Training Log Archive: iansmith

Another OUSA Open question:

There seemed to be some good discussion on the OUSA membership question, so here's another: What can OUSA do to increase local starts and membership? Can we have a campaign?

OUSA doesn't actually organize any events; events are organized exclusively by clubs, and often by a relatively small number of people in clubs. Consider OUSA starts data from Robin Shannonhouse that I modeled for 2009-2016. Local starts were negligibly up, while national starts, club members, and OUSA members all declined.

Let's set aside the national starts/membership with the premise that everyone who goes national starts local, so let's increase local first. When I was planning the NEOC schedule, no one from OUSA contacted me to say "hey, this year we're really pushing ;" there was no plan or concerted strategy, just a laissez faire approach. While the value of marketing nationally is still an open question, we can communicate intention to the clubs.

For instance, in 2018, say we said "our goal is to increase local starts by 10%. Please try to increase the number of events you have by 5-10%, and here are some resources (materials, marketing guidance) to try to attract people." Some big clubs might already have saturated markets - COC, QOC, DVOA, NEOC, but I don't think most (or any) clubs have reached the point where more events will result in fewer people attending. Maybe we can incentivize it, by offering small prizes for the top 3 clubs at the end of the year by %change - say new e-punch units or a teardrop banner or something.

Is this viable? Pointless? Would it move the needle by giving a concerted effort and direction to our federation?

C • How to move the needle on local starts 17

Event: Canada 150 Orienteering Festival
 

An open question: what benefits can OUSA offer that would make OUSA membership compelling for a larger fraction of US orienteering club members? At present, only about 25% of members of US orienteering clubs are also OUSA members. (~6000 and ~1500 respectively).

Unrelated, and without context: Canadian Border Guards don't use their guns very often. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cbsa-border-guards...

C • OUSA 14

C • Guns 1

Thoughts from Team USA's Greg Ahlswede about WOC 2017:
https://www.athletebiz.us/blog/not-seeing-the-fore...

World Games going on right now, exciting stuff! For reasons unknown, the US didn't send a team (edit- only one NA team gets to go, and Canada was ranked higher), so I'm cheering for my adopted home and native land, Canada. GPS and video coverage available at liveorienteering, and the coverage is very good.

Go Canada, eh!

https://liveorienteering.com/#/live?id=5713

Yay Athletourism:
https://www.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_3737/...