.

But there is also a risk in relying just on personal relationships. At Quabbin, I went in to talk to the Reservoir superintendent about the possibility of O', and he thought it sounded great. No problem. Also nothing in writing. And at some point a couple of weeks before the first event there, Team Trials 1979, I stopped by to go over plans and found out he had just died of a massive heart attack. And the deputy knew nothing about our plans. Took a lot of scrambling to rescue things, and we never had a real booster there again.

At Northfield Mt. Hermon school, there was an alumnus who was active in NEOC, he got the athletic director interested, and then I dealt with him every time. Again, just a personal relationship.

At Mt. Norwottuck, the park supervisor lived in my town, I knew him from town politics, we didn't agree on things but always respected each other, I would just call him for permission, no problem.

Times have changed. Permits, insurance, safety plans. But I would still guess that personal relationships matter, and that figuring out some way that the local authorities will benefit from O' is also important. I think WCOC makes regular monetary donations above and beyond the permit fee to many of local organizations (you know, the Friends of the....) involved with the parks they use. I'm sure that also helps grease the wheels.

Personally I just make a point these days to try to chat up the authorities when it seems useful. At the Mt. Tom A meet a couple of years ago there was an officer with the Environmental Police there looking at what was going on. Had a long talk with him, explaining what we were doing. He seemed very favorably impressed (especially as compared to the mountain bikers he had to deal with, who had gone on an unauthorized trail building orgy). Every little bit helps.

You still have to get the permits, show you have insurance, maybe now have a safety plan. But if they know you and like you, it can make it all a lot easier.

More on land use issues, this a specific matter --

Some concern was expressed to me on Sunday that lots of people could have shown up for the training on Saturday at Norwottuck -- because we published an open invitation on AP, as opposed to sending out an e-mail to a limited number of folks -- and that would have caused problems with our relationship with the park, as we would not have had a permit and whatever else might be required.

I took a look back at what I posted, and it was the following:

"In case anyone is interested, it seems that there will be some O' training at Mt Norwottuck (just across the river from Mt. Tom). Yes, it's the day before the Billygoat and you may not want to train. But if you do, contact either me (pg@crocker.com) or Ross for details."

So for anyone to come, they would need to contact us to find out when and where to meet, and to get a map. So I think this was tightly (and appropriately) controlled.

Sammy --

You're cool. Actually the stuff I've seen you post -- I'm thinking mainly of last year regarding the USOF budget -- has all been intelligent and well-written, as is your explanation of your anonymity above.

If I ran into you at a meet, and knew who you were, all you would get from me would be compliments. And it would be a chance for me to talk to someone with a good head on their shoulders.