Training Log Archive: barb

When I talked to the teacher yesterday, she said she might come to the CSU park-O today. But she was feeling very shy and insecure about it.

...



From last fall (same class I'm working with this spring): "I did not like how it was so short and easy."

C • "She"=... 2

Sent out notes from last night's meeting.
Prepared and sent check requests to OUSA for JWOC training hotel and maps, and travel.
Updated flight information
Various emails.
Time flies when you're having fun.

Hosted a CSU meet with Dave. It was nice. Then started to get to work on administration stuff again.

Thanks to Dave for withholding the car keys. But don't let it get to your head.

Saw this when I went into Morse School this morning.


Map of Boojum, of Morse school garden, of Magazine Beach. The navigation licensing exam. The punches from our park-O (glued onto the cardboard by Isabel, back when she was my assistant). Article from ONA about last year's class at the Friday A meet sprint. Article from the Globe. Essays by the kids.

Some of you contributed to the bus fares for the previous class of kids to go orienteering. I think it makes a difference - all these kids who have heard about it and tried it out. This year's class was all bummed there is no A meet for them to go to. One of last year's parents said to me, "my son still has that picture of Eric Bone on his wall."

C • Nice!!! 10

Made a PDF version of Sunday's map to send to the ranger to show that the controls are not near vernal pools, which I've marked as out of bounds. Also will tell people in the pre-race briefing.
Made a flyer for Morse school about the events tomorrow and Sunday.
Met with the Morse school teacher in preparation for next week's field trip to Boojum. May need to readjust the courses from previous years because ranger concerned about off-trail travel. Bummer, because there are a lot of materials built around the course (worksheets, etc).
The field trip to Fresh Pond went really well. The parents liked the street-O on the way to the T; they thought that gave the kids useful skills.
The teacher said that there has been talk at the school about expanding orienteering to more grades. This year it expanded from one 5th grade class to both classes.
This morning I also posted the community agreement that we worked out at the Adirondack meet for our travel to Europe. And sent email to ask my assistant to help in PR within NEOC for Sunday.
Also set up a spreadsheet and script document for calling all the US clubs to ask the JTESC contact to join our open call next Wednesday night; the topic will be developing juniors locally. Some clubs haven't yet named a JTESC liaison, and so that's part of the calling too.
Last night Dave checked and there were only 3 people signed up for Sunday's event, and one of them is me.
Hm, need meet workers too. People to hang controls, retrieve controls, and run registration.

C • Where... 7

Phone meeting with Erin; we walked through the pre-JWOC training logistics. I was on my way to Isabel's lacrosse game.

Weekly phone call with Guy and Erin, then various tasks.

We'll have our June open call next Wednesday.
Ahead of time, we'll call each club to identify the JTESC contact if one is not known, and ask someone to attend the call.
Agenda for the open call is junior development within clubs. We have specific things we want to ask each club (including holding junior trainings in the fall, having junior gatherings at each local meet, and spectating from afar for JWOC). We'll ask each club how it's going and what they need and what they can offer other clubs. We'll talk about Erin's developing curriculum.
We discussed next steps for planning the A meet junior team fundraiser we're holding in the fall in Harriman. Tentative date is first weekend in November. (This is to raise money to help fund the Europe trip; with 22 juniors going we just don't have the money in the budget to provide the support we need to, and while the fundraising efforts so far have been awesome, we have a long way to go. In addition, the Board asked us to fundraise for the new $5000 coach travel budget item this year.)

We reviewed planning for Europe.

Erin wants to hold junior activities at and before or after the California meet in July. We haven't had a chance to plan these as much as we'd like.

Erin asked Guy to get HVO to help 10-12 kids who want to start an orienteering club at the school Erin has been working with in NY.

Action items
I've updated the training and competition schedule on my junior information website.
Barb: start a list of things we need to bring to Europe
Barb: respond to Canadian coach Brent; done.
Barb: Change the date of the junior fundraiser A meet to first weekend of November after checking with Ed.
Erin: work on the fall meet
Barb: many things related to Europe
Erin: send Barb first aid kit receipts for Europe
Erin: talk to Greg Walker re CA junior training. Work on the CA junior training in general.

Emailed JWOC people about accommodations.
Emailed the adults traveling with the team about accommodations.
Got the OCAD files for pre-JWOC training; put them where Erin can access them. (We have ownership of these only through JWOC 2013)
Figured out payment for the OCAD files.

Faxed thousands of dollars to the Czech Republic and called the bank to make sure they sent it.

Worked with Izzy & Meg on a recorded announcement for Sunday's meet.
Figured out the technology.
Various emails.
Worked on Sunday's map a bit.
Checked out the new map for Thursday's CSU Park-O. Nice! Ed rocks.
Dave insisted on finding my maps of Magazine Beach so we could laugh at the contrast to Ed's awesome map.
David edited the girls' recording, first in one program, and then, because the first required a paid license to save at regular fidelity, he did it all over again in another program.

Got to see Ali and Ian when they dropped off equipment - probably the last I'll see of Ali before WOC! It will be fun to watch WOC in the company of European orienteers at Olomouc and Karst Cup.

Control vetting at Breakheart for June 2 score-O

Paid for Olomouc training camp.
Communicated with the people we're renting the Croatian villa from.
Prepared documents to transfer funds to the pre-JWOC training hotel.
Map work on Breakheart.
Advertised Breakheart on AP.
And other items.

Finished the draft map for June 2.
Europe: rental vehicles stuff; figured out how to get intenational drivers permit.
Asked Will / Mike about 1st weekend Oct for fundraiser event.
Emailed Ed re Thursday's map.
Emailed Julia re next steps for class.

C • Admin Hours 9

Breakheart. Isabel vetted the beginner course. Dave and I vetted controls on the advanced course. David hiked to Dunkin Donuts and back to the car. David practiced driving. Isabel laughed at him.

The Breakheart map has to be used carefully. Some places don't work for controls; I can't read the map well enough in the terrain.

Sent out an update on Europe to those going. Went through the costs for pre-JWOC more carefully, and it seems like the initial numbers were reasonable estimates.
Emailed the Canadians to see whether we could share transportation at all.
Exchanged email with Anna about renting a car.
Got email from my cousin in Vienna. She offered to help if she could with finding a place to stay.
Started filling out the State Department forms about our trip but realized I don't have people's passport numbers.

Do you think you'd be more likely to contribute to a/all junior's/s' summer orienteering expenses if they achieved some goal like getting into the B or A final, or training to mastery of a certain skill, or something like that? Like, $50 if you can do a 5 min/km woods run by June 28th, or $10,000 if someone on the team medals, or whatever.

C • Probably 1

Worked on June 2nd map. I have the vernal pools marked offlimits. I have more than enough Quest controls.
Quest is for cross-country runners and school/scout groups and experienced yellow runners. The other course is the Gnarly Navigation Nightmare, aka advanced score-O with some map alterations.
Bernie Breton and I selected many of the control locations, back on the weekend of PAX Boston / CT training camp. We went to the park when there was still snow on the ground. He went off to the northwest part of the map, and I worked my way up the east side. We met back at parking after 90 minutes.
The foliage will be different now.

Figured out final count for accommodations pre-JWOC and JWOC. At our height we'll be 31 people in three different accommodations.
We start off strong with 20 on June 17th, and build through the training weeks to full strength for the opening ceremony.
Sent email to the two organizers we have been working with for those time periods to confirm the final numbers.
Figured out how to apply for international drivers permit.
Emailed about car rental.
Tried calling Guy about talking to HVO Board.
Sent query to Mike Schuh & William Hawkins.

C • Guy... 1

worked on June 2 map

Stats prof rejected my paper because it was different than my proposal and other reasons. I guess that class was one of the sacrifices this spring!

commute

Mostly worked on the Breakheart event.
Created and took flyers to Morse school for that event.
Created flyer for posting at local running stores about the event.
Talked to Rachel about doing PR for the Breakheart event.
Talked to Dave about Europe; various logistics.
Submitted expense report to OUSA for Europe.
Sent report to NEOC Board about yesterday's school event and let them know about the upcoming event in June.
Will have organized 4 events in 4 weeks: Fresh Pond (Morse), Magazine Beach (CSU), Breakheart (NEOC), Boojum (Morse)

Sent the ranger email about avoiding vernal pools. Some Europe stuff. Checked in with Rachel about the PR for June 2nd event. Hm, need to do PR for the CSU event next week.

Fresh Pond, work

finished preparations for today's orienteering with 38 5th graders; hanging controls; setting up the secret message on the web; printing stuff; email/phone with the teacher; ran the event. It was as fun as always.

Did a couple of things differently this time. Called out the 30 team control codes and had the groups responsible for each one raise their hand. That allowed me to check that every control was accounted for and also give some updates on issues (like poison ivy or a missing control feature). I had the group count down with me to the start, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO. I love that moment. Every group took off running, in different directions, and I hadn't done any work individually with any group; the teachers had done all the preparation ahead of time.



The kids did a street-O to get to the subway, then walked from the Alewife station to Fresh Pond. By the time they were done with the orienteering and ready to head back, a couple of them were completely beat. And they were facing another mile and a half of walking.



The envelopes contained puzzle pieces. The puzzle gave a goo.gl URL. The URL pointed them to a page that told them what their prize would be. There were three levels of prize depending on how many points they got. They got points for the Street-O, "Landmark" (regular controls) and team controls (these envelopes, off-trail).

I hadn't done this particular trip with this teacher/school before, but I'd done it with Graham and Parks for several years, so it was relatively easy to pull off. The teacher did all the classroom work ahead of time. The teams do a lot of preparation, including planning each leg of their course, and deciding on different roles for each team member, so that by the time they arrive things go extremely smoothly and they can have that experience of doing something challenging, in a team, for the first time ever, successfully.

Meeting with Erin and Guy:
Finances
Fundraiser meet in the fall; need another $10,000
JWOC maps - Erin to decide Friday
Flying Pig will be IS next year - discussion of possible selection race
2014 selection. passport requirement. detailed information about what to put in petition to come out in January. How Guy will post it. FAQ is available. Guy will ask Amy to respond to queries.
Erin has been going to Harriman with Ethan and Connor for training.
Erin will finalize the Europe contract (health, relationships, communication) by Monday.
Next year: JST selection earlier to include the fall in training activities
Barb's assistant will call clubs to ask them to join us for the June open call, talk about JDT & local development.
JTESC membership.

Meeting with Marianne about Indiegogo.

Also did some emailing.

C • "Barb's assistant..." 10

Hired a virtual assistant who will help me with some of my orienteering administration tasks. She'll help with PR for the June 2nd meet, and soon I hope to have her help with travel plans.

Preparing for tomorrow's school orienteering trip as well as the June 2nd score-O. Talked with Janet Porter about the DVOA meet this weekend and the possibility that some juniors may come.

work, home x 2

Worked on the June 2nd score-O event that we're doing in Breakheart.
Talked to Guy for quite a while.
Heard a little about HVO developments.
Some progress on the idea of a junior team fundraiser in the fall. We need at least $10,000 above and beyond the usual and currently foreseen sources of money.
I spent time going over money again. I can't figure out why my numbers for how much money we should have coming into 2013 are $4000 higher than the numbers that Peter has. I've sent email to Tim asking for help. I take the money you had coming into 2012, add the 2012 contributions and fundraising (including $7200 from OUSA, awesome), subtract the expenses, and I should get the amount of carryover into 2013, but it's not what Peter says. Sigh. Every bit counts, and $4k is huge to us right now.
Oh - I think I figured it out - that $4k got recorded in 2013! (as Oct-Dec fundraising). OK, good, I think it all is approximately equal...

Phone call with Erin. Good stuff.
Health, Communication & Relationship agreement coming out this week.
Need a lot more money. Hoping for $10k+ fundraiser in the fall. Need to not otherwise overly burden local club that helps with permit.
Lots of great coaching happening. Some kids are ramping up the serious training.
A couple kids have been out of touch - not returning Erin's phone calls. Hm. There are other kids eager to join the JST. Guess we'll check in and see if any kids wish to give up their spot.
In depth conversation about a couple of people.
logistics for training over Memorial Day (Colorado, DVOA, various others)
Erin will sit in on Eric Kemp's Catching Features trainign session with a couple Canadian juniors, next week.
Need to check in with Bernie about cabin.

Revised financial estimates for JWOC; sent to Peter Goodwin. Called Peter to discuss, including mechanism for any needs-based distribution of funds. We'll talk again on the weekend after he's had a chance to review the numbers.

Advanced - Splits

As I've gotten to the point where I really am dropping actual commitments and not getting everything done, I decided it would be useful to start logging what I'm doing for non-physical O stuff to see where the time is going.
This morning 5:30-8:30:
JWOC training maps. Update agenda for junior executive meeting tonight. Update website with vaccination info. Emails about supporting kids with greatest financial need.
Powerpoint slides for teacher for Fresh Pond trip. Maps for Fresh Pond trip.

C • Fresh Pond 2

Various computer work. Weekly meeting with Guy and Erin.

Isabel was proud of doing well enough in competition this weekend to earn the third alternate spot on the Women's WOC team. But she was gleeful about beating a bunch of M20 boys on red today on the long: Michael, Matt, Dan, Chase, and John. Only Connor got her, by 4 minutes. Most of them ran blue yesterday and Friday, so it wasn't head to head for those races, though she did beat John in the middle as well as Canadian M20s Robert and Alexander. In the sprint, Isabel lost to the M20s by a range of 23 seconds to a minute and 24 seconds, so they may not have paid much heed to her until Saturday.

I was pretty psyched for Dan too, who had some really good races against his peers.

It's nice to earn a spot through head-to-head racing. It's hard to argue with that. Isabel also raced consistently well at technically challenging West Point two weeks ago.

Ethan! He has been training steadily, and working with Erin, and it's so great to see this payoff.

C • Beating the boys 1

Mispunched near the end. Fun otherwise.

Long Red X - Splits

Middle Red X - Splits

Event: 2013 U.S. Individual Championships/Team Trials
 

Sprint Red - Splits

Something I love more than just about anything: having the opportunity to work in partnership with other people who are really good at stuff that I'm not, and having various people with different skills and backgrounds all pulling together to make something really cool happen.

Pretty cool: 2 Junior Standing Team members are flying in from Florida, and one from Atlanta on Thursday. We'll pick Eric Bone up at the airport Friday morning and drive out to NY. A test run of logistics for Europe!

Lots of stuff for juniors this weekend, thanks to Lisa Frost. Course reviews, dinners, meetings, hangout space, crepe stand (actually that's for everyone, but the money goes to the junior team and the juniors will help serve), laser tag, go-karts, Catching Features tournament.

Also: Catching Features is now a perk at our Indiegogo fundraising site!

With friends, on white and part of yellow

Lab practical exam. Fun. My TA for biology lab was awesome this term.