Discussion: Live Results Website

Live results from the events will be online at
http://www.Orienteering-Live.com

Outstanding results service!

Splits already on AP! Amazing. Thanks all for a great day today.

And, splits on Winsplits as well since these also include splits for those of you who had the misfortune to MP or DNF:

Middle 1 by Classes

Middle 1 by Courses

Middle 2 by Classes

Middle 2 by Courses

These live results are incredible! Well done!

It was really fun to watch how Ed and Valerie team up to provide their amazing results service. Including everyone updating instantly on monitors and radio splits. And doing it at 5 different races at 4 different sites all in a period of 28 hours.

Excellent live displays -- it was fun to see the results updating as people punched at the finish.

Thanks and "well done" to Valerie and Ed (as well as everyone else connected to the meet, including the WM "Gang of 5" and everyone who helped run the meet.

Amazing work, guys. Thank you!

It's very satisfying to watch everyone cluster around the monitors and watch what is happening. Everyone smiling and discussing the race really makes all the work worth it.

What a fun weekend of orienteering and volunteering!!

Great working with Ed and Jim on the results crew, as well as the rest of the NEOC/Ski-O crew this weekend. I think I was most appreciative of the people who carried my heavy tent down and back from the Events 1 & 2 arena. Oh, and the fact that Ed had every conceivable electronic, cabling need covered.

Splits for all events are available here - check out the COMMON LEG feature at the bottom of the results, especially for the Farsta, to compare how you stacked up with others on the same leg on different courses.

"Common Leg" is very cool, esp. for the Farsta -- I'd guessed that was possible, and of course with this results crew it was up really quickly. Many thanks to all for a great event!

I heard some great comments at Cemetery Hill by some spectators - referring to the results setup, someone said that they had "never seen anything like this before." Well done, Ed, Valerie, and Jim!

RouteGadget is in the works. For now, here are more WinSplits which include the MP and DNF:

Event 3 splits

Event 4 splits

Event 5 splits

Lost and found --

Found at Cemetery Hill: pair of running shoes, Mizuno Wave Rider 15, size 8.5 women's with orthotics in them.

Lost at Earl's Trails: green EMS Mid-weight Techwick zip-top shirt.

If you have lost the shoes or found the shirt, please contact PG (pg@crocker.com).

Event report for the NEOC web page.

Great events! The Mt. Tom map and terrain worked together with the farsta courses like magic. Results display was tops. And added thanks to the nameless water haulers, who provisioned a couple of water stops away from the roads.

Indeed, the water was crucial, thanks. A good weekend all around.

Congrats to everybody involved! Indeed outstanding; very professional and exemplary compact (#events vs. days, start vs. finish, etc). The Ski-O gang bows in gratitude towards NEOC, WMass and the Gang-of-5 for the fantastic fundraising. Kazakhstan in reach.

OK, time for maybe a little feedback, at least for one thing in particular -- the start lists for each event.

There were several considerations --

-- Given the number of events and the different locations, we wanted as short a start window for each event as possible.
-- We still had to have a 2-minute interval for each course for the A meets, and a 1-minute interval for the sprints.
-- We wanted to have a long enough window so parents wishing split starts could be accommodated.

The solution we came up with had several parts --

-- Split courses (GreenX and GreenY, BrownX and BrownY). This is nothing new, though it is not so common with a field of just under 200. At the last moment I was afraid I was going to have to split Red, but we just went with a start window of 70 minutes instead of the hoped-for 60. The real problem would have been if we had had another 10 or 20 on the Blue course, because that can't be split.

-- Starts right next to the finish. This made split starts for parents much more feasible (the other factor here was relatively short courses). And I think it made things simpler and easier for the participants. It certainly did for the organizers. The downside was that course setting was harder, and parts of the maps were too far away to use.

-- To try to be fair, we couldn't give one person an early start for event 1 and then a late start for event 2, while someone else had late-early. It would be a significant difference in recovery time. So I roughly kept people in the same quarter (or eighth?) of the start window, and then shuffled them there so they weren't starting in the same order each time. I think the forest was such -- not much ground vegetation -- that there weren't many elephant paths created and so not much advantage if any to late starters.

-- And finally, to also condense the finish window so that we could move on to the next event sooner, I more or less first started the people I thought might be slower, while the fastest ones started towards the end. And did this for almost every class, not just M21 and F21. This certainly helped in getting everyone back out of the woods sooner. And it was fun from a spectator's (and organizer's) point of view to watch towards the end of each event as the best ones came streaming in. So for us it worked great. But I'm wondering how it seemed from a participant's point of view.

Thoughts on any of this, particularly the last item?

Updated version of the event report for the NEOC web page, added more volunteers.

Super job to everyone involved with thanks for a memorable event - even if only day 1,2,3 for me :-) So feedback:
Compact S/F was really good for getting ready / logistics
Start window design gave added buzz of chasing or being chased and I saw no helpful elephant tracks plus conditions were stable through both ET events so as not to favor early or late starters

As last starter on Earls #2 - I can say that I did notice some scuff marks occasionally, but nothing I'd call elephant paths that I'd trust to follow - only on the 10m or so in/out of a control.

And the 'seeded' start was a lot of fun in the UMass sprint as I knew there were some serious fast people starting just behind me - made me push harder to see how long I could hold them off before getting swallowed up :-)

the compact format, though it certainly imparted some issues to be worked around, certainly demonstrated that a high quality even can be pulled off by a small dedicated crew. just have to avoid getting fancy, and focus on the essential elements. A job very well done all around - though I really didn't have any doubts it would be otherwise...

Yes, I saw some scuff marks too. There was one point where I was getting a bit hesitatey on the slope round to 3 (course 2 of the day) and it was obvious that many others had been along pretty much the same route - so a bit less hesitation. But yes, nothing I would describe as an elephant track, but nothing so subtle that you'd need Mantracker to figure it out either.

I think you shuffled people enough within their quarter hour (or whatever) that there was not any sense of so-and-so had such-and-such advantage. At least I didn't hear any complaints and I personally thought it was fine. I think it was definitely more important to give everyone roughly the same amount of time between events than to have late starts for one vs. early for another.

The only event where elephant tracks might have mattered would have been Cemetery Hill - but I didn't run that one so don't know for sure.

I enjoyed having the faster people at the end of the window. It was fun looking at results and seeing the people still out and thinking that they had better show up soon or they'd be too late and then having them appear at the final control.

In short, I think your solutions worked very well.

Cemetery Hill had some 'game trails' late tho' the one I chose very near #11 short did not take me to the flag.

The CH tracks were definitely there for late starters. Felt like O-Ringen with all the tracks going straight to a control, at least someones. You still had to be sure it was the right track.

As a slower runner I certainly felt better going earlier so I'd have time to finish. Also nice to get back and not have missed the 'action' of the top runners returning.

Seeded starts are the norm for FIS alpine skiing and probably many other sports. Athletes earn their way in to the first seed. It might be worth considering for orienteering A-meets that if lates starts are an advantage then athetes earn their way - through ranking points - in to the last quarter of the start list. The side advantage for the organizers, as PG figured, is that the finish window is likely to be shorter.
It does happen from time to time in FIS Alpine events that the best skiing conditions do not come at the beginning of the race. So it would from time to time, like on very hot days, be the case that the best orienteering starts are not at the end of the list. That's sports.

Holy Cow! 2, 3 and 4 seconds to get from the last control (117) to the finish in the UMass Sprint. Those guys are seriously fast!

All five days were great!!! Thanks so much to all for your hard work. Everything was perfect from the perspective of this orienteering hack. I was only able to follow one armadillo trail confidently thru the grass at cemetery hill; on other days, there were enough people going in different directions that I reasoned the tracks would only lead me astray, not to my destination. It was great having the start and finish together. And instant results were so much fun. I can't wait to get on RouteGadget and learn about better route choices. I'm so impressed that y'all pulled it off. Did it meet fund-raising hopes and expectations? THANK YOU!!

It looks like the SI boxes were not time synced before the race; that time is certainly not correct. The time was probably in the 10-13s range, i.e. a delta of 8 or 9 seconds.

The 2sec finish splits are obviously wrong in some way, but we have no idea how. All the boxes were synched Thursday night. I rechecked everything Sunday morning after finding the issue, and they were all still within 1 sec on the master.

various photo albums:

meet

,Northampton

Amherst

botanical

recreational

Another request for feedback....

First, a bit of background. Last fall CSU hosted the SML champs in Boston, and I got the sense afterwards that while they were very proud of what they had done, and rightly so, it would probably be a long time before they wanted to do something like that again. It was just so damn much work.

And here we were just a couple of months later, venturing down a similar path, with some of the same cast of characters (there is a lot of overlap between CSU and NEOC).

So to keep the workload down, the decision was made right away that certain things would not be done -- no awards, no shirts, no banquet, no championships. That was a pretty easy decision, and my guess is one that was readily accepted.

We also decided to handle all registration online. Given the availability of OUSA's (and Kent Shaw's) O-signup software, this was also a pretty easy decision and also one that I expect was readily accepted.

Next we decided that there would be no on-the-day registrations, also no recreational courses (often these are the same thing). This was also an easy decision, because both require a lot more staffing on the days of the event, and staffing was one thing we were definitely going to be short of. But last-minute registrations and rec courses, usually O/Y/W, are regular features at a lot of A meets.

For registrations there was an early deadline about 6 weeks before the event, and then a regular deadline 2 weeks before, after which we would only accept entries if there was room on the course desired, and then a hard deadline a week before, after which we would accept nobody. The non-public plan was to try to keep accepting anyone who wanted to sign up, but by threatening not to, hopefully everyone who wanted to come would sign up by the regular deadline. And we needed people to sign up early enough so we would know how many courses to plan and be able to get all the map and course work done on a reasonable schedule.

As it turned out, we had very few entries after the regular deadline. I was prepared to cut off any late entries for Blue, Red, and GreenX, but was glad we didn't have to. And then we got I think three entry requests after the hard deadline, and accepted those too. But if there had been many more of those, it would have been a real problem, so it was nice to know that we could always just say no.

For the rec courses, it just seemed too much work. So we said no. I don't know how many people didn't like that. I got one e-mail the day before the event asking if they were available. I replied they were not, and never heard back. One thing we did do was make the entry fees lower for adults on the White, Yellow, and Orange courses, but we still didn't attract very many, as seems to be the rule at A meets.

If I had to do it over again, I think I'd do exactly the same. The workload was still huge. Anything to lessen it should be considered. But I might well be in the minority?

One other thing we didn't do, in addition to no awards, was there were no "5-Day results." Meaning, no overall standings calculated for the weekend, no overall winners. We debated trying to do that, but it seemed like there was no easy solution, because for events 1 and 2 there were the normal A meets classes, for 3 and 4 there was just a short and long, and for 5 there was a short, medium, and long. We thought about various point systems, but couldn't come up with anything that made sense, and finally just forgot about it. So that was too bad. On the other hand, perhaps that was not a bad thing given the hot weather, and maybe people were happier skipping an event and not getting so tired, rather than feeling they had to finish everything. I don't know.

Thoughts on any of this?

Separate note -- we found the owner of the shoes that were left behind, but have not located the missing green EMS Mid-weight Techwick zip-top shirt. Anyone take it by mistake?

It was all good to me!

Yes, agree. All sounds good. K.I.S.S. very important.

As for awards, the only ones appropriate seem to be for the Gang of Five! Awesome job all around.

After doing several of these recently, most of the work is borne first by the course designer and his/her crew (vetter, bag/station synchronization/placement/initialization, retrieval); then by the registrar. Kent's updated system is making the registrar's job easier, and his next-generation system will be even better (hope to have it available in the fall). It's still a bear to assign start times but that only takes a day or so.

As a registrar I like the idea of a hard deadline. We should enforce that especially for championships. I'm ambivalent on rec courses because you want to encourage families, but reduced costs for W/Y/O might be the best workaround in terms of workload, though then they count in the sanctioning fee (if it's an a-meet).

Banquet is nice but not necessary. Awards are nice and can be as simple as West Point's specially designed calendars, but again not absolutely necessary. T-shirts: No more than half the registrants typically order them, if that. Nice to offer if you have a good designer in the club. You're on the right track.

I liked the compact start/finish set-up, but it's not always possible. And it's vital to have a competent results crew. Displays are nice if available, but again, frequently updated results printouts are acceptable.

For the most part, I think no awards is fine and we as adults are usually satisfied with a good result. However, kids have a much different perspective and I would suggest awards for the M/F 14 and under group and that they extend down to 4th-5th place (or further if there are more kids). I know, I know, that's more work but it's good it we can reward the kids that do show up.

Here is our report from O-signup about registration numbers.

Enjoyed very much the simplified meet. Was positively surprised that there was no rental fee for the SI card. Was negatively surprised there was no printed directions/map/schedule as usually included in a packet.

And, some more numbers:
201 people (not counting numbers in a handful of groups) started 664 races
47 finished all 5 with a valid result, and 14 additional started all 5 but had an MP or DNF
20 started 4
55 started 3
49 started 2
16 started 1

Start and finish together, short window, live results with time on course displayed - this made it a lot of fun and particularly made it interesting to follow who was still in the woods, cheer people on, etc. Relatively more time participating and visiting, less just plain hanging around. Might not work everywhere, but much better than a long schlep to a remote start.

For me, not having shirts, awards, banquets, championships was all a plus. I may be a grump, but I don't much care for any of those things. I come to run in the woods and see my friends.

No rec courses? This is an idea whose time has come, at least in this area. There are plenty of local meets for rec people. It is perfectly reasonable to ask people to sign up in advance.

No overall results? Perfect. Plenty of results to play with, anyway.

The epic nature of a 5-day combined time or otherwise overall result is appealing, but less so without the corresponding 4 nights.

Counting a rental car and gas to drive something over 1000 km, two nights in hotels and meals I probably spent over $500 to participate in a meet where I was only able to run 3 of the 5 events. Did I feel short-changed because there was no banquet, awards or tee-shirt? Not in the least. It was great orienteering. No 5 day result? No problem even if I'd participated in all five events.
No rec courses? Not a problem for me but don't expect that to be the norm. Given the need for every bit of revenue to pay for mapping costs clubs usually need every entry they can turn up.
Late entries? Financially, the later one enters the better it is for the host club. However PG's hard line was appropriate for the tight time-line he wanted to achieve.
A few less coffees that pour like molasses for the ski-Oers next winter.

No rec courses? This is an idea whose time has come, at least in this area.

I could not disagree more.

By offering rec courses (just WYO), casual orienteers, regulars at local meets and even beginners get a taste of what I like to call the "Big-O World", that is, orienteering in the larger context. As long as the same courses are used, and start slots are available, the only additional work needed is handling registrations -- and that does not have to be part of the Registrar's responsibilities.

(Note: This is not a criticism of PG's decision to forego rec courses. I am only talking big-picture)

In the interest of full disclosure, it seems appropriate to point out various things that I know we did wrong. :-)

First, as sherpas says above, Was negatively surprised there was no printed directions/map/schedule as usually included in a packet. He's absolutely right. This just sort of didn't happen. I kept thinking that we had to put something together with directions (and preferably also little bits of each map showing the layout of each site), but never followed through. We had bits and pieces of directions, but nowhere near enough.

Second, I've seen a couple of comments regarding a leg on several courses on Day 2, 162-174, and how there were extra trail(s) on the around to the right route. Background -- I know there is an unmapped "trail" running SW/NE along the slope NE of 174, a couple of lines higher than 174. The question is whether it should be mapped. It's a remnant of an old woods road, quite overgrown. So it's definitely visible, but offers no running advantage. If I'd mapped it, it would have been as a short indistinct trail, which would have looked just like several small rock faces on the steep hillside. So I left it off.

The problem was, having set up the leg, I never went back to check out the around route to see if there was anything else there, nor take a second look at this one. And Ali had raised the issue of this trail.

In lots of places Alex and Ali raised issues about the map. Which was really good, because I'd go out and check things, and make fixes as needed. But this one fell through the cracks.

Third, trivial but very non-trivial. Had extra toilet paper outside the porta-potties for days 1 and 2, but it wasn't needed. For day 4, when it was needed, the TP was hidden away in my car. :-(

Fourth, got a call from Phil about 10 pm Saturday. He had a problem, somehow he just realized he still had to print a lot of maps for day 5, like close to 100. And they would need to be stuffed and sealed too. No problem, he printed them that night, and we stuffed and sealed them at his house between days 4 and 5. Only problem was that got us to Mt. Tom later than desired. So parking was unorganized, and we just managed to get the start off on time. Managed OK, but should have been better.

Fifth, back in January when we got serious about this and we were scrambling to get permission for all the venues, I contacted Amherst College, since they own the field we used for the finish for days 1 and 2. Permission was granted quite willingly, no problem. What I did wrong was at that point not thinking big, and asking for permission to use the fenced-off bunker area for parking (there is a gate in the fence for access to the field). Would have made logistics a lot easier.

Now, I don't know if they would have given permission, but I should have tried. Because I think they might have. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Sixth, miscalculated where the sun would be for day 3. Should have had a different layout that would have been in the shade.

Seventh, and this was a biggie, which fortunately we caught in time.

The first pass at drafting was finished in January. Because of my schedule, I didn't look at the map until mid-April. I then started the course setting process, before too long settling on the general routing, then the initial batch of points.

At this point I took the course intended to be Blue1, went out and hung streamers, and then had the rest of the Gang of 5 run it one evening. The reviews were pretty bad. Problems here, problems there, quite a few mistakes, slow times.

Kept working on the courses, got the master list of points pretty much done, plus checking on places where the team had had problems. And Ali and Alex went out a couple more times, and they were coming back with all sorts of complaints. And I was feeling both battered and stressed. And I remember one of those evenings when they were registering more complaints and I wrote a note on my master map, "Check magnetic north."

And I went out first thing the next morning, checked it in 3 different places, and it was 14 degrees off!

I don't know how it happened. It was right when I did the field work, but somehow in the drafting process....

An e-mail went out to JJ titled "Emergency" and it was fixed that day. And all of a sudden the girls were coming back much much happier. And all I could think was what if we hadn't caught it....

Oh, I know how it happened...

(This was my first time drafting a map where I pulled a lot of the stuff from an electronic version of the basemap, and I didn't think things through. Probably not a mistake I'll make twice.)

Check magnetic north...it was 14 degrees off!

Maybe the O-USA logo here was pointing incorrectly again?

What's the big deal? Our club mapped, organized and carried off the 1976 Canadian Championships with a map that had the declination off by 14 degrees without a single protest being raised. I guess that was a risk of getting a base map from Sweden.

Now that I think of it, the first A-meet map I ever drafted arrived on my light table in the form of fieldnotes that had magnetic north indicated in error by about that same amount. Fortunately, I also fieldchecked a small piece of that map, and the north lines on my piece disagreed with the rest of the map. I went out and took careful sightings at several places and assured myself that my part was right before I started drafting.

14 degress is about the magnetic declination. I'm not an expert but most all of the "mapping resources" like lidar, photos, etc. that I encounter are oriented to true north so need to be rotated.

the only additional work needed is handling registrations

Except you need people on hand to meet and greet, to direct and to instruct, or they won't come back. One for every ten-fifteen newbies is probably reasonable.

When common sense prevails everybody benefits. I was very impressed how well it was done and went with such a modest in numbers crew, yet not surprised, knowing how knowledgeable every person on that crew was.
From 49 y.o.running Blue, perspective, the courses in the woods were too "physical" for 5 races in 28 hours. Eddie, who is very fit this year, and 43 y.o. :), did not seem to mind, then it was fine.
I always say, that running in the woods in North-Eastern US is tough enough, and designing courses with 5-6% of climb is a little excessive.
On Day 1 and 2 map issues: I am working on a similar project (mapping using LIDAR data) in Northern New Jersey at Silas Condict Park. HVO member Bjorn Walberg (from Norway), his first mapping project, spent ~140 hours in the woods, placing rocks and cliffs and trails, vegetation boundaries, etc. on a canvas of LIDAR 5 m contours, and presented it to HVO. Neil asked me to test it, Z man and I ran a course on a 3 sq.km. map and found it weak in a lot of places. I decided to get involved. For last month, after one visit to the park with graphic 3-D image from LIDAR data, produced with some Swedish guy's software, recommended by Eddie, I have being working from home adjusting 5 m contours, and adding form lines. LIDAR contours are not perfect, more over, in very complex, Surebridge like terrain, are very weak.
This said, I felt, while running Day 1, that reentrants and spurs in lower part on the map needed personal touch. I figured it early enough to cause any problems, but running on compass and just counting features in such a great area is a sin, in my opinion.
And that said, I would like to point, that despite being tired and beat up after this great weekend of racing, I would come next time, or any time again, provided most of the same crew is involved. Thank you, very much, the Gang of 5 and Co.

I just realized that the location of a cookout to whom I got told about and invited to just a few hours after the Mt Tom event, is just 700 m to the west from start/finish, at a house bordering the state park in Easthampton (42.26767, -72.64353). What a coincidence... Had I known where I was going to be a few hours later, I could have parked at that house, walked up the mountain, run the course, and walk back down the mountain.

I think this is the last request for feedback.... :-)

One of the things that always scares the hell out of me in connection with directing an event is the possibility that someone will get badly hurt, or lost, or both. Sadly to say, my approach to this in terms of preparation has usually been to just really really hope nothing bad happened.

As part of the sanctioning request, I had to submit a safety plan. I asked around and was told by one former event director (not to be named) that I could "steal" their plan, because they had stolen it from someone else. And when the weekend of the event came, they had pretty much forgotten about it anyway.

So that is pretty much what I did....

Here is the safety plan I submitted.

This is the first time I have looked at it since January. :-(

I think that the first section, general observations about risk, is actually very important. But although there may have been less risk than at many other O' events, there was certainly some risk.

Section 1 (safety director and duties) was not done. By default, I was the safety director.

Section 2 (medical director) -- Bob Lux agreed to do this, and he was of significant help, treating several injuries. Fortunately none of them seem too serious.

Sections 3-5. We had two incidents of missing persons.

The first was an elderly woman on the Brown course in event 1 who became very tired due to the heat. Her husband had seen her not too far from the finish. She was sitting down, and it wasn't clear if she would need help getting back. He came to me after he finished, explained the situation, and asked me for a map of her course. I gave him one, and also asked Calvin Underwood to accompany him back into the woods in case help was needed.

About 5-10 minutes after they departed, the women walked up the large trail to where the start for event 1 was. She was tired but otherwise OK, which was great, but now I had her husband and Calvin out looking for someone who was no longer there.

Quick decision -- figuring I could get there and back in about the time I could recruit someone else, I took off. In a couple of minutes I heard them yelling for her, and a minute or two later I found them, very concerned about where she had gone but also very relieved to know she was OK. And we were back not long thereafter.

Problem in retrospect -- they should have had a cell phone with them, and I should have had their number (and vice versa). And maybe I should have sent someone else?

The second incident was a young man, age about 18 or 19, on the Red course in event 1, who did not return for a long time. His parents were concerned, also regretted signing him up for the Red course which they were afraid was beyond his abilities. His father and a friend had been out in the woods in the vicinity of the next to last control calling for him, but no luck.

At some point the father said he was going to get a couple of things from his car and then start going around the course backwards. At least in this case I asked if he had a cell phone and we exchanged numbers. I hope, if he hadn't had one, that I would have insisted he borrow one.

At the same time I asked Gail to drive all the perimeter roads to look for him. She also had a cell phone.

At this point, well, we just got lucky. Maybe 30 minutes earlier I had asked Ken Walker Sr and Greg Walker to go clean up the water stop (you could drive right to it), and when they got there who do they find but the missing young man. It would have be nice if they had called saying they had him, but they didn't even know he was missing. But they brought him back, and then it was real easy to make a couple of calls and call off the beginnings of a search.

I'm not sure what the lessons are here, or what I should or should not have done. We got lucky. The whole area of safety continues to scare the hell out of me.

Greg --

I was concerned about courses being too long and in several case (not the Blue course) either made them shorter than they had been when I started planning, or resisted temptation to lengthen them. This was particularly true for the GreenY, BrownX, BrownY, and Orange courses.

I had taken one test run, the GreenX for event 1, 2.6 km. It took me 26 minutes, which included walking up just about every hill (but I also obviously knew the area). I figured the best M21 runners would run 7 minutes per km, or slightly slower, and scaled courses accordingly. A good bit of climb was inevitable, but I figured this was as least partly offset by the relative lack of thick vegetation.

I think the distances were OK. Overall I was shooting for winning times of 30 minutes or a little less. We ended up right at that on the longer courses, a little longer on some of the others. If the weather had not been so hot and humid, I think the times and the physical exertion required would have both been less. And perhaps there would have been complaints the courses were too short?

Do you plan for the worst conditions in determining course lengths?

As far as the map and the contours, you say -- "I felt, while running Day 1, that reentrants and spurs in lower part on the map needed personal touch.

Absolutely right. For mapping I used the one-meter LIDAR contours from Eddie and they were wonderful. I mean, really wonderful. You could stand on those long hillsides and see all the subtle changes in slope. It was invaluable for mapping the trails, also for mapping any point features. You just knew you had things in the right place.

However, the final map was 5 meter, with some form lines. It seemed like a shame to toss all those fine 1-meter lines, but then at 1:10,000 (as opposed to the 1:5,000 I was mapping at) it would have been chaos. When I saw the final product, my sense of the area east of the "green line," a neat area where the courses went first in event 1, I felt like it underrepresented the depth of the reentrants. The shapes were right, but the sides looked not high enough. I spent some time out there and it seems like often there was more than 5 meters difference between the bottom of the reentrants and the tops of the adjacent spurs, but not quite 10 meters.

I thought about adding a bunch more form lines, in effect mapping that area at 2.5 meters, but (1) I thought it was good enough the way it was (and I wasn't sure adding full length form lines would make it better), and (2) it would be a bunch more work, and there was already too much to do. So I left things as they were.

It still seemed to me that that area was both very good for orienteering and also not very difficult (if you can read contours). I was surprised by how many people had problems there.

Guy/Neil --

Re rec courses. As Neil says ("Except you need people on hand to meet and greet, to direct and to instruct, or they won't come back. One for every ten-fifteen newbies is probably reasonable"), the need for additional help is not trivial.

In our case --

1. We would have had to staff check-in longer and perhaps with an extra person or two.
2. We would have had to have an extra person or two at the start. The reason for the extra person or two at each place is that you have to be prepared. If you took our existing operation, and then imagine even just 10 or 20 rec people showing up, the A meet operation can quickly get out of control, or the rec people can feel totally ignored, or both. Basically, you lose control.
3. More people for instruction?
4. The start lists for W/Y/O were done so as to somewhat push them towards the first part of the window, but not too much so, since having them too close means that packs form very easily. So I was using a 4-minute interval if possible. This would have left a very short window for the rec courses. And there was no way I was going to staff a longer window.
5. As I pointed out elsewhere, runners thought to be slower were started earlier, so that the finish window would be smaller. Starting rec orienteers at the end would have totally defeated this.
6. And finally, because the W and Y courses went through the same general area twice, but in different directions, some of the event 1 controls were removed, and some of the event 2 controls were put out, in between the two events. This was to avoid confusing the younger orienteers, a suggestion from Boris, and absolutely the right thing to do. Had we had rec orienteers, this operation might well have been impossible.

There may be A meets where rec courses make sense. But not this one.

Here's an image of the Earls Trails basemap. All the angles are shown in the upper right. The 2.5m lines are also shown here in purple. The rectangle of lidar data is oriented to MA State Plane (the projection used), which is approx geographic north.

I usually deliver bases with the projection north up because all of the image templates that go with it are oriented that way and I do all my basemapping additions at that orientation. Maybe I should deliver magnorth up?

The quality of the Amherst provided lidar data was excellent and on the high end of the typical sampling densities I run across. There were a few features I was curious to see for myself - in particular the small crossable pond just S of Military Rd near the junction with 116. It was indeed there (although dry on the day of the event).

A few hundreds of pictures are now processed and available for preview:

Western Mass 5 days - Sprint 1

Western Mass 5 Days - Sprint 2

As usually, if you like to have a full size images (4-11MB/image), please send me e-mail with file names. Keep in mind images are huge, so, you'll need plenty of space in your Inbox and computer :))

There may be A meets where rec courses make sense. But not this one.

There may be A-meets where rec courses do not make sense. The WM5D was one of them.

Thanks vmeyer, sherpes and speedy, for the many great pics!

The Rules of Orienteering USA require (A.4.1.2) at least one recreational course. I am surprised the Sanctioning Committee let the organizers get away with it; for our events it was conveyed very strongly that lack of a recreational course is a non-permissible Rules deviation.

What the Rules don't require you to do with this rec course is to have it open to event-day registrants, nor to have it discounted in any way. So, I believe you can just list is as one of the A event courses in O-Signup, and handle registrations and payments along with the regular courses.

The sanctioning committee was not informed of the absence of rec courses; this Attackpoint thread is the first I've heard of it. Suffice it to say that we are not amused.

What is the point of rec courses when there are already open classes for each of the courses? Why should someone get to do the same course with the same infrastructure support as an A meet competitor on the open class, but only pay a rec fee?

Ed, there's no "because" answer to your second question because there's no because; it seems it's perfectly fine to not discount the course that you call the recreational course. But you are supposed to have one.

Do days 3, 4, and 5 not qualify as rec courses? Has to be same time and location?

The rule states: "One non-competitive class is required, Map Hike, on the White course."

As Vlad states, this says nothing about day-of registration or reduced fees or anything. Since any person can elect to go out on any course at any A event as "non-competitive" by simply informing someone on the rankings committee, would this cover the requirement? (I'm being serious here - I don't understand the requirement.)

It would be reasonable to discount the rec course by the amount of the sanctioning fee since it would not be due.

At our last A-meet, our Meet Director asked for and received a waiver from the mandatory rec course rule on the basis of lack of demand as well as sufficient volunteers and so we didn't offer one. This was specifically advertized ahead of time and people were advised to register for the White course online. At the meet itself, people were directed to the model event. The previous year we had offered a rec course, but didn't have one single person sign up.

However, I have since received MANY complaints personally about not having offered a rec course.

What % originated from GuyO?

I was surprised at the number and diversity of the complaints.

Did some come from yurets?

I was surprised at the number and diversity of the complaints about not offering a rec course.

Just so it's clear, we are planning "rec courses" for NAOC 2012 - meaning beginner courses open to the public with day-of registration and at a lower rate than the regular fees - but I am just very curious what the regulation really intended since it's not at all clear.

Assuming the intention of the rule is to require organizers to offer day-of registrations for at least one beginner course at a discounted rate, I think it is a misguided rule. I think it's great when such courses are offered, and offering them probably make events more attractive to some people, but I don't think requiring them is the way to go.

Since the rule is written as: One non-competitive class is required, Map Hike, on the White course., then we broke that rule at IS/IC. We offered one recreational / demonstration course, but since we had a several hundred kids competing, we felt like we didn't have room to squeeze in day-of-event starts on the standard white/yellow/orange.

So I asked the course designers to create a "demo" course each day. Saturday's was white/yellowish, and Sunday's was yellow/orangeish. And when the events were publicized in the local papers, we said that you could come watch the championships, and try out a demonstration course for $6.

----

For me, allowing day-of-event entries isn't about competitive vs. recreational or cheap vs. expensive. I just think it's good PR to have one.

At three different US Champs weekends, I met up with some non-orienteering friends who lived in those areas. At the first one, my friend was interested in trying it, and I assumed that there would be day-of-event registration. But there wasn't, and my friend just dropped me off and went hiking elsewhere for the morning.

At the second one, my friend was interested, and there was day-of-event registration. Not only was he able to run the rec yellow course, he actually won it and they announced his name at the banquet and he won a ribbon.

At the third one, my friend pre-registered. We did the Friday afternoon event, and we met up with some of his friends and family later that evening. Many of them were intrigued by our explanation of that day's orienteering, and wanted to come try Sunday's event. When we asked about day-of-event starts, we were told there wouldn't be any, so none of those people got to come.

My point is, our sport is so far off the grid that we need all the help we can get. Since orienteering is generally unfriendly to spectators, increasing the "ease of entry" on demo courses seems like a good goal. Our US Champs (and other A-meets) are the premier events every year, and get the most visibility from our community and the media, so it seems backwards that we don't want more people to come.

We don't need to offer rec/demo courses at every single a-meet race. I just think that every a-meet weekend should have at least one opportunity for anyone to come and try it. We all have friends... sometimes the weather is perfect...

Completely agree with you, Pink Socks. We brought some friends to your meet on the Saturday, they did the rec course and had a blast. They had never orienteered before and wouldn't have been inclined to go a local meet by themselves. I would say it is likely that they will show up at a local meet in the future.

Playing devil's advocate... An A-meet is about high-end competitive orienteering. Its goal is not to advertise to the unconverted. If I go to watch a soccer match I don't see loads of people trying to convince to kick a football. Advertising to the unconverted is the way to advertise to the unconverted.

That said...

Playing devil's advocate... An A-meet is about high-end competitive orienteering. Its goal is not to advertise to the unconverted. If I go to watch a soccer match I don't see loads of people trying to convince to kick a football.

I totally get that.

The big difference is that people go to watch soccer. People don't go to watch orienteering, chiefly because it's not spectator friendly (despite how spectator friendly you try to make it).

So it seems like if you want to generate some buzz, it's to get people to come and do something, since they can't come and watch something. And there's already some buzz out there. "Whoa, Patrick is coming all the way to [insert location here] to do an orienteering race? Oh, I can try it while he's here? Sweet, I may give that a shot if the weather is nice." It looks like Charlie's friends came out and tried it for similar reasons. "Whoa, Charlie is coming all the way from Georgia to Washington?..."

It's also not uncommon to have participatory events going on at big spectator sports events, too. I've been to a few basketball Final Fours (Rock Chalk!), and there's always a FanZone where you can shoot some hoops, play some games and stuff. The Super Bowl is doing this sort of thing, too.

Yep, but "the time has come" --- maybe now is the time to start advertising again properly, because occasional people discovering orienteering through a-meets is not how the sport will develop.

If some A-meets don't have map-hikes (cough splutter vomit), but instead have flyers with the local event calendar, I think that would be fine.

I agree that not offering map-hikes at an A-meet or two will not kill the sport. And if it is going to compromise any other aspect of the meet, then it's definitely not worth it.

Might be worth allowing an alternative in the sanctioning proposal - like model event, providing local event calendar, providing free tattoos in the color(s) of their choice of the local club's web address, or other tantalizing alternative.

Might not be bad to have a map-hike AND give them a flyer with local event calendar.

Part of the headache is the "additional" work with respect to courses, maps, start, etc. I'm thinking that for the next GNC (since I'll be the Decider, this time) we include specific start times in the start list for map hikers on white and yellow and print up a couple of extra maps. That way they're treated at the start and finish like everyone else and get a bit more appreciation for the event. Including registration at packet pickup where they get assigned one of the available start times shouldn't be too arduous, which just leaves beginner instruction as a loose end.

Why not just charge less for White and Yellow? That's kids and beginners, two groups we should be encouraging, and also two courses that are not as technically demanding to offer. Don't have to offer same-day registration or anything special, just make it less expensive.

Interesting question. If they are part of the regular registration and register for M-White or F-Yellow, then the sanctioning fee alone would be $8 per race for adults and $4 for kids (presuming that they are not OUSA members). That's a lot of overhead.

Our A-meets generally include Interscholastics(IS), so we get relatively large numbers of white and yellow runners and it would be hard to justify charging more for ISJV (Orange) than ISI (Yellow) or ISP (White).

Then, outside of IS, a good portion of our Yellow runners are F-Yellow regulars in their 40s and 50s and it would again be hard to justify charging more for F-Orange than F-Yellow.

So, running the newbies outside of the sanctioning fee/ranking system has its advantages.

This is probably not so true for A-meets that don't include IS.

Of course, Juniors do pay quite a bit less than the adults anyway.

I meant to put a note up sooner -- RouteGadget is available for Days 1, 2, 4, and 5 for those who would like to post their routes, or see what others did.

Day 1
Day 2
Day 4
Day 5

Why not just charge less for White and Yellow? That's kids and beginners, two groups we should be encouraging, and also two courses that are not as technically demanding to offer. Don't have to offer same-day registration or anything special, just make it less expensive.

We extended the junior rate to full-time students of any age on any course, and also to adults on the White, Yellow, and Orange course. And if they took advantage of the OUSA $20 coupon, they could orienteer for almost nothing. But they had to sign up in advance.

That said, the challenge of setting White and Yellow courses is not trivial, and it impacts the ability to use certain areas (you can set a Blue course almost anywhere, the same cannot be said for W/Y). And there is always the fear of the irate parent ready to point out your sins. A lot of time was spent on both the design and implementation of the W and Y courses.

And as to the line of thought that it's no big deal to just tack the W/Y rec orienteers on after the competitive W/Y folks, think through the details -- do you really want to run them through the same start operation, where you get the clues 2 minutes before, and you can't look at the map until the whistle blows, and there are a bunch of other orienteers taking it very seriously? No, you want a much more relaxed and friendly and therefore separate operation. Which means you have to staff it.

Actually, we did have a rec course at the 5-day, we just didn't advertise it. But I had a request for a course that someone could just show up and try orienteering, someone who had never done orienteering before.

So I had extra copies of the White course for day 1 printed, and arranged with a couple of helpers to be on standby to give instruction.

And they never showed up.

Was I pissed? No way. It was the park supervisor who had made the request, wondered if it would be possible to bring his two nephews out, and anything to keep him happy. And I got a nice apologetic e-mail the next day, it had just been too hot.

But that was a special case. It's fine to offer rec courses at an A meet if you can handle it. Maybe it should even be encouraged. But it shouldn't be required.

And as to the line of thought that it's no big deal to just tack the W/Y rec orienteers on after the competitive W/Y folks, think through the details -- do you really want to run them through the same start operation, where you get the clues 2 minutes before, and you can't look at the map until the whistle blows, and there are a bunch of other orienteers taking it very seriously? No, you want a much more relaxed and friendly and therefore separate operation. Which means you have to staff it.

Good point!

I agree - offering rec courses is not a trivial amount of extra work.

Even if you decide to use the exact same white and yellow course, and run them through the same start (which isn't the best but sometimes it's the only alternative), the question is when do they start. You don't want to start them early, because you want the start crew to get in a groove before throwing in the rec runners. But if you start them late, then you are most likely guaranteeing that pickup and cleanup will be delayed. And do they go through the same finish? If so, you run the risk of them affecting someone in the finish chute. If not, you need to man a separate finish since you need to make sure someone is monitoring who is still in the woods. I'm not saying these are insurmountable, I'm just agreeing with the above post that it's not a trivial amount of extra work.

Again though, we do plan to offer rec courses at NAOC 2012. However, the start window for rec courses will be limited (details pending) to help control the amount of volunteer time required to handle them.

And if any of them happen to read the above post I think they will get the message.

I'm just now tuning into this thread and need to catch up, but wanted to give credit to the course setter for the Mt. Tom Short course (Phil Bricker?) for a great course and one of the more memorable legs, #10, that I've seen in a long time. There were 4 distinct possibilities for routes, though one was clearly more work than the others (taking the upper trail) and another, contouring, just too much work that late in the race. I liked that I could take the low trail by the stream for 400 meters, or so, and plan whether to head to the right around the marsh (which I did) or left to the road and then running through the finish and backtracking (perhaps not what the course setter would wish, but an easy-on-the-brain at the end of the race choice). Great event all around. Thanks a million for all your hard work, clever organizing and espirit de O'.

In retrospect I think that a lot of the rec start issues could be addressed during the beginner instruction. i.e. the instructor has a copy of the map, gives them the instruction and info they need, shows them the control descriptions printed on the map etc, then tells them what to expect and do at the start.

Then, since the start crew is only starting at most a few runners at once (at least when a white runner is starting), I think it's not too hard to give them an extra word of encouragement and direction and send them on their way. Thinking of the average A-meet start layout, this isn't really a mind-boggling proposition.

Maybe giving a little more thought to the start list would help, too. I generally go for maximum stagger to have as few people start at once as possible, but then also have a liberal sprinkling of empty slots for changes and missed start times. I usually start white and yellow runners by themselves.

I really wouldn't worry about the finish chute too much. There are plenty of potential hazards there already, and I'm not sure that a rec runner would make any difference. Plus the rate of arrivals is on average half that of the rate of starts. It's generally not that crowded.

Of course, for our meets we are only talking about a handful of people at most, so not a huge imposition.

@CHARLIE: Good points!!

I guess I wasn't clear and the comment i was trying to make wasn't actually very relevant to the discussion about rec courses and welcoming brand new beginners.

There are two separate things going on here:
1) Recreational courses with day-of-meet registration at an A-meet may be a useful thing for a club to offer in terms of local promotion, or they may not be worth the effort. They are not required by the national federation.
2) Rule A.4.12 (which could be worded better) lists the categories that are required at an A-meet, and one of these, (variously described as either Map Hike or M/F-White), needs to be offered on White. See also A.4.3. It could be the same White course as the other White categories, or could be a separate White course. You aren't supposed to post times or give out awards for this category. I'm not aware of any A-meets that have failed to offer an M/F-White category (though some may offer separate M-White and F-White categories, and they often forget to suppress the times and neglect to withhold the awards). I think I could explain the historical background for this non-competitive-course requirement, but I'm not sure I could do so without being insulting.

It seems from reading the Rules that three separate categories on White are required: M/F-White, Gr-White, and Map Hike. The first two must be competitive, whereas the Map Hike is not.

T/D is correct. The M/F-White category is an open competitive category. That is separate from the requirement to have a non-competitive Map Hike category on White. A.4.3.e is poorly written as it implies that M/F-White is a non-competitive class. The intent of this rule is to state that the only course required to have an open non-competitive option is White.
I think the spirit of the rules is that you should take non-competitive White day-of-event registration, but it doesn't actually say that anywhere, so that's not really a rule. As long as you allow people to do White non-competitively, you could require them to meet registration deadlines and pay the full fare and still be within the rules.

Anyone can do any course non-competitively by registering competitively and then informing the Event Director prior to first starts that they wish to not be competitive..

IMO, the rule should be reworded to explicitly match its spirit as described by smittyo. The Sanc Comm could always grant a waiver for an event like the WM5D.

A.4.12 mentions noncompetitive Map Hike, but it isn't in the table. A.4.3.e says that M/F-White is noncompetitive. The characteristics of noncompetitive courses that are listed are unrelated to what people think of for these courses. This part of the rules is broken.

I always thought M/F-White was just a uni-sex open class, but it is not in the rankings. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure I have seen awards go to its participants.

Not surprisingly the "Grp-" (White, Yellow, Orange) categories are unranked, but are they defined as "non-competitive"?

Awards go to practically everyone. They are not an indication of anything.

to all @rec courses: the history teaches us that we do not learn from history. I will elaborate: what you are discussing is a model US orienteering has being using for last 50 years and it is even set in stone in "the rules". It will always be the same; the up-side down age pyramid, can not be balanced and sustainable, and the only reason it is still exist in a state we find it now, is due to enormous effort by a small group of dedicated unpaid volunteers, and not the last factor: an immigration influx from developed orienteering countries. I wonder if US orienteering has a statistics of country origin for current membership... But that is not my point, just a thought.
If you really want to develop orienteering, the only way to make it right is to turn age pyramid around with base age 10-14 y.o. At the same time as many as possible kids need to be introduced to helping at the event in any possible capacity. And I am talking about ORIENTEERING, not competitive orienteering - another misguided term. Competitiveness is in definition of orienteering, and I mention it many times before. Orienteering does not need map hikers. They ruin the image of the sport., and I am not afraid to offend anyone here. The image of kids blasting through the woods, can bring more.
That said, I realize it is not an easy task: much more difficult than offering rec. courses at every A-meet. All we need is a little brake in official school structures and semi-professional coaches in schools (part-time positions would be nice for the beginning). I know some of it already exists, I saw them at Interscholastics, it would be great if that knowledge and experience is widely shared.
Next step is to give some real competition to West Point at Intercollegiates, but that would be down the line - 5-10 years.

If we want to develop orienteering, no groups shell be allowed on any course except for shadowing. Boy/Girl scouts need to learn to earn their badges, by completing their respectable courses by themselves, no cheating, no groups, no exceptions.

I guess I agree with most of what you say Balter. But I also think the white /yellow are often too difficult here, and show no real progression of skills, making successful completion unlikely. I have to admit at my meets I plan them to British Standards, which have a five step pathway with clear progression, and while the adults say the courses are too easy, the kids whizz round in 15-20 minutes and love it. That's why I plan "easy."

Apologies for taking the discussion even further away from WeMa, which was still ace.

Good point, Becks. Do you handily have a link to BO's Standards for all of us to learn from?

I knew that question would come...errr...probably.

http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/images/uploa...

Not sure how up to date that is, but the idea is definitely there. The pertinent pages are 19-21.

It's already being done and working: Adventure Running Kids.

I wouldn't be so against groups. The more popular sports and activities are ones where you get to participate with friends, and with social sharing these days, you could introduce more people with bring-a-friend events.

Again, where is the most growth happening in North America? What are they doing about kids programs and groups?

I agree with much of what Greg said, though I really don't see the harm in map hiking / groups as long as the competitive nature of the sport is not obscured by it.

For better or worse, the "buddy system" is engrained in scouting. At least at MASOC advanced scouts can do Orange on their own.

Thanks Becks. Groups are good for kids - in general and in two members. Best if there are several groups psyched to beat each other; otherwise the social bit easily takes over.

Completely agree with Greg about the age pyramid.
I also think most of the efforts for growing the sport should be towards involving the kids, schools and school officials for introducing PE programs.
In a few years our results could be looking like this: http://bgof.org/bgcup2011/results.pdf

Age, M, W
12 - 51, 57
14 - 37, 27
16 - 36 , 28
18 - 18, 11
20 - 8, 5

If we want to develop orienteering, no groups shell be allowed on any course except for shadowing. Boy/Girl scouts need to learn to earn their badges, by completing their respectable courses by themselves, no cheating, no groups, no exceptions.

For better or worse, the "buddy system" is engrained in scouting. At least at MASOC advanced scouts can do Orange on their own.

I can only speak for Girl Scouts, but the partner thing is mandatory in the book of safety rules (what used to be called Safety-Wise). I always thought many of the safety rules went to excess and regularly broke some of them as a Scout, including this one. Good luck trying to get that changed, as things only seem to be getting more and more restrictive.

BSA Youth protection guidelines also require youths participating in activities as scouts to use the buddy system to preclude the possibility of 1:1 unsupervised contact between adult:child. Its not a stupid rule, but does create problems with sports such as orienteering which involve solo competition in a venue that does not provide for constant visibility of the youth.

I know of at least one O-map that has areas that are frequented by less than savory folk - though I'm not aware that any courses have ever been set in that part of the map. But Youth Protection is a top priority of the scouting organizations and the rules cast a broad net to cover a variety of situations.

Note that one 'workaround' that I employed at Pawtuckaway last fall is that a scout can run 'shadowed' if the shadow is a parent or legal guardian. One could also presumably send scouts out navigating 'solo' with the scout buddy staying a short way back and not assisting in navigation, but staying within visual/auditory distance (say 10-15m back). Sure, you're relying on them to stick to the 'rules' and not help each other but at that level (WYO) its about having fun and learning the sport (A-meet level would be a different story). After the course, they could switch roles and run a second/different course. Just make them aware that the buddy system is still in play, but each one is navigating for himself and the buddy is along for safety. Just a thought.

@cmorse

It is about time that scouts not be allowed to enter O'ring in their outfits,
and apply their sick rules while they engage in orienteering in civilized setting.

Scouts can surely invite some zealots inside their reservations (I have noticed some servants here at Attackpoint), take sperm specimen of the servants, just in case, and practice their godly-approved activities inside the reservations.

>to preclude the possibility of 1:1 unsupervised contact between adult:child. Its not a stupid rule

Kids really need to go to forest on their own, not in groups,as early as possible, going in groups is against the spirit of this sport. This is how it is done in any place or country where orienteering for children is popular and developed. Going in groups may be acceptable for really young kids, where supervision by parent or coach is not practical. But it is truly wrong to allow adolescent groups. I’ve seen it, I pity it.
They are not learning anything, other than how to cheat, this way. They are lost for the sport after this.

Note that one 'workaround' that I employed at Pawtuckaway last fall is that a scout can run 'shadowed' if the shadow is a parent or legal guardian.

Why is it considered a "workaround" for a parent to be alone with his/her child during a scouting event?

@yurets - I totally agree that kids need to get into the woods on their own - mine have all been doing so since I felt they had enough skills to at least bail out to the finish if required.

But the fact is that the scouting organizations have these youth protection guidelines in place and, whether you agree with them or not, they aren't going to change. So you need to decide if you are going to turn them all away because of it, or find a way to accommodate them as groups in the hopes that some enjoy their exposure to the sport enough to come back outside the auspices of the scouting program to do it solo, the way it is meant to be practiced.

But it is truly wrong to allow adolescent groups. I’ve seen it, I pity it.
They are not learning anything, other than how to cheat, this way.

Then you're not teaching it right. The kids I've taken out orienteering are learning real orienteering skills, they're enjoying it (ie having fun) and most of them want to go back again this fall.

@Guy - poor choice of words on my part. As an ASM and avid orienteer, I would like nothing better than to be able to send kids out solo on a course once I felt the basic skills were in place - that's the best way for them to learn and develop. But the structure of the scouting program isn't going to allow that, so I look for ways for them to experience O as best I can. There is admittedly a lot of red tape and BS just to put a weekend orienteering trip together. But if the alternative is to not give them an exposure to the sport and instead get a lame intro to 'map & compass' (I won't even call it orienteering, because its not) then I'll go through the BS and at least get them out there, even if it has to be in groups.

What is wrong with having groups? When I'm trying to entice people to try orienteering one of the first questions I get almost every time is "can I do it in teams?". If I say "no", that is the end of the discussion and the people never come. If I say "yes" then people are interested, they often come, and they always bring at least one other person. Then sometimes they like to try it on their own, but sometimes they are quite happy to run more races with their friends in a "team".

We now explicitly (at Barebones) encourage teams and we provide two courses for them - a Beginner course and a Sport course (which is long but relatively easy).

I can't point to massive increase in participation but I can for sure say we have a bunch more people willing to do something that is very scary, super intimidating - i.e. take a highly complex and confusing map into the forest where they've probably never been off-trail before, and certainly never by themselves.

And I should add, this has had absolutely no negative impact on "real" orienteers. In fact at Barebones this year the "teams" competed on the exact same sprint course as the elite men. I doubt any of the elites even noticed

+1 cmorse

no groups for kids? While that should be the rule at a regional or national champs I'd argue against it for the vast majority of the other levels of the sport. Kids should be introduced to the sport at the local or regional level (be it an event, permanent course or a kids program) in the most kid friendly and fun way possible - and that usually means groups or teams. Following what is done in Scandinavia and other parts of Europe doesn't mean it is the best way to develop youth participation and skills in North America. My club (GHO) has moved to a group/team approach for our kids programs and several of our events and it has been a huge success participation wise.

For example, GHO's schools race is all teams and gets over 1000 participants each year and our Adventure Running Kids (ARK) program encourages groups as well and has about 275 kids. Given the relatively low youth participation and membership numbers across most parts of North America (Calgary, Whitehorse, Seattle being some of the exceptions to that) I would hope it is hard to argue with those numbers.

Our aim is to get more kids active and for them to have fun and learn about and participate in our sport and by encouraging groups and teams we have removed one of the bigger barriers to the sport.

There was a comment earlier on this thread that kids don't learn any new additional skills as a team. I completely disagree. Kids learn all important teamwork skills and even though Adventure Running Kids is a participation based program my experience coaching these kids for the last two years suggests that the kids actually push each other fitness wise and help teach each other and develop different navigation skills. Orienteering skills development requires a person to develop a lot of confidence. Having a team mate to discuss route choice, relocation, and other skills is only setting the kids up to collectively have stronger overall skills.

We often lose sight of what is important about kids and sport. Whats important is that kids are having fun and the kids (in our experience anyway) appear to find groups more appealing and most importantly fun. Add to that this testimonial from a parent of one of our Adventure Running Kids indicates that the parents also like the group/team aspect of the program.

"I love that ARK empowers kids to challenge themselves personally, both mentally and physically. The added bonus is the team-based format for training and racing, where cooperative and team-building skills are also honed. My son's confidence and fitness have continued to build since he started adventure running with ARK. Best of all, he loves it"

Best of all, he loves it"

Says it all... if they don't love it, they're not coming back...

I think hammer knows what he is talking about.

@cmorse: As an ASM, are you able to bring kids who want to go orienteering -- and who also happen to be in your Troop -- to events informally/unofficially?

I am actually more concerned with kids being able to get to events, more than whether or not they participate in groups.

In my case, kids from the troop might elect to go orienteering with my kids as friends, outside the auspices of scouting, so no problems. But it would be kids whose parents I already know anyway.

My first few orienteering experiences were in groups, and I didn't orienteer by myself until I was 22. I guess that's why I developed into such a notorious cheater.

Let me clarify. Current group-based system failed to produce children 14-16 years old interested in doing orienteering at the level of being interested in going to national meets, doing regular training, not just attending “for fun” a weekend camp or a couple of local meets. I am talking about a hundred or two, instead of current 10-15 at most. This is what Greg referred to as age pyramid.

That emotional my-kids-just-love-it type of argument? Certainly kids love having fun outdoors. Is it anything new? The issue was about creating competitive environment for those kids who want to advance, to win, to compete. Currently, it is very discouraging.

Aside, this group-based approach surfaced here for a reason. It is a hot topic in education these days. Whenever measure of learning is objective, like performance on a standardized tests --here it would be number of people capable of running within say 110-120% of the best time-- rather than just scoring on enjoying the experience, that approach fails.

Yes I think at some point you need to wean kids off groups, but there's nothing wrong (and many things right) with starting in groups. Some will transition quickly, some less so, and some won't (and most likely won't reach the competitive level). Nothing wrong with that either—need a lot of parents to be involved to pay the bills!

If you look at the current youth participation in this country, the most active ones (a-meet regulars) are children of extant orienteers. Although gaining exposure to the kids is very important, unless you get the parents involved, your likelihood at gaining long term orienteers from the youth population is slim.

A lot of larger road & trail races have great success by also holding kids races (of varying distances) so families can participate on separate courses. Since we already offer youth courses my feeling is that we would have more success marketing to the young active crowd who are now parents. They can get their athletic fix AND make a family outing of it - each member able to participate at their own level.

I can think of a couple of our current elite who were less than enthusiastic participants in their youth... Get Mom & Dad hooked on the sport and the kids will often catch 'the bug' at some point....

I'm looking forward to the chance to hold a youth only event. In my view it would have two parts - a team score orienteering event in the morning where teams of three or four can work together or separately to find as many controls as they can in an hour or so.
They all have lunch together then in the afternoon the same teams run a relay team - one at a time on easy courses so most can be successful. Scoring of course is determined by placement in the score event combined with the relay. It is ideal for units of cadets, scouts and school groups.
Naturally in the morning the teams can stay together but it won't take long for them to figure out that they can get more done by splitting up. They will make that decision themselves.

Again, where is the most growth happening in North America? What are they doing about kids programs and groups?

I was hoping that someone besides hammer would answer my question, but I guess it still got answered.

FWOC (Calgary) has a very exciting kids program too. Not as prolific as GHOs, but still draws 50+ kids each week to city events. The parents are starting to get involved too and that is having a huge impact. At Barebones this year a number of jobs were handled by parents of the kids, including refreshments, camping, start crew, kids fun zone.

One of the greatest things at Barebones this year was the "Kids Fun Zone" in the arena at each race. In the Sprint arena we had two events - a scoreO in the playground, and a number of short courses with two controls. The kids would go out on Course A, for example, and get the two controls (approx 200-400m). Then they could go out again if they liked. They did like and there was constant activity. At the long arena we set up a maze using about 100 stands and a bunch of flagging tape. We had two courses in the maze - easy and hard. It was awesome to see so many people running the maze at the same time. At the Middle distance race some of the older kids set up a SuperSprint - with a choice of about five courses, and with full SI timing. They were awesome courses and the kids were really proud of what they'd done.

So in Calgary the kids program is well organized and has managed to engage a number of the parents. This year a small group of the older kids are going to Europe to experience the big international events. Hopefully they'll return filled with enthusiasm and help to continue to grow our junior base with their stories.

"Kids Fun Zone" = great idea.

A lot of work for the 6 kids that turn up to East Coast meets! You've got to do the ground work (as both FWOC and GHO have done) first, methinks!

One of the key things to do is to move away from the event-centric approach when it comes to kids. Offer a multi-week participation based kids program instead. That is the key to the successes in YOA, FWOC and GHO I believe.

Agree with Greg in taking down west point at the intercollegiate level. I will attempt the task while I am in college!