Discussion: What about 20's and 30's?

I find the post-college age group to be forgotten. I currently hold the VP position in DVOA. Our club is aging out quickly. I left orienteering during college/grad school and came back to mostly the same club members. I want to be orienteering in 20 years. Half of the active members in my age group are my friends I directly recruited.

Do other clubs have this issue?
What have you done to help recruit that specific age group?
Opinions on sort of.. "rebranding"?
Mass start events?

http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/me...

Beer?

Another question I'd be interested in is... what age did most people start orienteering who are active now?

Welcome to the club, Erik. I've long been fighting the fight. I still want to orienteer when I'm 60!

Do other clubs have this issue?

Generally speaking, yes. That said, I don't have local club data. I'm less worried about CascadeOC, though.

What have you done to help recruit that specific age group?
Nothing specifically. It helps a bit in Seattle that we've had a couple of passionate young adults join the club in the past 5 years, and we've built some momentum there. I was the youngest person on the club's board when I joined in 2007, and now we have 3 younger than me.

One specific thing I've been a part of is representing the club at the "Adventure Runs" organized by the local Road Runner Sports store since 2011. These events are overwhelmingly attended by young adults, and are essentially already urban orienteering events. We host a checkpoint, hand out flyers, give out prizes, that sort of thing. We've certainly raised our exposure, but that hasn't translated into a lot of starts. I'll chalking that up to not having a flashy marketing campaign that captivates people.

Opinions on sort of.. "rebranding"?

Back in 2010 or so, I really liked a national rebrand of "adventure running" (adventure biking, adventure skiing). It's way better than orienteering (sorry, Neil), and the most successful club in North America has been using it for several years. However, the recent explosion of mud runs and obstacle runs have essentially co-opted that term for themselves, and I think it would be really hard for us to rebrand as that right now.

Which brings us to...

Mass start events?

I agree that mass start events, specifically score-o's, are the best way to get newcomers. Period. It's more social, it's a one-size-fits-all, it's less frustrating, it's easier to set up, it requires less volunteers. (Yes, I realize that it's not the "pure" orienteering that we all love, but you have to give a little to gain here.)

In 2011, CascadeOC started up our Choose Your Adventure Series, which basically replaced the hodge-podge of random events we used to have August-October (the rest of the year is filled with two long standing series: Winter Series and Ultimate Series).

As the series director, I wanted to do something that was fun, social, beginner-friendly, and required fewer (and less-experienced) volunteers than a standard event. It's essentially a series of score-o's, usually with a fun theme. One is vampire themed, one is in a corn maze, one on a college campus, one in canoes/kayaks, etc.

Attendance-wise, we've seen steady growth each year, and the format has won over a lot of people, including many of the "purists".

I know that BAOC has also experimented with mass start events, with the TrailCross series (mass-start point-to-point) and Forest Scrambles (mass start score-o's). Hopefully someone from BAOC can chime in with those experiences.

What age did most people start orienteering who are active now?

I earned the merit badge in 1997, but only because I was the navigator on a backpacking trip and we never got lost, which had never happened before, so the adults gave me the merit badge. My first exposure to the sport was in college in 2003, and I started attending events regularly in 2004, post-college.

Local midweek training, even if it's just a jog on some trails, will help build group coherence. It doesn't have to be for the whole club, just those who live in your area. Maybe alternate one week running, one week o.

And for the 20-30s, local attractions can also be promoted for people to make a daytrip, which can be an easier sell to non-o friends. Eg, go orienteering, lunch and then to an art museum, or bowling, or whatever.

And PS, sorry, "orienteering" is not the problem. See what I did there?

Local midweek training, even if it's just a jog on some trails, will help build group coherence. It doesn't have to be for the whole club, just those who live in your area.

Yes. There's a group of young women orienteers in Seattle that meets regularly for training and runs. There's also a much, much larger group of mostly young people that meets for training runs in my neighborhood 6 days a week for running training.

The point is, there isn't a panacea. You'll want a junior program, some social trainings, and appealing events. Changing the name to something else doesn't work if that's the only thing that you change.

See what I did there?

Yes.... I couldn't remember if you said "orienteering" wasn't the problem, or if orienteering wasn't the problem.

I came across the COC website the other week for the first time. I actually sent an email through the website complimenting, with questions (no response :) ). I really like the "themed" schedule and "simple" (meaning... concise, focused) website.

sent an email through the website... no response

Eeek, I haven't seen it (it may not have been sent to me). But you're not the first person to try to email someone through the website and have it not go through. Exploring this issue, thanks!

^^ was to your president.

Ok, cool. We talked issue at our board meeting a few weeks ago, and we're working on it.

I started orienteering at age 13, and never stopped.

I think there are various reasons why you lose people at college age. They are taking up new activities, meeting new friends, getting jobs, doing things that can go on a resume, etc. Sometimes this means old activities go by the wayside. Some people get established in a job after school and then come back, but others get busy with marriage, kids, etc and never do. (Something I've never really understood, BTW. My hobbies are part of me and they come along for the ride. Not stopping for anybody.)

Some may have really only come orienteering because their family did. I have seen some kids who love it, but there are others who seem just not that into it and only go because Mom and Dad bring them along. Once they have complete choice over their own schedule and activities, that's it.

In my case it was difficult in college because I didn't have a car there. So I had to wait for my Mom to decide to go to an event and pick me up (and she went much less frequently then). Or I would convince friends who owned cars to come along, but they rarely were interested in doing it more than a handful of times. I did have a group I could travel with to A-meets.

I think if there was a magical solution, we would already be recruiting people of these ages. Maybe a start would be finding some of these former members and getting an idea of why they left. I can even think of some top juniors with great potential who just disappeared. I think for those of us who love the sport, it's hard to believe that others wouldn't. But it seems like lots of people just don't have any interest. (And I know plenty, especially younger people, who don't even like to do anything outdoors at all.)

At HVO's 6/22/14 Eagle Rock event -- 1st in NJ since October -- among 116 (78) participants (starts), 60 (24) were newcomers.

Of those, if you take out people who came because they knew HVO members, as well as scouts, that leaves about 33 (14) who came to the event after learning about it through media. For the most part, these were parents with children.

Furthermore, the predominant media from which they learned about the event were the local patch.com sites -- 23 (9). Posting event info -- with a properly written description (thanks, MJ Stout!) -- to the 10 sites in Essex County, NJ, probably took about one hour.

YMMV, but this tells me that getting O-events on local media will bring people out.

The M21 age category, despite having the biggest 'range' (21-34), typically has one of the lower turnouts in our events. It's worse in MTBO where at national level the range is 21-39 and still one of the lowest turnouts behind M50s and M60s. I guess orienteering is one of those things you retire to after you've worn yourself out on "real" sports.

Or maybe after you have worn yourself out on 'real' orienteering ;)

I'm not entirely sure about this, but I presume it is the 20-40s that started the clubs. You should ask yourselves how it happened, what made it fun and inspiring for those people.

I am an old person who started orienteering at college aged 21.

Having found the best sport in the world, I found it has its own peculiar ethos that everyone volunteers to run events. I liked that too, because it made me look good among my peer group. So when I was M21, we M21s put on events for our M21 friends. Now I'm M50, we M50s put on events for our M50 friends. I do this for fun and I'm motivated by positive feedback from people I like enjoying what I do, not a sense of obligation. So why would I care about a different demographic?

Discuss...

I find the post-college age group to be forgotten.
Forgotten by who? It's been a while, but I don't recall a big desire to hang out with the over-50s when I left college.

Hint: map the campus.

Exactly, it's up to the 20yos to recruit the 20yos, but it can be facilitated by the over-50s

@ Guy: Sounds like you had a nice event. I have never heard of patch, I'll look into that. Does HVO track "how did you find out about us" at meets, or did you just deduce it?

Erik--you are right on, I think. This is a key issue to growing the sport, and to keeping clubs, such as DVOA, strong.

PinkSocks... Do you know what your best media outlet was for recruitment? Or a combination? What type of people showed up? Did you reach out to specific groups?

@furlong47. I went to Millersville.. closer to SVO land. I actually ran an outdoor club, and we did some permanent courses on camping trips. The problem for me was also transportation and not alot of close events, and I was never contacted or really reminded about orienteering. Plus I have other hobbies; so it happens. This is where a mailing list or listserv for an occasional reminder might come in use. My interest peaked again when some people at work asked me questions about orienteering, and I was settled in DVOA land.

I think exposure is good in college/junior, but right after college might be a great time to recruit a long term "member". A good start would be to see where the previous juniors are now, like you said. I'll look into that.

Around here (Ottawa) the 20-somethings that do any sports at all are playing co-ed beach volleyball (6 a side) and ultimate (frisbee) also a co-ed sport as well as the odd 'Spartan Race' (mud wrestling on the go). It seems for them the sports park has replaced the bar as a dating venue. In fact Ultimate is known locally as the sport for computer geeks who can't get a date. Perhaps there are primal urges in play there keeping orienteering in the background.
(That is why when I set up a series of Night O events they are going to be billed as the second most fun you can have in the dark. I'm appealing directly to those urges.)
But actually this year in Ottawa Orienteering is holding its own and even increasing ever so slightly while sports such as triathlon, softball and golf are way off with that 20's demographic. A quick study of the results of a few recent local triathlon most often shows more participants in each of the 5 year age groups from 40 to 60 than in the 20-24 or 25 - 29.

someone from BAOC can chime in with those experiences

Many of the club's core hated these events and made every effort to put them down, so they died. There wasn't a shortage of willing people to put them on, but a shortage of desire to commit the club's other resources to them, such as maps. Using a map for a non-standard format was seen as despoiling the map. Many also balked at the "steep" $15–$23 fees.

Head-to-head competition and an easy-to-understand format are major parts of an attractive deal, but not the only parts. From where I sit, there's not a way to make an "orienteering event" as seen by most "orienteering clubs" into an enjoyable experience for 20- to 40-year-olds simply because of orienteers' cheapness. On a shoestring budget, you can't put together a quality experience on par with what people expect from an outdoor event nowdays. You don't have to have beer, what you absolutely must have is the whole race atmosphere: an indoor center or many tents, prompt check-in, instant results, announcing, shirts, swag, photos from the course, and a post-race buffet. This is what the state of the market is for trail runs; trail half-marathons sell out at $85 entry fees, newcomers are hooked and want to come back.

Compare this with a typical orienteering event where you drive to the middle of the woods an hour away, wait in line to check in, fill out several redundant paper forms, then proceed to some place in even deeper woods where a lone staffer releases you on the course... then you are all alone in the deepest woods with no sense of how well you are progressing until you make it to the finish, where a (typically grumpy) staff person downloads your e-punch. You then wait for a half-hour for your result while munching on some chips (to get which approved as an event expence must take several years of board meetings, and a major bite out of event proceeds). And others' results may not come for another couple of hours. You don't get pretty much anything to brag about afterwards or post on your Facebook (sometimes not even those results no matter how long you wait for them). If you are a deeply introverted person, this must be heaven. If you are somewhere on the middle of the scale, like most people, this whole experience must seem truly bizarre—and I'm only talking about the off-course parts.

Does a $10 entry fee balance this thing out? just look at attendance.

That does not sound like a typical QOC event.
Also: I do a bunch of (low-key) trail races, and they are no more organized (and in many cases, less -- I *never* see results until later that day, if that early) than our local orienteering meets.

Indeed you are blessed and spoiled in QOC-land. I hope the cash flow is positive.

The state of the outdoor event market is perhaps ahead of the game on the West Coast in general, and in California in particular. Not for long, though; quality sells. Once a well organized and well funded operator comes around, all those low-key events either (a) go out the window, or (b, much more likely) sell their particpant list to the operator and see their fees go up to $85 and attendance, double or triple.

BAOC is doing just fine. The events are of high quality, well attended and fun. There is an increasing number of younger people who are becoming regular participants. The club is doing very well financially. BAOC is full of great people, who are more than willing to volunteer their skills and time. I am confused why someone would characterize it otherwise.

I think we just found the problem. Or lack thereof.

ErikEddy, I hear your concerns. I was the youngest active member of ORCA when we founded it (early 20's). I was the youngest board-member of BAOC when I moved there (mid-twenties), and still was when I left (early 30's).

My recommendation to the greybeards: find opportunities to get out of the way and let the kids have fun. Before they get indoctrinated in the 'right' way of doing things, ask them to create an event that they think their friends would love. Encourage them experiment with stupid courses, silly formats, and crappy maps. Give them space to invent something they have ownership over and hold your tongue about the right ways to do things. Life isn't about being right, it's about having fun. When young people discover a free space that they can have fun in, exciting things tend to happen.

Sounds like you had a nice event.

Thanks, Erik! That 116 is only 12 fewer than DVOA's Fort Washington event on the same day. :-)

Does DVOA remove double-counts due to people running additional courses, from its participant numbers?

Does HVO track "how did you find out about us" at meets, or did you just deduce it?

Our registration card includes the following line:

NEWCOMERS: how did you hear about this meet?

There were a handful of people who heard about the event through a meet-up group (or groups). I did not notify them, so it's possible that they pulled the event off of patch.

I wish our card also had a line for e-mail address, so we could follow up with the newbies... :-\

My recommendation to the greybeards...[snip]

Someone elect this man president of the world or something.

T/D, for races, I agree, somewhat, and your big fun events should be part of the picture. But putting on events is different to building a club.

(And that also means A-meets aren't really relevant either.)

How many North American clubs are built without event hosting as their raison d'être?

How many North American clubs ask 20s and 30s why they do trail running and other sports?

Interesting thread, but do clubs really know what they want?

Just the one, as far as I know. Maybe none, depending on how the history of the 'building' of HKF/GHO/DontGetLost.ca is parsed. Of course, in any given area someone has to host events or there won't be any so the vast majority of existing clubs can't opt out of a focus on event hosting. Grow orienteering significantly, double or triple the number of clubs, and then I could imagine much more specialisation emerging.

Has anyone thought about talking to the Bermans and the CSU crew about this? We loved our time with CSU when we were in our 30s, and having the Bermans there to organize, inspire, and support a group of busy student-athletes was wonderful. Our graybeards absolutely have something to offer younger generations. I remember Sara Mae telling me about Alex Jospe being one to watch years ago. Clearly, she has thrived with CSU as have so many others. It also helps to have many opportunities to orienteer with NEOC, UNO, and WCOC close by, but we really felt the driving force of the Bermans' support as a great motivator while we were in Cambridge.

Great discussion, folks. I particularly note the correlation between Desert/Tundra's description of a first-timer's lonely introduction to classic orienteering and Pink Socks' advocacy of mass-start events as the highly social antidote.

In fact, I'll go a step further. In a time of Google Maps directions, GPS turn-by-turn instructions, and outdoor development time increasingly shifted to online entertainment, many youth--and other age groups--simply aren't ready to jump into classic orienteering, even if motivated to do so. Some social, mass-start events, and some low-key training are essential first rungs on the navigational ladder.

I also noted a reference to media placement--essentially info distribution to various newsgroups. It's sad how often this essential function can slip away when all volunteers are so busy. We recently started this promotion up again after a three-year hiatus (oops!), led by a guy who discovered our club after randomly coming across a control in the park and wondering what it was. Definitely room for marketing improvement there.

Finally, @ErikEddy, I'm concerned that I may be missing mail from the website, and want to investigate further. Could you please send me a test mail? Thanks!

I was in my 20s and 30s once but it was a long time ago. I was a greybeard once too, but if I let it grow out now, it would be all white. So I assume I am out of touch. Which doesn't prevent me from a few comments…. :-)

To those wishing to do things differently, good for you, change is great.

But what's stopping you?

If you want to do things differently, just do it. But be smart about it.

1. Be willing to lead. A lot of folks of all ages are stuck in their ways, doing things the way they have always been done because, well, that's the way they've always been done. Don't expect them to suddenly change. But rather than just complaining about how we are out of touch, do something.

I'd be very surprised if you couldn't get approval in most clubs for all sorts of new and different (and maybe wacko) ways of doing things. Just remember how the world works in such situations -- if you want to start new things, expect to be looked to for providing the leadership to make it happen.

Now, you can look at that as a drag or as an opportunity. If you want change, you'd best be taking the latter approach.

2. Leadership is possible at a very early age. It's best if you have some enthusiasm, some brains, some talent, some judgement. Nowhere is it required that you be old.

I have never felt either too young, or too old, to lead. I have never felt either too young, or too old, to make changes in how events are organized. I have sometimes felt resistance to change, but in most cases, if I was sure that what I wanted to do made sense, I just went ahead and did it. And the O' world survived, whether it was Billygoats, or sprints, or corn mazes, or whatever.

3. You have the choice, when dealing with old-timers in the sport -- and here am talking about those who are stuck in their ways, not those who are chronologically old -- you have the choice of respecting them for what they can contribute, or dissing them for what you don't like about them.

I suggest that showing some respect will get you where you want to go much quicker and much easier. Show them some respect and they will bend over backwards to help you get things done. Diss them, and things will get harder. It's your choice.

But if you have some enthusiasm, some brains, some talent, some judgement, in short if you have what it takes to lead, then that choice ought to be clear.

@blegg -- My recommendation to the greybeards: find opportunities to get out of the way and let the kids have fun. Before they get indoctrinated in the 'right' way of doing things, ask them to create an event that they think their friends would love. Encourage them experiment with stupid courses, silly formats, and crappy maps. Give them space to invent something they have ownership over and hold your tongue about the right ways to do things. Life isn't about being right, it's about having fun. When young people discover a free space that they can have fun in, exciting things tend to happen.

You don't need to wait to be asked. Just do it.

... You don't need to wait to be asked. Just do it.
Someone elect this man president of the world or something.

That's all nice and rosy and motivational. And happens to ignore the fact that yes, indeed, we (led jointly by blegg) went ahead and did it. And the summary is above.

if you have some enthusiasm, some brains, some talent, some judgement, in short if you have what it takes to lead

Reminds me of the propaganda one hears not too infrequently in this country. If you have the brains and work hard, you will succeed. In one area or another. Which is true, but omits at least one key ingredient:

Resources.

If you have the brains and talent and work hard and have resources, it's a lot easier to succeed than if you have the same brains, the exact same talent, and work just as hard, but don't have the resources.

In a curious aside, the propaganda tends to be most often propagated by those who do have access to resources than by those who don't. But it's an aside.

What we didn't have was reliable access to resources. In our case, most importantly, maps.

The greybeards don't just control the resources; they have also set up the system so that you can't share or loan the resources unless you agree with said greybeards on some key items. Which strongly limits the way you can do things, but doesn't completely preclude experimentation.

In our parallel 2013 experiments, we got the buy-in from the club's Board. We put together two series of mass-started events. Attendance wasn't spectacular and it wasn't poor. Financially, events of the new series were the most "profitable" for the club. Attendance for the 20- to 40-year-old newcomers was the best the club ever experienced.

But the old-timers didn't like what they saw. They weren't having fun. Their club's resources were used to a purpose not immediately beneficial to them: we were despoiling precious venues with our impure undertakings. Out the window goes access to maps and venues, for 2014 and beyond.

We keep getting inquiries from people who came in 2013 and are wondering why there aren't any more events.

I can scrabble together some funding and put on an awesome TrailCross or eight if I have a map, or eight. I don't have the time to make eight maps, and my personal financial resources are insufficient to hire someone to make these maps. I can instead put together something on a USGS, but it would be second-rate and offering second rate to my participants is lame. I don't have to put on eight TrailCross events, but without having a series, the appeal to the uninitiated falls dramatically, far more for a single event vs. eight than a factor of eight.

You can settle for far less, of course, and not try to change "the world". And in the end, all you've made is a corn maze, attendance 70. Plus maybe one or two elsewhere, attendance another 30. That's about a factor of 5 less than people starting in a single wave of Tough Mudder. Twenty waves per event, hundred events per year, or so.

And you've just spent 100 hours of your time, works out to an hour per participant. Perhaps morally gratifying, but pretty miserable if you are trying to optimize the right-hand side in (resources + work => outcome).

Hey PG, I didn't mean my comments to be derogatory to the older generation. I'm turning into one myself. And, I DON'T think that the older generation should stop going out there and finding ways to have fun themselves!!!

I presume that when US orienteering was starting out, the clubs were filled with young and old. Members were probably inexperienced; there was no template to follow. But they must have been enthusiastic about breaking new ground and building something cool. So how did the first generate evolve over time? How does creative enthusiasm eventually solidify into dogma and routine?

I love being around creative, enthusiastic people. People who have a glimmer in their eye, and an irrepressible urge to make something cool. They are still out there, young and old. I could list dozens on the west coast (Bob, Patrick, Bosco, Schrim, Rex, Jay Hahn.. the list goes on). Jeff, Paula, and Andy had founded ORCA with that enthusiasm. Mal Harding still shows in in CROC, and he's certainly not young anymore.

But... well... what I've found over time is that there are segments of the O-community can be really good at squelching creative enthusiasm. Innovators have to fight for it, hard. Sideways-criticism, roadblocks, neglect, and death by committee are common. I LOVE orienteering, but there are other communities out their that foster creativity much better.

(This varies by region, of course. Some clubs foster creativity much better than others!!! BAOC was quite recalcitrant. The club culture encouraged Jay Hahn to step away from the sport, and motivated Rex and Vlad to start their own businesses)

I can understand why it happens... the older generation poured their heart and soul into building something pretty amazing. It must drive them crazy to see some naive-young fools stroll in, thinking they can reinvent the wheel and do it better.

The thing is, the older generation fell in love with orienteering while they built it. If they want the younger generation to fall in love too, they need to give the younger generation that same chance.

Addendum: If the established community doesn't actively foster the opportunity to create something, young people will follow the past of least resistance and innovate with the local rock-climbers, disc-golfers, or whatever. Which is fine for them, fine for the world, but not so great for the future of orienteering.

I can't really answer your questions about the history, because there didn't really seem to be any plan to build something cool.

If I'd had to describe the 70s/80s, it was more like -- orienteering is really fun, we want to do more. And the way things would develop is that people would go elsewhere (Canada, Europe) and see things being done differently, and try these things out when they got back home. So maybe they/we were trying to make the sport cooler or better or more popular or more fun or some combination of all that, but there wasn't a plan. It just sort of happened.

And that's been pretty much the case ever since.

People would love the sport, but things change and a while later maybe they moved on to something else. Clubs would start, clubs would grow, but clubs would also lose key people and fade away. But I've never heard any of my contemporaries back then ever talk about "building" orienteering. It just happened. We weren't smart enough or dedicated enough to build it. Which is why, after all these years, it's not much different or better off than 20 or 30 or 40 years ago.

So don't give us credit for a master plan that never existed.

A story -- a board meeting back around 1980, more or less. At the meeting were representatives from a group ready to give a mid-5-figure donation to help develop orienteering, with the probability of giving it directly to the federation. While they sat and observed, most of the meeting was taken up by quibbling over the rules. We never got the donation. (The donation went to the St. Louis club to hire people to make a whole bunch of school maps. Of course, that initiative faded away before too many years had passed.)

Orienteering has always attracted folks of a certain type. Creativity is not their strong people. Rules are favored, change is difficult. To the extent that is true today, that has always been true.

Over all my years in the sport, the event that to me represented the most daring, the most courage, the most creativity, was hosting WOC-93. The fact that that happened was due to the force of personality of one person, and only one person, Per Stensby. No one gave him the chance. He just took it and ran with it. And, for better or worse, 5 years later the event happened.

But... well... what I've found over time is that there are segments of the O-community can be really good at squelching creative enthusiasm.

Right on, sadly.

In my case, over the years, it has meant picking my battles, choosing when to get involved and when not to, choosing how much of my time I was willing to put into the sport, and where within that sport. The end result has been a lot of memories, mostly good, and a lot of friendships, all good. But everyone has to make those choices for themselves.

Many will choose to leave the sport. That seems to be the reality. I hope you don't.

I want to add this again... I've met awesome people in the O-community, young and old. I've innovated, I've contributed, I've had a blast. I've met roadblocks, but almost never any hard feelings or disrespect. Sorry if my colorful choice of language implied otherwise.

In recent years, for outside-reasons, I've stepped away from the sport and spent more time in other communities. (Right now, I live in a town with no orienteering club for ~150 miles in any direction). You know what, it's been great. I honestly don't care that much if orienteering thrives anymore... I'll just go on backpacking, biking, and trail running and be happy with my life.

I'm just sharing my observation, that (when compared with other activities) the current structure of orienteering doesn't seem to foster real, creative participation by young people very well. I'm not advocating any particular solution... I just want to encourage the people with entrenched interests (young or old) to look for opportunities to encourage creativity, instead of squelching it.

[I]f they want the younger generation to fall in love too, they need to give the younger generation that same chance.

The chance may mean as little as sharing the resources. And if the local club doesn't have enough foresight to see itself aging out of existence within less than a decade, then it falls on the national organization to step in and encourage innovation, with resources to begin with.

I totally get the lack of desire to share the resources; "it's our stuff, we made it, we get to play with it however we can". Well, perhaps yes if you are a member-service club. Not if you profess to serve the community and claim 501(c)3. And even if you don't, it's simply silly to give others no other chance but to try to replicate the excellent maps you already made. Most major metro areas have the most exciting pieces of real estate mapped around them. If you just sit on these maps, as is the case around here, the public as a whole certainly doesn't benefit.

@bobfo Just sent you a test email. Maybe check your spam too, I've had a couple emails go to SPAM through DVOA website email tool. Thanks!

Digesting the rest of the posts.

Swampfox once had a wise thing to say regarding map resources. He had made a bunch of maps in Laramie, all his own labor, and he said that if some outfit from out of town wanted to swoop in and put on meets on his maps, well, nothing could make him happier. Maps sitting in a closet (real or virtual) are worthless. Maps getting used are wonderful. If a club has maps, then about the only valid reasons I can think of for not letting somebody use them to put on orienteering events are a) the map is embargoed for an upcoming major event, or b) relations with the land managers are delicate, and use needs to be limited. Maps are not like wine gaining exquisite flavor as they age. Instead, they're like milk, great right now and very stinky if you wait too long. Charge some reasonable amount to recoup some of the cost of making the map, but by all means let reasonable people use them for their intended purpose. (Same goes for renting out the rest of the infrastructure equipment.)

I like the "TrailCross" series idea. Mt Penn (site of 2002 short long US course champs) draws huge trail races (300-500 people... at least 6/year) from a local for-profit company. I was thinking of trying to host a mass start score type meet, but with course set-up allowing for long trail runs and aid stations.

For clubs that have mass start events targeting towards newbies. What is the strategy towards instruction? Is there more of an organized set up the day of the event? For pre-reg events...anything before.. like a map preview?

nothing could make him happier

That's the exact opposite of the answer I have in my archived inbox by no one other than the same Swampfox.

Really? I don't have any actual record of it, because it was in a conversation. I wonder if the context was particularly different.

What would have been the motivation for an independent third party to use the Laramie maps? Was there some tweaking of the marketing mix that would have produced appreciably different results than what Swampfox has been doing with them? I wonder what the concept was?

The main difference from his point of view is that he would get to participate instead of having to put on the event himself. (It was a hypothetical case, his reaction to hearing about a "turf war" between two other clubs. Nobody was actually offering to do it.)

I believe the actual discussion involved Lake George maps, not Laramie maps. Not sure if the difference is material.

I organized a series of 2-3 hour score-o's once with reasonable success. I never did get the chance to ramp them up the way I wanted. Life gets in the way. But my basic concept was:

-Used barely-modified USGS maps. Less clutter for beginners to figure out (map simplification ain't easy) and readily available anywhere.
-Terrain with low technical difficulty, with most of the challenge from route-choice (yellow-orange level).
-Teams mandatory (Reduced turnout from long-timers, but enhanced turnout from newbies).
-Maps handed out prior to the event (rogaine style), with ~40 minutes for route planning, and mandatory intention sheets. (This helped us locate late groups, and forced beginners to struggle with map reading before they were on the course).
-Course length of 2-3 hours. Long enough to feel adventurous, short enough to not be intimidating. (Fixed-time-limit simplifies logistics and enhances socialization - big party at the finish, with awards ceremony)

I didn't feel like it would make a great core-product for most O-clubs, but is a great thing to do a couple times a year.

I personally love running in packs, so mass start trail-cross things sound like great fun. But in practice, the packs thin out so quickly.... I still don't know any great tricks to keep the pack together. Maybe some recreational hash-o, where the fast runners waste time checking out dummy controls could be done?


Also, as much as my ego likes to sell orienteering as a sport, so I can get recognized as an athlete, there are some benefits to selling it like scavenger hunt. I've had trouble selling mass-start and sprint events to some of my friends because they are self-conscious about being seen running slow and making mistakes. Something about the anonymity of the woods (or running as groups) is comforting there.

What type of maps does the TrailCross series use?

"Used" is the proper tense.

Standard O-maps, with a small number of exceptions. Some maps were in perfectly fine ISOM shape, some a bit behind. Terrain used was not the most technically difficult.

Probably the most fun I had last year at a race was actually running in a TrailCross. (I didn't do the Jukola last year.) Perfect organization, a buffet on par with those at trail runs (at the ED's expense, paid out of own pocket). Great course planning by one of our devoted rogainers: The lead pack existed until the finish, and leaders were constantly trading places based on whether or not they were taking shortcuts, whether or not the shortcuts were working out to their advantage, and whether or not they executed the shortcuts well. Almost always there were few or no features on the shortcut; once you left the trail, you were in blank woods with perhaps some vague contours, you had to either read the vagueness perfectly well or use your compass perfectly well in order to pop out exactly where you wanted to.

Had this been just a trail run, the same leaders would have spread out a lot more by the finish, I don't think there would have been much visual contact after about halfway. I lost the race by tripping and falling into a patch of blackberries just before the last CP, it paid to go around on that one!

I have to say, Vlad, that I don't think we can externalize all the blame for BAOC's scramble and trail-cross series floundering.

The role-out, was.... a little more aggressive than it probably needed to be. There was essentially an abrupt transition from a 'traditional' schedule, to having something like 6 Trail-cross events and 6 scramble events in a single year. That came along with an (apparent) reduction in the frequency of classic-style events, and an increased stress-load on volunteers who had to deal with the changes.

We have the right to ask for a space to experiment, and we should hope for some degree of support. But we'd be foolish to expect the regulars to jump down every rabbit-hole with us. I think that ended up being too much, to fast! We probably would have done better with a slower, more polished roll-out.

I agree somewhat. The thing is, one or two events do not a series make. If you want people to come to events, there need to be plenty of them—people have schedule conflicts, some venues are too far for some, etc. For a metro area the size of Bay Area, "plenty" means a minimum of 6 to 8. Otherwise you are off the radar.

A very reasonable path in the situation that I keep hinting at and am almost forced to speak out explicitly would be for BAOC to either form a spin-off or to outright loan maps to say terraloco to put on these events. This avoids most of the problems, but does not avoid the accusations of "stealing our volunteers".

BAOC has about 55 venues and 23 event-days in 2014. About 5 to 10 venues are unusable because of either seasonality or permitting, others are small; that still leaves 15+ that are sat on. Most would make satisfactorily good Wilderness Scramble and/or TrailCross venues.

I think we're getting sidetracked here... this discussion has been hashed out many times in the past, and we can certainly hash it out more in the future.

Let's reopen the floor to ErikEddy's great question about entertaining young adults! I don't know if anybody's managed to crack that nut. Maybe ask the brilliant minds down at Caltech.

Long weekend away from AP...

I don't want to wade too deep into this discussion again, since I've been here before, but the first thing I want to say is that I have no issue with the amount of older participants in orienteering. I don't want to see less older people, I just want to see more younger adults. There's a difference.

A quickie history. I copied a bunch of data from the US Rankings webpage into a spreadsheet, then generated a graph and posted it on my Facebook back in October. After some questions and comments, I was asked to post a similar graph (with juniors, below) on the O-USA Facebook, which I did a few days later. And then my computer crashed and I lost the most recent version of my file. I didn't want to recreate it, but the data is out there.


Click for larger.

I'll make some comments that were discussed both last October and also in this thread (and the other one ErikEddy started).

* The chart is based on percentage, not total starts, because it was easier to see aging trends this way. If you're curious, the total numbers per year ranged from 3529 in year 2005 to 5049 in year 2002. These are competitive A-meet starts from O-USA members, so they don't include open (eg: M-Red), or people not affiliated with O-USA clubs (eg: Canadians). There really wasn't a big noticeable trend in total starts per year (at least not that I can remember).

* I didn't include juniors in the first graph because I wanted to focus on adults, and there's a little bit of inconsistency year-to-year depending on attendance at interscholastics. Kids aren't counted if they are in the M/F-Orange categories, but anyone running varsity will have a couple of starts, and interscholastic events nearer more kids will skew the results for that year a little bit.

* The numbers here are for the age categories people ran in, not their actual ages. For example, Eric Bone is an M40, but he's captured here in M21, and he never was an M35 ever. As JJ pointed out last week (and Vlad from October), this actually inflates the younger categories a little bit, and the actual aging is probably more pronounced. I have some hunches that this is an increasing trend. With more sprints and middle (ie shorter courses), runners have more opportunities to "run up" a course. Also, with a decrease in the actual M21-34's, that means that older runners can remain more competitive in these categories for longer, so they would be more inclined to keep running up. At least compared to 15 years ago.

* The rankings website does have some actual age data from 2007 to 2011, so we can take a look at that snapshot. (If you really wanted to spend some time on this, you could figure out better age data from the other years, since most of the same people are counted year to year)

Here are the average age per A-meet start for competitive adults:

2007: 49.3 years old
2008: 49.4
2009: 50.1
2010: 52.4
2011: 52.3

--------

Responding to some direct questions:

PinkSocks... Do you know what your best media outlet was for recruitment? Or a combination? What type of people showed up? Did you reach out to specific groups?

Not sure yet. CascadeOC didn't have a marketing budget until this year, and I'm not in marketing. I will say that the single biggest exposure we got recently was from the local trail running community. I was event director for our annual Bog Slog event in December, and I switched it to a mass start, and I also had two beginner courses (standard and long) that I called "trail runs with checkpoints". I made poster for the club's Facebook and the trail running groups shared them and we have several trail runners that came out. It was successful enough that I want to do it again this year.

But a lot of our young adults have basically come from friends of existing young adults.

For clubs that have mass start events targeting towards newbies. What is the strategy towards instruction? Is there more of an organized set up the day of the event? For pre-reg events...anything before.. like a map preview?

I'll speak for our Choose Your Adventure Series, which is a mass-start score-o (oftentimes with a map exchange). The event schedule has a built in one-hour block for instruction before the race. When I've been course designer (which has been a lot), I usually create an independent mini course with 2-4 controls really close to the event center. Then during that hour, the instructors can teach what they normally teach, and then either lead them around the mini course, or let them guide themselves. At our standard events, the instructors go "blah blah blah, now get in line and go race".

The mini course doesn't really work at all of the CYA venues. For 2014, there won't be one at the paddle-o or the corn maze-o. These two events aren't mass starts, either, for logistical reasons (standard intervals for paddle, wave starts in the maze).

Usually there's a map preview of a few minutes for these events so we're not throwing them out onto the course blind.

You don't need to wait to be asked. Just do it.

I've pretty much been doing this. I wanted the Bog Slog to be a mass start with trail run options, so I made it happen. I wanted there to be a series of score-o's, so I made it happen. I wanted to rep at the adventure runs, so I made it happen. I wanted there to be a race in a corn maze with an ISSOM map, so I made it happen. And the local club has been really responsive to letting me do pretty much whatever I want to do, and it's been great (except for the volunteer burnout part). So it's not like we're all just waiting around for the older people to change things up.

Which is why, from an aging perspective, I'm not too worried about CascadeOC. But the numbers do bear this out nationally, at least, which is why I want to mention it. If other clubs (and the national federation) don't want to address it, that's their prerogative. Unfortunately, I've seen several orienteering clubs in Washington State (Bellingham, Ellensburg, Tri-Cities, Nisqually, and soon to be Sammamish) completely die out because they were never successful in attracting new members. I want to be orienteering when I'm 70, and I plan to stay in Seattle. Like the bumper sticker says, "act locally".

Having found the best sport in the world, I found it has its own peculiar ethos that everyone volunteers to run events... when I was M21, we M21s put on events for our M21 friends. Now I'm M50, we M50s put on events for our M50 friends. I do this for fun and I'm motivated by positive feedback from people I like enjoying what I do, not a sense of obligation. So why would I care about a different demographic?

If you don't care about orienteering being around long-term, then you shouldn't care. Keep organizing your M50 events now, M70 events in 20 years, etc. But at some point, you can't put on events anymore. It's just like the high school class of 1950. You've got your 10-year, 25-year reunions, etc, but there's a reason why you don't see the high school class of 1850 reunions anymore. And if that's how you view orienteering, so be it. But I want to be orienteering in 2050, and I want others to have the opportunity to be orienteering then, too!

I think we're getting sidetracked here

I don't think so. ErikEddy's original question was about what to do about the year-per-year (or so, according to Patrick's data) aging of orienteers. What clearly transpires from the discussion is that another question should be asked first:

Do others in your club, most importantly those who control resources, think it is a problem?

If the answer is no, then answer Question 2:

Do you have the resources yourself?

If the answer to both is no, you shouldn't do anything other than pick another activity you can derive joy from. You won't get the resources anyway, only become sad and make others sad in the process.

@blegg. I've been thinking about your point about the "scavenger hunt". Although that is probably personally my most hated description of orienteering. But I see your point.. It does seem easier to recruit people that are hikers/adventures who are active but not really runners so the aren't caught up on their "pace". It also helps moral when you can win a Yellow course on your first event with minimal fitness. I think this type of promotion is already in place, and should continue to exist. Could be the "fun run" of a map trail race.

The whole trail run with map thing is great (and sounds fun!). When I think of running a Blue course its a tough physical course, but it takes a couple years to get good enough at navigation to enjoy it as a race. It's nice to have a "super-yellow" (+ all the other standard race stuff) for someone (beginner) who wants a physical/mental challenge (something you can "train for"), but can't handle advanced course. So you are starting your Orienteering experience with a somewhat similar physical challenge to Red/Blue course without needing the expertise.

Essentially, it's WY beginner event for trail runners.

I think it's been a good conversation. The club recognizes we are aging out. Using this type of an event as a "money maker" and "get rid of offset maps" helps the cause

I've stayed out of this so far, but as BAOC's president, there are a few things I need to say. As one of the "greybeards" (great way to alienate people!), I saw the problems that have been discussed here and was in favor of trying some new things. Certainly some others were more skeptical. People aren't eager to volunteer for events they won't enjoy. As for using the maps, I think the concern was that some parks may not let us have more than one event a year. I'm not sure who wasn't allowed to use one of our maps or which ones. Maybe it happened before I was president.

We lost a lot of money on one TrailCross at a state park with a huge fee that got fewer than 100 people. Another problem was that the meet fees were much higher for the new style events than the classic ones, with little added value. Adding that value (hot food, prizes, shirts) required addition volunteers that were not forthcoming.

As one of those grumpy epunch workers, mass starts meant that we couldn't compete since we had to be there right up to the start and there to process the first finishers. Schlepping the equipment and ourselves to the meet and back, paying the same park fees as everyone else, and sitting at the computer all day doesn't contribute to being cheerful, apart from the flaky software and the competitors who don't follow instructions. The mass starts affected other volunteers too, such as registration.
By the way, blegg, as far as I know, Jay Hann stepped away from the club for a while because of family issues, not "club culture". If you know differently, I'd like to hear about that (privately.)

In London the club has over 50% 21s and it's been growing. The may just be the demographic of the place but I think there are a couple of other things.
1. Simple races. There are 2 main series. Summer = 5k lines courses in parks with around 25 controls. Everyone runs the same race whether new to the sport/old timer and whatever age. Easy to organise (important when we want to get people to organize) and great for chat afterwards. Winter=1hr street score races, again simple to organise and everyone does the same.
2. These races all have registration in a pub, between that, and everyone immediately having a topic of conversation (the course they just ran) this massively increases the social side which helps to draw people back.

I can see how these races wouldn't work everywhere, and they're weekday evening things - we don't get everyone willing to give up their weekends and come out to the bush - but they're a great, fun, introduction to the sport.

Sometimes I wonder how those billions of other people exist at all.

For my day job I (amongst other things) model demographic change in occupational groups. I don't know the demographic changes in the US population, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the ageing of your participant profile mirrors what is happening in wider workforce and the population as a whole.

ok, this isn't really along the lines the discussion has taken, but since I was called out by name, I felt maybe I ought to throw in my $0.02 and let it go. I joined CSU after college, since I was in the Boston area. I knew what orienteering was, and I had done it at a recreational level on an occasional basis in highschool, because the sport itself is fun. I believe I found out about meets by checking the Sunday paper, so it's good that ROC advertised there. Anyway, I would definitely NOT classify myself as any sort of competitive orienteer when I came to Boston. That said, I am an athlete, from a skiing background, so at least I had that going for me.

CSU is fantastic, the members are incredibly welcoming, and although like any club you probably have a member or two who can annoy you, you just don't spend as much time with them. It still took quite a few years before I committed myself full-time to the sport (probably the same year I first made the WOC team); I was mostly using orienteering as cross training for skiing. There was definitely some sort of glass ceiling that I felt I had to break through to be considered as an elite orienteer, between orienteering families and those who had been orienteering competitively their whole lives, and those of us who had learned after college. That's not to say that the orienteering community isn't welcoming - it is, and that's why I still do this sport and not another.

All I want is that that perceived ceiling goes away, and others like myself, and Brendan Shields, and Ian Smith, and Ed Despard, and countless other folks who come to orienteering well after their junior years have a chance to learn about how awesome it is at the top level and be given the same opportunities for training and racing that juniors are handed on a silver platter. Because Brendan, Ian, and Ed, to use those three examples I pulled out of CSU, volunteer a lot of their time and energy to actually improve the sport of orienteering, and make it a better sport.

I'm not saying juniors don't do that, because many of them do, after a break while they're at university, but it is a risky proposition. It is a good way to build up a truly competitive international team, but possibly not the best approach when considering the future of Orienteering in the US.

I'm out.

Sorry, Alex - didn't mean to call you out. I have to admit I grin and think of the Bermans every time I see you out there, doing great things. Thanks for sharing, though!

Alex brings up a great point. One of the things Jon and I tried hard to do with the USMA team was to get them to make friends in the greater O community. We had varying success, but it was great to see some of our brand new talent benefit from the wisdom and guidance of those who have grown up in the sport, whether fellow juniors or long-time orienteers. I always figured the team never got connected because they were trying to have a bit of a "life" in their bit of spare time when they got out on A meet weekends. However, it's also true that many of us know each other and newcomers may take awhile to feel accepted, especially those really working to be competitive. Having someone in the club that can help newcomers network is important - perhaps even worth making a formal position?

When you in person ask fit and athletic 20's/30's to do O, what is the event you ask them to target for? Are they "instantly" competitive/important for the team/club?

Here it is almost always Jukola relay and the person in question is wanted and important for the team. Not coming would mean they would need to find someone else, someone less athletic or someone they don't already know. To survive Jukola these newcomers typically do leisure orienteering events couple of times prior Jukola. And prepare better for the next Jukola. Orienteering and Jukola keeps steady growing here, year after year.

To create similar path from other sports to O it might not be bad to have a some sort of team race(s). Like individual long, but team of 3..4 athletes running together. Imagine someone like Rosstopher building a team for a championship team race. He would be the main navigator, so he would need fit enough athletes to keep up with him. Not that easy task, so optimal solution might be recruiting team mates from outside O community. So some Rosstopher's club mates like BorisGr might have to build his own team and do similar recruiting. Some of these newcomers would instantly be winner candidates and rest would at least be important for the team. But they would need to get used to run off trail and it would not be bad if they could navigate themselves a little, so doing some O events to prepare for the big race would not be bad idea.

Hey origami-guy, you don't have a beard now, do you? PG did once, but not you ;-) I didn't mean greybeard to be an insult... I've always thought it's a pretty cool phrase, I hope to be one some day. Reminds me of treebeard (my favorite LOTR character).

If you want to talk club-culture, that's probably best to do in another venue. Send me a note. Suffice to say, BAOC is filled with some awesome people and heroic volunteers. BAOC does some things incredibly well. But every organization has it's strong-points and weak-points.

Jagge- I think your idea is spot-on.

In a thread about attracting those in their 20s and 30s, the implications of two recent posts struck me:

1) If I read @Pink Socks' data-heavy chart correctly, the % of all orienteering <20 is increasing, as is the % of the 50+ demographic. So this really is about the middle falling out--people in that highly athletic range, probably highly single and mobile, looking for activities that are social as well as athletic. Then they come to orienteering when they need family fun or their bodies wear out :)

2) @Jayne made reference to a club (or city) that had solved the mobile youth challenge with--big surprise here--highly social events that start and end in pubs. Jayne, could you share more? I think you may be onto something big!

This makes me wonder about searching for pubs/cafes near our venues that might want a bit more customer activity--enough to publicize and sponsor the orienteering events near them...

Then they come

This extrapolation is not supported by the data. An equally unsubstantiated forecast can gloomily assert that no, they won't ever come, and to top things off, those currently under 20 (who have been coming in increased numbers due to the success of some leagues and programs) may stop showing up as well, since there's nobody to compete against once you are over 20.

There can't be a healthy sport without that middle, whatever soothing explanations certain clubs may come up with to justify their course of (in)action.

Then they come
Maybe, you're misinterpreting @PinkSocks data. At least in the UK, we've always done OK with recruiting kids, then they drop out. Then there's a big group of us, currently in the 45-65 age group, aging by about one year per year, running the sport in the way that suits us, our friends, and our friend's kids.

So, am I to extrapolate that between roughly 1975 and 1995, the UK orienteering scene was full of young adults?

Curious, any US clubs host evening events at bars/restaurants?

How different is orienteering from other sports? People have a lot of other things going on in their lives between 30 and 40. Maybe the challenge is re-recruitment past 40.

Here it is almost always Jukola relay and the person in question is wanted and important for the team

Mmm, interesting point. M21-39 is not in high demand for US-type relays. Just sayin'.

@blegg Yes.

e.g. At the first British Champs I entered (1985), I wasn't ranked highly enough to run M21E, nor either of the two M21A courses, nor either of the two M21B courses. So I ran an M21C class, which was about the same size as the *total* M21 entry this year.

Orienteering has *always* been great social sport to be in for people of my age. And over the years we've changed its character to suit ourselves.

(In case it's not obvious, I don't think this is a good thing for the sport)

Thanks for your input graeme. I've deduced
1. Yes, the sport was once popular with 22-40(50)
2. Yes, people of that age changed the sport to fit their needs
3. Someone in that large group of 50-70 who have been orienteering for a long time may not be very inclined with recruitment since they have it good now (understandable).

@TheInvisibleLog

You can't orienteer on your own very easily. So if someone isn't showing up to an orienteering event, then they are not orienteering at all. Most people haven't even heard of it in US (so it would most likely be recruitment at 40, not rerecruitment); we're still building the sport. I can hike, run, bike, etc. on my own or with friends, but I'm not inclined to join a club.

Yes, recruiting at any age is good; in my local club the average orienteers age increases by 1 per year. If we had a steady flow of recruitment at 40 that would be fine too; not the case. The reason I bring up age is long term sustainability of the sport. There also is a few year learning curve for most people to become a course setter, etc..

How different is orienteering from other sports?

30–39 is the largest age group at trail runs longer than 5 km (the 5 kms are becoming the de-facto kids' race). Thousands of people who are not too cheap for State Parks fees!

Orienteering in the Bay Area is not growing. Our club is not coherently making efforts to outreach and sustain the attraction of newcomers who can feel like they are part of something fun. It is only fun for the regulars who all know each other and people who fit that mold already like orienteers that move in from another area. But we can't just rely on those to survive and thrive. Trailcross and wilderness scramble were not too much too soon at all. We just didn't have enough in the club to believe in broadening our base and supporting those series. Resistance was high. I strongly believe we need orienteering - like formats that make a bridge into what we do. The barriers are too high for regular folks. And we need regular folks to like us and enjoy being with us otherwise we become more concentrated and like we are now. It doesn't have to be called trailcross or wilderness scramble but classic orienteering I am sorry is not a killer app for the masses. It needs a farm system and we have to provide it.

George and Vladimir offer polarized views of where BAOC is at. It is actually somewhere in the middle but seriously lacking cohesive direction. We are not dealing with the growth problem as a club. We are limping along hoping for orienteers to drop in out of the sky to set courses and direct events for us.

Curious, any US clubs host evening events at bars/restaurants?

For Cascade's Choose Your Adventure Series, I've tried to pair up some post-race social events. We've been to some nearby pubs after some events in Seattle, and the corn maze venue has a lot of stuff to do afterward. I'd like to do more here, but as series director and oftentimes event director and/or course setter, I can't always be there to organize the socials, too.

From the very beginning, the 'Hood Hunt model was to finish at a social for dinner and drinks. The crowds are small enough that it's easy, though.

How different is orienteering from other sports? People have a lot of other things going on in their lives between 30 and 40.

I live in a pretty active area of Seattle, and there are young adults everywhere doing all kinds of sports: volleyball, softball, ultimate frisbee, soccer, kickball, etc. There are city leagues and companies that have various leagues, too. I'm also part of a large running community in the neighborhood, mostly in the 25-40 demographic, and they do a lot of running races. My research into the mud/obstacle runs shows a majority 25-40's there, too.

So it's not like all the 25-40's are settling down, popping out kids, focusing on careers, to the exclusion of recreational activities.

I've read how millennials put more weight on the event "experience" when they do things, which is why things like Tough Mudder, the Color Run, and the larger marathons are so popular. They are big community events that focus on the experience.

It's been mentioned on AP before about how the average running times at road runs are increasing, because there are more people participating now. Those added people don't necessarily care about their times as much as their experience.

Orienteering, in its truest form, has a very, very low community experience score. You compete solo. You usually compete away from where other people go. Everyone starts at different times over the course of several hours, which means even if you and your friends run the same event, you may not ever see them there.

Obviously, this doesn't mean that orienteering isn't enjoyable, or that there isn't a great community involved. But it certainly doesn't help recruiting newcomers that are increasingly expecting more experiences.

I'm not suggesting that every orienteering event be a mass-start, team-based, score-o. But I agree with Rex in that we need to think about building bridges to get newcomers.

It is actually somewhere

Data may offer differing insights into the truth, but the truth must be consistent with the data.

As one of those grumpy epunch workers, mass starts meant that we couldn't compete since we had to be there right up to the start and there to process the first finishers... The mass starts affected other volunteers too, such as registration.

As someone who has directed a lot of events (15 in the past 3 years), mass starts are considerably easier and require less volunteers. And, in my experience, everyone can run except for two people: event director & course setter (who wouldn't run anyway). All of the registration people, all of the e-punch people can run.

I usually have the mass start later in what would be the traditional start window (eg 11:15am vs. 10am-12pm), but I have the courses ready to go just as early. That way, volunteers I need at the finish can start much earlier than everyone else, which means that they are the first ones back.

And I usually close registration 15-30 minutes before the mass start, so all of the volunteer roles can tie up loose ends and start. For the mass start itself, it just needs a couple of people, so it's the event director and course setter.

If you're having trouble finding event directors because everyone wants to run all the time, then consider hiring one. Raise prices $2 per person, money goes to the event director.

@Pink Socks:

It's been mentioned on AP before about how the average running times at road runs are increasing, because there are more people participating now.

That may be, but the times of the (relatively) top runners are also getting worse: despite larger fields, fewer people are reaching the same absolute standards.

"In 1978, 3,872 runners (mostly men at that time) were recognized in the published results for finishing the Boston Marathon (which in 1978 meant finishing within four hours). Of those finishers, 2,047 broke three hours. In 2002, only 1,024 men broke 3:00 hours. (Of course this was in a significantly larger field. There were 9,234 recognized male finishers, 6,672 of them in under four hours.)" Source.

Ah yes. I remember that now.

I also know, anecdotally, several people who "run" a lot of marathons and half-marathons all over the country, several times a year, and they aren't really physically fit (some are obese). For them, it's more about the destination and race experience.

(Admittedly, this is similar to where I'm at with orienteering. I travel around and I'm not in very good shape.)

Of course back then males (open) had to qualify to even start at Boston by running 2:50 or better first. I haven't looked recently but I'm pretty sure the qualifying time is a bit longer now.

Currently 3:05 for 18-34 year old males.

I just did a quick and dirty (only looking at the birth year for the first person associated with family/group memberships, so this ignores most juniors and gives more weight to individual members than to couples covered by a family membership) analysis of QOC demographics based on archived copies of our membership database from years past. It looks as though from 2001 to 2007, the average orienteering age of our membership climbed from 43.94 to 44.30 years. Then from 2007 to 2013, as overall member numbers as counted this way climbed ~40%, the average orienteering age increased to 46.45 years. We're not getting younger on this measure but we certainly aren't aging by ~1 year for every year that passes.

I can't offer any particular insight as to how we're achieving this relative success. As far as I'm aware, we've just been trying to grow any way we can, not implementing a growth strategy aimed more at one demographic segment than another.

1) I think you folks are posing the question to the wrong people. Ask the people you want to come why they are no longer coming, or are not coming in the first place. Surely, given the money being spent at the OUSA level to putatively grow participation, a budget can be found for this research if it is as important as it seems to be.

2) Go to a few of those $85 trail runs Vlad describes. I don't know if they exist in the QOC area, but they certainly exist all over PA, and in many other parts of the country as well. (A far from comprehensive calendar). The answer will be obvious. Being more like that experience can't hurt. Yes they have mass starts, and sometimes even free beer (not that the latter is necessary (the former obviously is), but I think it is suggestive of the overall fun and festive post race atmosphere).

3) Change the name. I get that the elders (yes, greybeard is both a pejorative and non-gender-neutral) won't go for it, but it is an obvious thing to do. Do another research project: ask a few people you've never talked to about orienteering: "what is orienteering?". "I dunno". "compass and pace counting in Boy Scouts". Then the inevitable chorus of "no one knows what orienteering is". Well, my mother-in-law (who is not a greybeard), doesn't know what "trail running" is, but, I'll bet if you asked her, she might say, um, "running on trails?".

Well, I think I'll go do some trail running now. No one wants to hear me regurgitate my list of product problems orienteering has in this market. But, you can do the research yourself (as was said, "do it yourself"), if you truly care about the issue rather than just talking and speculating about it.

Good luck!

Well, I wish I'd used google. Dictionary.com suggested more positive intimations. I knew it wasn't gender neutral... but nobody ever said the club demographics were gender neutral either ;-)

So Randy... are you slyly using this little kerfuffle to suggest that subtle word choices actually matter? Dare I say, that a word-choice that resonates with one generation might not carry the same impact with another?