Discussion: Local Meet Attendance

Related to the "new participants' question, but decided to make it a separate thread.

What types of local meets seem to draw the best attendance? Especially during the summer?

My wife Sari and I just put on a local meet in Chicago last weekend...we had 152 people show up. For our club, that is only a modest attendance. I think the reasons for the diminished attendance were:

1. Many orienteers move to other sports at a certain time in the spring. For many, orienteering is a cold-weather sport to be done when the woods are dormant.

2. Advanced courses were publicized; we presented some box and butterfly course designs and publicized it on the website. I think newbies felt as tho the meet was not for them, and our "audience" is mostly newbies.

3. Fear of bugs, poison ivy, thick green impenetrable forests.

4. Fear of bad weather. Probability of Percipitation was 60% for Sunday; but it all fell before 8am. Afterward the day turned sunny and mild...a beautiful day.

So, this might not be quite the right thread for this but it's related to making courses less intimidating for 'newbies', especially those who want to let their children run a course but who fear that they will get lost.

In Sweden, they have a course for children in-between the mini-string course and the easiest normal course. On this one, they post happy or sad faces after trail junctions. Clearly, the smily face is on the right trail and the sad face is on the wrong one(s).

Thus, if a child makes a mistake then he/she will find out and be able to go back to the trail junction and correct so they won't wander off really far and be unable to relocate. However, it's clearly still better to go the right way and not waste the time going the wrong way.

In short, the child is doing real orienteering because he/she has to make the decisions about which way to go but then they get feedback after the decision is made. On 'normal' courses, this feedback would come from seeing something on the map that doesn't match up, but the smily/sad faces seem like a good in-between step. I haven't seen this in the US yet, but it seems like a great way to help kids have a positive experience while also having the independence to do courses on their own. Below is a picture of some of the 'sad' stakes that had been collected after a race. If anyone is interessted in trying this, let me know and I could try to get more details about how it is set-up.

http://picasaweb.google.com/SuzanneMArmstrong/HLsi...

http://picasaweb.google.com/SuzanneMArmstrong/HLsi...

QOC, has, thanks to the efforts of Czech expats Jan Merka and Dagmar Merkova (medag on AP, IIRC), been offering a streamer-O course for young children at most of our local meets this past season. A short course is marked with streamers spaced, I believe, just about far enough apart that you can usually see the next one from the one you're next to (maybe a bit further when you're following a major trail, as is usually the case) and the controls have peel-off adhesive stickers for the kids to collect as their proof of course completion. Pariticipant numbers aren't huge but it seems to have a following.

Suzanne, my dad tried that at our local A meet (in New Brunswick) this past weekend. We ended up just using paper plates and somehow attached them to trees. I think it worked well, but only two people went on it (there were only two younger kids that weren't already comfortable with reading the map on their own). It could definitely be a advertising point for the sport, and I personally think it beats shadowing! Is there any special way to set it up besides the obvious?

In general, how old are the kids that do the streamer and smily/sad face courses?

I like the idea and I have a 7 year old. I started off saying that I'd be uncomfortable letting him go unaccompanied but decided I couldn't come up with a scenario where I would allow it. With a friend or two would be ok. The odds of something happening are remote, but the bad guys are out there. The apartment where Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby were found is only a half mile from my house....

As John mentioned me and my husband started last fall to prepare streamer for QOC meets. We need an activity for our kid to enjoyed O-meets as we do and enjoying to go there. It is working for her really well (she is now 3 1/2). I did some evaluation of last season and average for attendance is ~ 6kids/groups per event. Meets that are in the big city parks can get on average 10kids/groups Age group is 2-6(7) generally accompanied by adult , some older one 6-7 started with streamer and then moved on white after gaining some self-confidence. Also I think there was more kids in case we were helping at registration and actively were propagating it to the families with small kids. Have to probably work more on propagation, but personally it was satisfactory for us. More when we can see some kids returning following meets.
I think it is a good starter. I like smile faces idea for next level.
Here is short info with some pics from QOC-streamer courses:
http://orienteering.highsphere.net/streamer

Contrary to the European model, O in America is an older people's sport compared with running or other activities.

For proof, compare the age-group sizes: only as you get near 60 do the O and 5k run age-groups number the same. In fact, in my M65+ O age group, I often compete with more guys at A-meets than in Chicago circuit road races and triathlons. Meanwhile the younger running age groups number 400-600, compared with, what...a dozen or two orienteers?

I think clubs should focus on this reality: sell O as a fun, low-impact activity that older, sedentary Americans can enjoy and become good at into their golden years. Stop going to scout meetings and running expos to promote the sport; start recruiting at retirement homes, veteran's conventions and bingo games.

One thing's for sure: we wouldn't face much competition: it's a demographic that, as they say, is "underserved" by the sports industry.

problem with that is... in the long run you are better off recruiting 100 youngsters per year that will persist for 50 years than 1000 oldies per year that will be hanging on to their Zimmer frame for dear life in 10 years...
On the other hand, if you can get a piece of the bequeathing market...

Before y'all come after me with sawn off blunder busters remember that my tongue is often in my cheek...

One of the benefits of having things for kids to do is so they look forward to going to the O-meet rather than struggling against it. MNOC just had a meet where the kids who completed USOF Little Troll Cards got O t-shirts.

I think the smiley/sad face idea is a great one that we could probably do once or twice a year. I plan on using near Halloween an idea I saw on AP as well, with the plastic pumpkins painted into O controls. Each time they get to a control, they get some sort of treat.

We have a 4 year old who can now check the control code and punch in the right box on the punch card. He runs the entire white couse and we are starting to take more time looking at the map while on the course.
We may not be getting it exactly right. But, it gives us a chance to teach numbers, letters, direction (NSEW as well as left/right) and decision making. All that while getting exercise too.

But the reality of American teen-agers is that they rebel soon after reaching puberty and seem to dread spending time with their families.

And Daddy's little girl, who used to enjoy going with him to O meets, now is into boys and her friends at junior high.

Even among Nordic families that move to Chicago with a well-established O background, we've seen the teenagers disapper as soon as they acquire American friends. I'm still waiting to see even one of these kids reappear at an O meet after they mature into their 20's and beyond. It hasn't happened.

I wonder what the retention rate is for American kids raised in the sport from a young age...how many of them are still active in O as adults?

As a parent and a teacher though, I am much more concerned about healthy, educational activities than I am with the strict retention of kids in orienteering.

The loss of teenagers to other activities is true of all sports--it's just that more kids play team sports so the loss isn't as noticeable.

I would sure rather have my kids with me running around in the woods while they are willing to be seen with me than leaving them at home to play video games.

One comparison that may be worthwile. Students who row in high school and college, often do not row immediately upon leaving college. But after a few years they come back and enjoy the sport the rest of their life. While I have no data whatsoever to back it up, I would bet that there are many people orienteering today that tried it when they were young, went away and then came back.

Personally, I have an eighth grade gym teacher to thank for introducing me to the sport. I didn't take it up for many years, but now I'm what some might call obsessed with it.

No doubt kids do go their own way at some point. My 16 year old used to go, but now refuses to get out of bed on weekend mornings. But some manage to stick with it.

My 7 year old still loves to go. On the white courses, he does a lot of the navigation. On the yellow, my wife and I help out. Little bugger ran a 7:58 mile about a month ago....

Biking and running are probably other good examples of activities that kids learn, leave, and go back to at some point.