Training Log Archive: barb

Money.
When I was JTA, OUSA paid $14,000 for JWOC. I believe that was actually $7000 from the central budget and an expectation of raising $7000 in donations specifically targeted to the junior team. This covered costs for the week of JWOC. Erin asked the athletes to come for a week or two of training prior to JWOC, and we did fundraising to cover most of that cost. Athletes still had to purchase their plane tickets.
This year, OUSA will pay $4000 for JWOC, but also has a new requirement that athletes pay for insurance obtained by OUSA, which is estimated to cost $3000. That leaves $1000 for the usual JWOC expenses. There are more team members than there used to be. They are asked to spend more time in Europe preparing.

It is great to have a donor-paid coach, and to see the program becoming more serious. But I don't think it makes sense for OUSA to pull back from financial support of the JWOC team in this way, while also asking the athletes to spend more time in Europe before JWOC, which incurs even more expense. The cost has gone from a few hundred dollars a few years ago, to $2500, $3500 or more this year, particularly if you count the Finland training trip in preparation for 2017. (Which seems that it will be sparsely attended, perhaps partly because OUSA is not helping to pay for it.) Is this the right trajectory?

Frankly, I don't have a big problem with asking people to pay for it if they can afford it. But I also think that the organization should make absolutely sure that everyone who makes the team can afford to go. This is a time when families are facing huge college costs. The reduction from paying for all athletes to attend JWOC several years ago, to this year paying only a token amount per athlete, does not make sense to me.

It feels particularly strange when it seems there should be more money for the junior program. There is the junior coach / youth development position that is new in the past few years, thanks to PG - shouldn't OUSA see this as an opportunity to increase the resources that come from OUSA funds for juniors, to synergize and build on that opportunity? There have been various efforts to fundraise for juniors, but that money has been targeted elsewhere than the team. I am not sure of the rationale for reducing the financial support of the JWOC team, other than that budgets are tight. I don't know what is being prioritized over this team. I don't understand why the Board thinks that the JWOC team deserves such a large reduction in resources, despite all the hard work these kids have done, and the seriousness with which they have tackled their training, and the increased competitiveness as seen at the JWOC trials this year. It feels as though the new money that has come in has ended up raising the cost for juniors to attend JWOC, which seems backwards. More money equals less money.

I worry that we already have such a hard time growing the youth program; to add the financial hurdle seems counter-productive.

A math teacher in central/western Mass coaches a math team; many of them run track; many would likely be interested in orienteering. I don't have bandwidth to do outreach to them, but if anyone would like to take it on, let me know!

C • :-) 5

First day of classes at the Peabody school. The first class was 11 kids in junior kindergarten through first grade. I set the littlest kid right off the bat because I asked him how to spell his name. He doesn't know. He also can't read numbers. So next week I need to go back to pictures. In the second class there were only two kids. One is a high functioning Aspergers kid and the other is a big for her age 1st grader.

Today was the first day of orienteering after school classes for the spring term. Sadly there was far more demand than I was able to accommodate. I think I could have signed up kids for three classes simultaneously at every day. Instead I am teaching four classes at three schools and training with the middle school kids on Fridays.

Today I met the kids at Dana Park. They are in grades three through five. Isabel had set up the 10 controls we got from CSU. I like them because they are easy to set up. However, the children asked for the electronic punching. There were 15 children today. The many of them had been in the class with me last fall. That means they liked it! Also the teacher with them who is 17, Christian, was with me last fall. I told him about the mayors program. Maybe next week I can bring an application with me to give to him. Maybe I can bring extras so that he can give some to his friends.
First I blew the whistle in different patterns to indicate that they should make different patterns with their bodies. Then I gave them punchcards and they went around and found all of the controls in any order. I asked them to help other kids who needed help when they were done. I told them at the beginning that the goals for the day were to work on following directions, helping others, and giving directions. The theme of following directions came from a conversation I had with Erin this weekend. When they came back with their cards all punched I had them check each other's punches. Then I told them that they should run to each of the controls in order. Of course they didn't remember exactly what what are the controls were in but they ran around and figured it out. Next I had them draw a map of the park and put the numbers in where it's control was. Then I had them hide each other's cards and come back and tell that person where their card was without pointing, only using words

Event: NEOC: Needham Town Forest
 

Long at West Point. Super proud of the high school guys. They finished all their red courses except Jeffrey on the Long who had a late start and all the water at the water controls was gone. He was pretty badly dehydrated and couldn't think straight. Walter and Ethan both had races where they beat other kids. Walter was a minute behind Thomas Laraia in the long and four minutes behind AJ Riley. Pretty awesome. AJ was friendly to them. No doubt other team members were too which was nice. Making friends in orienteering is the number one predictor of sticking with it for a while.

C • making friends 1

Long - Green X - Splits

Middle - Green X - Splits

Sprint - Green - Splits