Training Log Archive: barb

Talked to City Councillor Kelley today. He was really pushing several concepts: reaching kids other than privileged white kids, and focusing on urban navigation.

What I love about our in-school programs and our goal of getting every kid in Cambridge to orienteer, *is* that we are reaching every kid. However, that is mostly just for introductions to the sport; we'd also like that demographic to choose orienteering as an activity for after-school club or team. We had a tough time connecting with these kids in the summer.

We will meet in the evening of Feb 7th and do a bike tour of several youth centers. The youth centers have evening programs (hangout space) for youth aged 14-20. Craig said that he hasn't seen any white kids there. The boys play basketball, and the girls watch them and socialize. He thinks this is likely the best way to reach this demographic, through the youth centers.

C • Interesting concept 1

Walked home from Boston

To school for the O meeting

We have this great opportunity to form an orienteering team at the high school, but we are having trouble recruiting. It's a great opportunity because we have the support of the athletic director, and he is encouraging us to make it a real varsity sport - with serious training. I think it's pretty cool to have the opportunity to work with kids on orienteering 5 days a week. But students can only do one sport at a time, and some of our prospects choose other sports while others are not up for the time commitment. We need to find a way to recruit onto the team.

One idea we had was to form a less-intensive but really fun club during the winter to play orienteering games and prepare for the Junior Nationals. We can include the athletes who are doing other sports on a club. If they can bring their friends and others onto the club, maybe some of those new people would want to keep orienteering on a team. Not sure the athletic director is a fan of this idea. Also, forming a club is not easy. There is a process and a wait list, and our mid-year request is out of order. Another possibility is to have it be winter training for the sport, but I don't know if that would exclude the kids who are current athletes, and whether it would feel as open.

We can also talk to coaches of other sports that are over-subscribed.

The timing of Junior Nationals is awkward for us, coming at the beginning of the spring sports season. This means we can't train up an orienteering team and then go to Nationals. Instead we plan to focus the team on a series of local races, that would be built up in future years, if this whole thing keeps rolling, into a Boston-area interscholastic league.

C • CRLS 2

Today we are talking to 5 candidates to come and volunteer with Navigation Games.

C • Woohoo! 4

Walked to work and back - very cold and very windy, post-blizzard.