Training Log Archive: PGIn the 1 days ending May 2, 2009:
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Saturday May 2, 2009 #
orienteering 57:38 [3] 5.0 km (11:32 / km)
Middle distance at the Trials.
Cool and rainy. Some steep terrain but a real nice course. Orienteered mostly OK, at most a couple minutes lost, but had no legs. What can you do.
On the other hand, just getting around reasonably clean was good for a scalp, Mr. Velichko's. Take your victories where you can.
Here's the men's course. Ignore the beige bands, just bad lighting and a map not lying flat, also the first part is out of focus. But gives you an idea of things.
Cool and rainy. Some steep terrain but a real nice course. Orienteered mostly OK, at most a couple minutes lost, but had no legs. What can you do.
On the other hand, just getting around reasonably clean was good for a scalp, Mr. Velichko's. Take your victories where you can.
Here's the men's course. Ignore the beige bands, just bad lighting and a map not lying flat, also the first part is out of focus. But gives you an idea of things.
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run/hike 20:00 [1]
Out to the start, a little running, mostly brisk walking, mostly uphill.
Note
So we happened to go for dinner at a little pizza lace that, because of the rain, the BAOC folks had moved to for a meeting on plans to possibly bid to host JWOC in 2013. So I listened in a bit. And was struck by a few things.
1. I think it's great that they are seriously exploring this. We've had two championships in the country, WOC in 1993 and WMOC in 1997, plus several World Cup events. All have been a lot of work, all have had aspects that were near disaster, but all added excitement and energy and something special to O' in this country, and all were worth doing, even if you would be very hard pressed to identify any significant positive impact on orienteering from any of them.
2. I don't know most of the BAOC folks on their exploratory committee, but I hope they know what they might be getting into. It is a ton of work.
3. They listed their four primary areas of concern -- land use permission, volunteers, early money, and marketing. Without land use permission, obviously the venture dies. They think they can access early money. They think they can access volunteers, both within BAOC and from other clubs. And they think marketing will be a tough one because they have no skills there.
I think that marketing needs to be paid pros, and if you can raise the money, then this is one of the first places it needs to be spent.
I also think that the whole volunteer question is a tough one. They expressed concerns about people willing to work for nothing while others are getting paid. I'd be more concerned about people who are willing to volunteer, and take on major responsibility, without having the ability to really do the job. There were certainly cases of this in both WOC-93 and WMOC-97 -- great, someone volunteered to do something, but no ability to do it. You have to spend some effort to make sure that your volunteers are matched well to what they are expected to do.
4. And then there was a lovely exchange, a hint of the kind of thing that happens in all sorts of things, BAOC had forgotten to include in its proposed schedule -- BAOC decision by September, submission of a bid to the IOF by January, decision by next summer -- that USOF has to approve the bid and submit it. Whoops. And so what would USOF's schedule be? Well, they have a Board meeting set for October and they would need to have information well before that so it could properly be evaluated, and so on.
How nice it would have been at that point to hear something like -- this is a big thing BAOC is looking at, we (USOF) need to approve it but we'll do what we can to make the process move smoothly, and if we need to schedule another Board meeting just for this, no problem, we'll do it. Oh, well.
5. Will it happen? It might. BAOC has a lot of resources. But it needs really strong and forceful leadership, and from what I saw this evening, I'm not sure it has that sufficiently. At least not yet.
1. I think it's great that they are seriously exploring this. We've had two championships in the country, WOC in 1993 and WMOC in 1997, plus several World Cup events. All have been a lot of work, all have had aspects that were near disaster, but all added excitement and energy and something special to O' in this country, and all were worth doing, even if you would be very hard pressed to identify any significant positive impact on orienteering from any of them.
2. I don't know most of the BAOC folks on their exploratory committee, but I hope they know what they might be getting into. It is a ton of work.
3. They listed their four primary areas of concern -- land use permission, volunteers, early money, and marketing. Without land use permission, obviously the venture dies. They think they can access early money. They think they can access volunteers, both within BAOC and from other clubs. And they think marketing will be a tough one because they have no skills there.
I think that marketing needs to be paid pros, and if you can raise the money, then this is one of the first places it needs to be spent.
I also think that the whole volunteer question is a tough one. They expressed concerns about people willing to work for nothing while others are getting paid. I'd be more concerned about people who are willing to volunteer, and take on major responsibility, without having the ability to really do the job. There were certainly cases of this in both WOC-93 and WMOC-97 -- great, someone volunteered to do something, but no ability to do it. You have to spend some effort to make sure that your volunteers are matched well to what they are expected to do.
4. And then there was a lovely exchange, a hint of the kind of thing that happens in all sorts of things, BAOC had forgotten to include in its proposed schedule -- BAOC decision by September, submission of a bid to the IOF by January, decision by next summer -- that USOF has to approve the bid and submit it. Whoops. And so what would USOF's schedule be? Well, they have a Board meeting set for October and they would need to have information well before that so it could properly be evaluated, and so on.
How nice it would have been at that point to hear something like -- this is a big thing BAOC is looking at, we (USOF) need to approve it but we'll do what we can to make the process move smoothly, and if we need to schedule another Board meeting just for this, no problem, we'll do it. Oh, well.
5. Will it happen? It might. BAOC has a lot of resources. But it needs really strong and forceful leadership, and from what I saw this evening, I'm not sure it has that sufficiently. At least not yet.