Discussion: Joining?

Glad to read that you're going to join QOC. You seemed to do pretty well yesterday--maybe it wasn't so fast for you and you're really much better. Are you here in the DC area permanently now?

Thanks for the welcome and I really enjoyed yesterday. As always with new types of terrain it took a few legs to get into the map and I definitely felt over-dressed and hot once running more confidently!

At the moment, I'm visiting regularly but we plan to move across in January for a few months. We will be based closed to Richmond and travelling around to events should enable us to see more of the place. I hope my wife sees it that way. Anyway QOC has gives a really friendly welcome so it seemed natural to join. Hope to put some names to faces at future events.

There is a small spin-off o-club in the Richmond area that has been slowly growing. A few of the more experienced orienteers there come up north to the regular QOC events since the quality is a little better. A lot of the best events in the eastern USA are even further north. My wife Peggy and I often travel to these for weekend getaways. Though generally every club has at least one nice area and puts on national level events every now and then, the density of these is higher starting in New York and on up to New Hampshire. The southeastern clubs in North Carolina and Georgia have regular national level events; the Georgia Navigator Cup coming up on January 18th is one that often brings the snowbound northerners down and one that will be closer to you.

I look forward to seeing you around.

I met the CVOC folks and already have a permanent course map to check from them ! It came with some advice about bears and coyote which sounds rather alarming to alien like me. Then they said that the bear are probably hibernating so I relaxed.
Georgia might be a little early. But I'll definitely need some advice about the must-do events later in spring.
See you around.

Coyote's are moving/repopulating into the area but I've only heard of incidents with pets being snatched--never people. Bears are also being sighted in a few places but this is fairly rare, especially for orienteers. Most bears encountering people in the eastern US would be scared and probably run the other direction. However, be careful of forest with hunters who are quicker with their fingers than they sometimes can see. Generally they are not in parks but they are in forest reserves.

Here are some events to aim for though not all of these are must-do and I'm likely to have missed others:

* Jan 26, 2014 QOC Combat Village (local event)
* Apr 4–6, 2014 OCIN Flying Pig XVIII / US Interscholastic Champs
* Apr. 26 - 27 U.S. Intercollegiate Championships and U.S. Relay Championships
* May 11, 2014 36th Annual Billygoat Run
* Aug 9–10, 2014 2014 US Classic Champs, RMOC
* Oct. 3 - 5 2014 US Individual Championships ; Sprint / Long / Middle formats
* Oct. 25 - 26 Hudson Valley Orienteering A-meet
* Hudson Highlander (not scheduled yet but usually in October).