Discussion: Exchange student?

One of the juniors in our club is very interested in spending a year in the states as an exchange student, beginning in August 2008. He will be a senior in high school. He is most interested in an area with a warm winter climate and would like to be able to continue doing some orienteering but also run cross-country and maybe track. If anyone reading this would be interested in receiving him, or knows of someone who might be, please e-mail me and I can provide more details. He is a great kid.

Clarification - Tucson/San Diego warm or not snowbound warm?

Sounded interesting until the part about the warm winter climate. Alas, Connecticut is unlikely to meet his needs.

It's warmer than Whitehorse. Heck, it's a lot warmer than Laramie. What more could he want?

But the Villa DeWeese comes with its own fitness center and is located on the most fine Ratlum Mountain map. And laurel wrangling is exellent cross training (from what I hear)....

"doing some orienteering" ... the US locations with warm winters don't often provide much orienteering, though perhaps enough depending on your definition of "some".

Hey lay off Whitehorse. I note that at 7 pm Pacific, it was -2 Celsius in Whitehorse; -4 with slight windchill, and that Hartford Connecticut was reporting 3 Celsius; - 1 with the windchill.
And we have never had to cancel an O-meet scheduled for March 30th because of too much snow. (On the other hand we have never scheduled any A-meets for March 30)

Atlanta.

Why would you cancel an O-meet just because a little snow?

Atlanta would make Sweden seem so much nicer year-round.

OCIN (Cincinnati) schedules events thru the winter. We get some snow December thru March but it is rarely deep enough to prevent regular foot orienteering and the ground is usually bare most of that time.

He can come to Uppsala! A warm winter climate, with no sign of snow, plus great opportunities to run orienteering and cross-country. And he even knows the language! What could be better?? :)

what about Australia? no snow through out winter unless you're in the mountains the snowy ones! In fact the winter is our orienteering season!

In fact the winter is our orienteering season!

But... is that the wrong winter?

He better go to St Etienne if he wants to be the best.

irelandirelandrepublicofireland

Ok, than Bay Area. Warm winter with 3 hours to the snow. Not so hot summer. Some orienteering.

Yes, Bay Area is also a reasonable choice. I guess the winters are fine, though Mark Twain noted that the coldest winter of his life was the summer that he spent in San Francisco. Plenty of good orienteering possibilities, as long as you aren't put off by poison oak.

Seattle area has mild weather year round (San Francisco Bay Area minus several degrees, and Seattle is definitely sunnier than foggy SF in the summer), and we have a great junior orienteering scene and a school league with big, competitive meets every two weeks from November to February. We're not warm-warm in the winter, but not snowy. 41F with intermittent showers is typical winter-O weather. I can't offer to host, but I could inquire with my club if there's interest.

Come to Hamilton! We race year round!

Upnorthguy was commenting on the WRE in Ontario just postponed because of the 40 cm of snow we received last week, just a few days after another snowstorm. The officials decided to postpone because they didn't think it was fair to hold a WRE in 50+ cm of snow.

We have a series here all winter and race in snow all the time. Makes it really fun!

C'mon, the kid is from Sweden. I imagine he knows from snow, and racing in it during the winter. He's looking to find someplace warm for a change!

...aren't we all.....

not me

Tom,
It seems people answering this post are more willing to tell your young friend where to go rather than offer him a place to come. That is too bad. I hope you have had a few more serious inquiries off line.
I cannot offer a place for your young friend but I can suggest that if contacts through orienteers aren't working out he should consider making application through the nearest Rotary International club, or any number of other organizations that specialize in youth exchanges.

I think most people were being at least somewhat serious in trying to help figure out where might be a good place... Why pass the word around to our friends and clubmates if our location stinks?

I guess he'll have to decide if the locations stinks. We have had exchange students before and had very good experiences. We don't currently have a kid at home which makes it perhaps less interesting for a kid to come here, but we would certainly consider an O-kid if he wanted to come. (I say that without first checking with my wife, but she likes kids.) Last kid we had came through Rotary. As Gord says, they place a lot of kids, and give them something of a support structure.

Wasn't it Rotary that brought Swisscheese for his exchange year in the US?

I thought Swisscheese just emailed the ONet, and the Smiths responded?

It's really great to see the positive response and great suggestions, thanks everyone! He does want to come to the States which I guess shuts the door on places like St Etienne, Australia, Ireland and Uppsala......although they sound great to me! (well with the exception of Uppsala maybe ;-))

His first thinking was California so maybe the Bay Area or San Diego are good options. I have also tipped him about Atlanta and Tucson which if he wants mild winters are great options. But I wouldn't close any doors at this point in time.

He has tried to get a placing through several organisations but with no luck, the best he could get was 5th spot on a waiting list with YFU. I will see if he has tried Rotary though, thanks for the tip.

With these specifics, if anyone might be able to help please send me an e-mail. He is a great kid and will be an asset to a local o club. He is currently ranked about 30th in Sweden in M18 and has done a lot of course setting and organising together with the other youths in our club.

We'd love an exchange student, but I suspect Maryland isn't what he has in mind weatherwise.
I spent my senior year of HS in Sweden through YFU ... but 5th on the waiting list might not work. I don't know how they work now, but in my day I didn't have a choice of where in Sweden I ended up, as the program placed me. If he has strong feelings on where he'd like to end up, he might not want to go through a program at all (though I agree, they do have a lot of support stuff for the kids; we got to go to extreme northern Sweden for a week, and a week in Stockholm which included attending the Nobel Prize ceremony, oh, and two weeks together at the beginning for serious Swedish instruction ... very cool stuff).

to "upnorthguy" :--- see "backwoods" comments. WRE is not just another A meet, and I know that its not FAIR when a interval start, to have even 5 cm of snow on the ground. but then we'll make it ( the event) a bit later , so you guys upnorth can un-tie those frozen laces . hope to see you (and others) here before Ottawa

Agree with Boris, Upsala must be a good choice. WMOC 1997 maps can't be far from there.

...and that way he wouldn´t have to travel too far from Karlstad...

Plus he wouldn't have to spend all that money on sunscreen!

In some of those warm weather climes like Cincinnati or Seattle you could easily go through 2-3 tubes a day.

Sunscreen in Seattle? Do they even sell the stuff there?

Yea, in the summer. And we need it. We spend nine months turning pasty white that by the time that bright yellow thing comes back (what's it called, again?), it's like salt on a slug's back if we don't use it.

Actually, I did spend a summer in Seattle in 1990, and found it to be quite pleasant. I have been there during the other three seasons to confirm the more typical weather patterns.