Discussion: Kids activities at WOC

An amazing sight at WOC was the "Kids Zone". There were an assortment of orienteering activities for the kids to do in and around the WOC arena. And a bunch of non-orienteering activities too.

There was a labyrinth - a maze map made from fencing, a line-O game where kids navigated between colored balls, and various controls placed through-out the arena for the kids to navigate to. Plus of course a good string course.

In Scotland at the Six Day they also had an active kids zone. A notable activity was the "off-string course" - kids followed the string, but the controls were a little bit off the string. It was very good.

It struck me that not only did these activities teach kids basic skills and get them enthusiastic about orienteering, but they were so much fun that the kids would no doubt be bugging their parents to take them to the orienteering events ;-)

Here is one of the (advanced) kids maps. It shows the labyrinth, the line-O game, and others. The olive green is the bouncy castle & day care. The two grey squares at the start triangle are the two tents they had for the kids activities.

One of those tents had some pretty cool non-O games in it. One was a slightly tilted vertical piece of plywood with holes cut in it. There was a ring attached by two strings through each upper corner that hung against the board, with a ball in the ring. The user pulled the two strings to move the ball along a line on the board, trying to avoid dropping the ball into the holes along the way. Forget the kids - we need more games tents for the grown ups!

When I was at the Fin5 a few years ago someone from Finland was explaining how their string O' was set up so that kids could take short cuts that would get them to the next control quicker than by following the string. They explained that this gave the kids a reason to read the map and think about routes instead of just following the string. I think the shortcuts were usually along trails and probaby always toward the interior of the loop.

I love the Swedish happy and sad faces on kids courses! About 100m after trail junctions there is a happy face if you went the right way and a sad face if you didn't. It's like a built-in catching feature. But, making the wrong decision costs you time so there is an advantage to not making a mistake. Plus, they're super cute signs.

A much needed thread for North American orienteering. we liketo think we are your sport for life but triathlon does a better job there with kids participating at age of 3 or 4. The ideas presented demonstrate some approaches we should be doing as well. also need more kids camps and participation programs like GHO's ARK program (now at over 125 kids this autumn) that are not race related.

We like to think we are your sport for life

I mentioned this in another thread recently that the demographics are shifting in US orienteering (I can't say for Canada or the rest of the world). When I compared data from a US Champs in 1998 vs. 2011, the median age (of age-class competitors) moved from ~35 to ~45. In 1998, only ~24% of age-class competitors were 50+. In 2011, it's up to ~48%. (As you'd expect, the percentages went from ~45% to ~30% for under-35 competitors).

Orienteering in the US is becoming like owning a Buick.

Yes the demographics are not encouraging but when our club proposed to others that we try to go after a grant for a kids program one of the responses we got was 'why do that there are no kids in orienteering'.

Ummm.?!

But even when I was younger and there were a lot more juniors in the sport we never started them until they were 9 or 10. What the kids zone in france, and the innovative kids programs in Sweden and what we have seen with Adventure Running Kids is that you can start kids at younger ages like 5 or 6. Hook them when they are younger and at an age where parents are more likely to volunteer.

Patrick Saile that coordinates our Adventure Running Kids program told me that we have over 30 volunteers for our autumn session that starts tomorrow night. So kids programs can not only increase youth participation and increase revenues but can also increase the volunteer capacity of the sport.

Slightly off topic, but not really...Hammer (or others) can you point to any recent quality research on the effect of distance running on younger kids, or kids hitting puberty? I got in a discussion the other day about kids running (and adventure running) and realized I was stating concerns about physical development and running that may have been way outdated.

As always, I think any effort that can encourage kids to get active, especially outside and ultimately on their own is worth the work. That it could be orienteering would be even better.

As a note of pride my four year old daughter was following along on our GPS the other day while I was driving, and she kept telling me I was off the road. Then she said, "We should be coming up to a bridge soon and going over water." About 10 seconds later we crossed the bridge. Map awareness...awesome.

Demographics....
..unfortunately are quite similar in Sweden. The O population gets older on average and junior participation goes down...

So if I understand this correctly, the best thing I and my fellow Buick owners can do to help orienteering is go find something else to do?

C'mon... did you ever own a Buick?

I don't think I've ever been in a Buick....

But in this case I am sensing enough guilt by association that maybe I do own a Buick and I just keep forgetting.

The best thing I ... can do ... is find something else to do

You know, in some ways I think this might be at least partially true. I wonder if it wouldn't be better to have some events that are "juniors only". Not a ton, of course. But perhaps some city or club Junior Champs - with no adult categories. Focus on the kids, their courses, their kind of socializing, their kind of fun.

But the big trunk on my Buick holds SO many control stands!

What's interesting to me is that for things like what Adrian suggests, there's nothing stopping you. You want to do something different, just do it. There's no reason that every event, or any event, has to conform to the current standard practice. Especially since that model, as is, has been shown to have such limited appeal.

If you don't like what the Buick generation dreamed up (Billygoats, Sprint Series, corn maze orienteering....) or what the west coast guys are doing (street scrambles, Vladimir's rogaines and sprints, Vancouver's sprint training camps, barebones stuff....), then figure out what you want and do it.

It is incredibly liberating to make up your own rules. And a lot more fun than just bitching.

Ooops, got to go train, time for the Wednesday evening renegade O'.... :-)

At this time, a junior-only event could not be a sanctioned A-event; the only kind of A-event that can offer a limited set of courses/classes is an "elite" event, like the Team Trials -- which caught a fair amount of flack, because we only sought sanctioning for the Blue and Red courses (all the typical Red classes were offered, in addition to F-21+).

This does not mean a junior-only event is a bad idea; just that it could not be OUSA sanctioned at this time. If anybody on the Sanctioning Committee believes otherwise, please speak up!

BTW, Mike, doesn't that Buick belong to your Dad? :-D

Way to raise a total red herring, GuyO. No, the rules do not allow a junior-only meet to be sanctioned without approval of the sanctioning committee as of right now. But that the OUSA rules were not handed down on stone tablets or revealed to Glen Schorr in a moment of inspiration. If there is a reasonable case for sanctioned junior-only events (not least, that someone shows some reasonable sign of wanting to put one on that would be of suitable standard), the rules could be changed.

Why don't you first get a junior-only event or two going and then worry about the rules, not the other way around?

I think that adding something like this to an A-Meet would require at least one person fully committed to it. You can't do this sort of thing correctly as an afterthought.

Thanks AZ for posting info on the info and example of the kids activities at WOC etc. Lots of us Aussies and Kiwis bring the kids along and are getting more organised with what we set up for the kiddies, so would appreciate more ideas. We normally just have the string course with or without a map, and sometimes a mini-score or micro-distance race with heaps of controls over a very short course using very large scale maps.

Well in a way we did exactly what PG suggested. We created a kids only program (and soon kids only events) and we changed the rules to make it more attractive to the kids and parents. We had over 100 kids out tonight in the rain and will have another 30 tomorrow night. 4 kids drove 45 minutes from Guelph. Another family drove 30 minutes from Oakville. Being granted sanctioning never entered the equation.

I've often thought that our traditional races try to be everything to everybody. Some succeed while others don't. Our Adventure Runs and THOMASS events in s. Ontario were really inspired by PG's Billygoat race. ie., making up our own rules. Altering the product to hit a certain demographic. In the end we get more people (and kids specifically in the case of ARK and our Get Muddy races) doing our sport. And thats a good thing.

Vladimir's rogaines

While flattered, these are, say, Neil Phillips's rogaines as much as they are ours. We took the concept verbatim. Ben Legg, however, is going to do something very creative with it, with the help of BAOC... stand by—it'll be great!

I think having special events is good because it gives you a reason to go this time. Someone can miss an orienteering meet, knowing that there will be another one in a week or two or four (depending on where you live). But, you can't miss a billygoat, THOMASS or corn maze or sprint series finals or 300-control o because you have to wait a year (or never) for the next one. :)

what the Buick generation dreamed up (Billygoats, Sprint Series, corn maze orienteering....)

It also bequeathed an all-volunteer, nonprofit, insider-club model. I am one of those fools who still thinks the product isn't much of a problem, it's the operating model. Would the op-model have had more of a chance with a "better" product? perhaps it wouldn't have survived as long! What does this have to do with kids' activities? Well, one of the "necessities" in need of providing that's most lamented by A meet organizers is child care... conclusions should follow.

In BC (and many other places in Canada), we have a ski event that only allows kids from age 9 to 13 to participate - "Midget Championships". For kids in this age range, the Midgets weekend is usually the highlight of the whole season, despite the fact that they can go to numerous other events throughout the winter. There are differences when you organize an event explicitly for the target age range.

There were lots of youth-only events as I was growing up. I hated these, and was very happy when my coach let me run my first M21A course (13+ km) at age 15.

You are a very typical individual, T/D ;)

Map and photo of the kids' labyrinth at WOC. Pretty cool. Maybe the older kids could design it for the younger ones?