Discussion: Lack of Juniors (North America)

Just looking at who's registered for the COC in Manitoba. In the COC-Middle for example -- 14 registered in M55-64. TOTAL # of juniors registered (both sexes, all categories) = 13. We are a dying sport folks, if we can't get more juniors than that to our national championships.

I'm involved in several orienteering organizations, all of which are keen to attract juniors from "out there somewhere" (Cubs, schools, Cadets, community events, etc.) I've always thought it would be enlightening to do a survey and analyze the reasons why orienteers aren't bringing their own children into the sport. These parents don't need to be sold on what a great sport it is, yet most of them still don't bring their kids to events. If we could understand the reasons - and overcome whatever issues or barriers that exist - that would help us attract juniors from non-orienteering families.

I think that is a great question. While I am not a junior, I can only say the reason I'm not coming to the COCs is logistics and price. It is a little difficult to get there, and from the US, rather expensive. Otherwise, given that terrain, I would certainly come.

It is an interesting question, but I think Clem's explanation is the dominant effect. Consider that the 2008 COC's in New Brunswick attracted 34 juniors of all types and 22 M55-64. Also note that some juniors ran in M21 and F21.

There could be other systematic effect - perhaps juniors and their families register late due to uncertain schedules - but I think the biggest factor is Manitoba is far from everywhere else, and plane tickets are expensive. Like Clem, I'm an American M21, so my datum is less useful, but I drove up to the New Brunswick champs at comparatively little expensive relative to the trip to Manitoba. The population distribution of Canada suggests to me that bereft of a local crowd of junior orienteers, an event in central Canada would tend to do less well.

One way to rectify this would be to provide travel grants to juniors, but I'm not sure how economically viable that approach is.

A couple of further points. This is not to blame anyone, but just to present an example - I noticed not a single junior from Alberta is registered, and Alberta has historically been a pretty strong association. It is also the closest active association, if you don't count Saskatchewan. Also it looks like there is not a single entrant from next-door Saskatchewan, so having held the nationals there in 2007 appears to have had little affect on establishing "O" there (granted there are other ways of measuring that than participation at nationals).

There may be more to come, but I would tend to think juniors/families are actually the ones that would most likely make their plans ahead of time, want to take advantage of early bird registration fees etc.

Maybe COF should be funding its juniors to attend COC rather than JWOC.

I have a 14 yo who loves to Orienteer. We generally do not attend meets that are further than a days drive from home because of costs. In addition, we are fairly new to the sport and have 30 - 40 local meets a year within a 4 hour drive. So we get plenty of action without a lot of in-direct costs.

We attended the COC in New Brunswick last year for several reasons: Fishbones, Sass Peepre, 18 hour drive, COC and most importantly Hopewell Rocks.

My question doesn't relate to the COCs specifically. In southern Ontario where we have 6 O clubs, we only get a couple of juniors at most local club events, and last year there were only 12 juniors at the provincial champs. For perspective, Ontario has 13 million people, which represents about 40% of Canada's population. If juniors aren't attending local events, they're not going to go to the COCs regardless of travel grants or discounted entry fees.

Orienteers around here aren't bringing their kids to local events very often if at all, and it would be interesting to know why. I only have Lab Retrievers and thus cannot contribute any wisdom. It has always been a mystery to me why there is so much enthusiasm for junior development of strangers vs. the children of orienteers who are already planning to drive an hour to get to the event. (Which is one of the big deterrents in trying to attract juniors from families outside the sport.)

Bash: My GUESS is that people who don't bring their kids don't leave them behind because the parents wouldn't love for them to come (I don't know any parent who wouldn't be delighted to have his or her child or children participate), but because the kids aren't interested.

It is very difficult to get (say) 13-year old kids to do something they really don't want to do. There are so many competing activities that kids potentially have; some quite positive (like other sports), some not so positive (TV, video games, worse things than that).

Hats off to the parents who are able to cultivate an interest in orienteering in their kids, and double hats off to the kids who do get interested in orienteering, and especially ones who are interested enough to take it very seriously.

Of my two kids (both in their mid 20's now), one had very little interest in orienteering (despite efforts on our part), the other had a moderate interest and competed in some national and even international events when he was in his early teens, but wasn't serious enough to actually work on the skills or fitness needed to be reasonably competitive, and eventually migrated away from the sport. (A potential positive is that he's now 25 and has expressed some interest in doing some orienteering again, after doing none for 10 years.)

Forever it has been said that Canada MUST hold the Canadian Champs in the summer because that's the only time Juniors would travel to the event (and at one time everyone in Orienteering seemed to be a high school physics teacher with the summer offs).
So, question: is the summer still the best time to have the Canadian Champs, especially in certain regions?

I think the last week of august is too late in the summer for some juniors (certainly college age ones). I briefly looked at going to the COCs this year, but that's the week school starts for me, so there's no way I'm going to be able to go. (Granted, I'm not Canadian, but I imagine the point is still valid.)

Yes, point is still valid. Not sure about elsewhere in Canada, but in Whitehorse the elementary schools start back August 31, which would be cutting it close, as I think people like to get organized, chill for the last free weekend or whatever. Scheduling is always a fine topic for discussion and Nevin raises a good point. I see that for 2010 NAOC is scheduled right over JWOC, so that will cut down on the number of high calibre NA juniors attending.

I think the issue with COC's this year might be time of year. Having them at the end of August means you are getting close to the start of school, pre-season for sports etc.

I agree with RLShadow some kids just aren't interested in going with their parents to events and forcing the situation makes kids hate Orienteering. The key to getting them to come is having friends at the meet that you only see at Orienteering. I made so many friends when I was younger at junior training camps and I couldn't wait to get to O events in the spring and fall because I would get to see them all. I used to get so upset at the last event in the fall because I wouldn't see everyone for a few months. I pushed my parents to go to more events so I could see my friends. Whereas my younger sister never got that group of friends due in part I think because of less training camps and she has no interest in Orienteering anymore.

I think clubs could help bring juniors together by having junior only social events at A-meets such as bowling or ice cream social. Encouraging Orienteering parents to let their kids attend the events and make more friends will help. Its even better when you make friends overseas!

I think the main reason that there are very few juniors registered for COC (and the 34 at COC in NB still counts as very few) is there are very few clubs that actually have junior programs with regular practices and even fewer who have team leaders/coaches willing to take kids. Sure, not all the kids from a junior program are going to travel to Manitoba. HOwever, if you provide opportunities, at least a small percentage will make the journey. 5-10 from each club would quickly add up.

I'll throw my 2 cents in here as a parent of two juniors one who is addicted to orienteering and the other who enjoys it.

In regard to the Canadian Champs, sounds fun, but at this time of year, multi-day events in Europe with a lot more competition has greater appeal and with airfares as they currently are, it is just as cheap to fly to Europe as it is Canada. Sorry, nothing against great terrain and our friends north of the border.

As for attracting more juniors, that is the tough one. About 2 years ago at DVOA we hit a tipping point where we have a good number of juniors, who enjoy the sport and are into it. Equally important is that it is a large enough group that they want to come to socialize which at the junior age is as important a draw as the orienteering itself.
I agree with above, organizing junior only socials works. Typically at the interscholastics we/they organize a bowling or ice cream social.
You are absolutely right we need more juniors to enter the sport. It is tough competing against the typical scholastic sports where coaches actively discourage kids form participating in orienteering and so far there is a distinct lack of college scholarship $$. It is hard to fill a 100,000 people stadium bringing plenty of dough to a college with orienteering.

RLShadow, you're quite right, and I'm not criticizing - just playing devil's advocate a little. Orienteering parents have told me that they seldom or never bring their kids because they don't want to force them to do something they don't really want to do. There aren't enough other kids orienteering, all their friends are playing soccer, their lives are filled with dance lessons and birthday parties, etc. I also suspect that some orienteering parents don't bring their kids because most events aren't set up to make it easy for the parents to get their race in, e.g. no childcare and/or no opportunities for Mom to run a competitive race, then go out recreationally with her son on an easier course. If we can't make the sport attractive to children of orienteering parents, it will be hard to appeal to families who know nothing about the sport. There must be something we can learn from these orienteering parents with kids who don't orienteer - which in our area, would be the vast majority of orienteering parents. What would need to be different for them to bring their kids to events?

Nevin, you raise a good point about rethinking the traditional timing too. In a similar vein, the Ontario Champs are always held on Thanksgiving weekend, an old tradition that probably made sense at a time when orienteering was something that families did together. For most people now, orienteering takes them away from their families, so a family holiday makes it difficult or impossible to attend. As a result, most people I know have to skip the Ontario Champs most years.

In an Ontario context we had the longest running and largest junior training and participation program in North America. Organizing it was passed on from elite orienteer to elite orienteer (Ted, Ron,Ken, myself, Nina) then nobody took the task and we lost a generation of junior development.

The consequence was that it wasn't worth designing junior courses so now
The average event has nothing for juniors. My daughter would prefer to go to Alberta than Toronto (Ok a lot if Canadians would prefer that but you getmy point).

But I would argue that our ladder of development has done us a great disservice. Kids want more adventure and want to be challenged. We start too late which puts us at a disadvantage.

I believe that kids only races are a good way to try as well as cross sport promotion.

I see a number of great points being made here but I'd like to underscore the one made by Bash about events that are not designed to make it easy for parents to both compete and to shadow their kids on a beginner course.

Our kids are 8 and so far they love orienteering. They love it both for what it is and for the opportunity to see friends that they only see at O meets. We take them to as many meets as will fit into our busy schedule, but there have been times when we have skipped meets because the event logistics were so lousy that it was clear from reading the schedule that it would not work out.

Some of the things that contribute to difficult logistics for families include "compressed" start windows and lengthy shuttle bus rides which reduce or eliminate the likelihood of having time to run a course and get back in time to shadow a child on a course. (Hint: if one has to sit in the bus for 10 minutes before it starts moving, it's already lengthy!)

Another issue is meets that don't include "rec" courses but expect every starter to have a pre-assigned start time and pay a full A-meet entry fee. That's all fine once the kids have enough skills to actually do a beginner course without help, but we somehow have to get them to that point to begin with.

On the COC issue, we also drove to NB last year and had a great time. We broke up the drive and made some fun stops along the way so it wasn't too much. I tried for a while to work out the logistics to get to Manitoba this year but eventually gave up. Likewise we aren't likely to be at the 1-day US Champs either.

From a juniors point of view. It is hard for me to attend events more then a days drive. Most juniors dont have jobs (to help support the cost), cars, age (to check into hotels or rent a car if I flew by myself), and travel experience. If it wasnt for those factors i would definately be at more then a few A meets and certainly be at your Ameet

I am not going to reiterate the already discussed cost and time issue; or the fact that there are so many options out there, and the overwhelming ease of self-entertainment without leaving home.

Where I started, in a small town in Nova Scotia(pop. 10 000) our club president was a school teacher and the club organized a bus to take any student that wanted to go to meets around the province and into New Brunswick. The buses ran almost every 2 weeks during the season and were close to full every time. I think we paid ~$10 for the bus and they took care of the registration for the meet on the bus too, to simplify the process. This program was geared to students in grade 7 up, but not exclusive, and when space permitted was expanded to anyone that wanted a ride. This was a great program and introduced many people to the sport, including me; I came from a non-orienteering family and would have never started otherwise. I am not sure why the program stopped whether interest died off first, or someone willing to organize it was too tough to find, but in the few events I have been to in the province lately it seems that attendance, particularly juniors, is down from when I started.

One of the comments that seems common on attack point that bothers me a lot is about how adults should be bring their children and seems that a large portion of the blame for low attendance and few juniors is being put on the parents. If we want the sport to grow we need to have programs to attract juniors from outside the sport. Buses from local towns and cities should be easy to do and I am sure most school boards have a phys ed mailing list to help advertise it for example. Take hockey for example, it is a well known and widely played sport(it is mainstream so I won't talk about needed to attract young players) there are countless house league teams in Canada(Local meets/B meets), from those some players rise to the ranks of the Rep teams for their town, school etc. (A meet caliber). From the Rep teams some player then get recruited to the provincial rep teams(Nationals, NAOC's etc) and from the few players there, still a few go to play for the national teams and/or professional ranks(WOCs). The problem with orienteering right now in my opinion is lack of a base contingent(especially in the juniors).

well i know with althletics, and i imagen its much the same throughout all sports. most juniors will only travel to nationals if they feel they will do well. i know that i wouldnt fork out a few hundred $ to fly somewere and come last :S students are on tight budgets

It sounds as the only problem is that O in the US/Canada has no grass roots. When the local events start getting big crowds, then start trying to coax people to the larger A meets. As Gibbo said - who's going to fork out a couple of hundred quid if you think your going to come last. Students aren't loaded!

From a sort of opposite point of view, I started orienteering at 13 out of my own interest in the sport. My mother decided that she enjoyed it too, so we would go to a few local events each year. But I never had the opportunity to travel to national meets until I was in college. When your parents don't have the money or the time or the interest in going with you to far off events, as a child you are stuck with that. Also, my skills never really developed very far until I was able to drive myself to local events several times a month rather than going only once in awhile. Now I go to 4-6 A meets a year, but I am still limited by finances to stay within a day's driving distance of home. I can't even imagine flying a family of 3 or 4 to a couple far off events each year, especially in the current economic climate.

I am a junior and I will be going to COC, but I haven't signed up yet. As other people have said, the end of August is NOT still summer in terms of school. All the other schools around me will start on the first day of COC. At least 2 colleges in the area will start during COC.

I've got a 25% interest rate so far - not so good, but not so bad for an investment across 4 children...

The eldest was in about 6th grade when we discovered orienteering (I contacted ROC to have a demonstration for the Cub Scout Pack I was leading - and we followed up at an event). He was into soccer, and never really found enjoyment in the sport. Current status - he's a pole vaulter (and student) at SUNY Brockport, not a distance runner.

The next spent two years in the sport and we found a way to tie orienteering into a Science Olympiad event in New Paltz the same weekend as the Surebridge Challenge in 2007. Since then she's lost interest in actively participating. She's currently a top caliber race walker with two more years of high school left.

The third has never shown much interest in Orienteering... He's following his brother, sister, cousins, uncle, father and grandfather into pole vaulting...-)

The fourth is still interested - in spite of having to cross a field with much too many prickly things when her father picked the route way back... Her favorite event so far was winning Scrooge-O last December - which made for a nice article in ONA. (Also printed in the ROC newsletter but that edition is not quite online yet)

In order to make the meet work out, I'm juggling events. If it's a "practice" sort of day, I'll quick run a sprint, and then have her compete in the white (her age category) while I shadow. Then if we have time, I'll coach her through a yellow.

If we have a longer course, I try to get there early enough to compete myself and then shadow her. It involves leaving her in a structured environment where she can volunteer with string-O or something like that.

We're not yet to a point where I could say - you do yours, and I'll do mine at the same time. And since it is the two of us, we have to figure out what will work.

Now - Orienteering is not necessarily her #1 sport... But she likes spending the time with me, and it's easy to do well - even against adults in the White and Yellow categories;-)

Now - in relation to a big event - I'll try to get us to a couple events within 4-5 hours of upstate NY each year. Factors include time, cost, and lack of interest from other family members.

ROC does a good job of supporting the sport in schools and held a Scout-O weekend the past two years.

With as much interest as there is in running (by adults) we need to continue our efforts and tap into the aspect that orienteering is just more fun than running along the road;-)

We were talking about this last night in our kitchen. I don't think it's true that we need to get every junior's parents on board. Instead, I think we need some adults (not necessarily every parent) who are willing to help kids get to events outside of the city.

I think a lot of the success we had in NB in getting juniors excited about the sport came from the trips my Dad took us on. Three or four times a year he would fill up a van with 5 or 6 kids and drive to West Point or Ottawa or similar. As soon as some junior started showing any interest, he or she would be invited to come along. If we weren't driving to the event, my Dad would usually rent a van anyways, so we could offer drives to anyone who needed one during the event.

So perhaps one tactic anyone who's worried about declining junior participation could take is to let any juniors in your club know about events within driving range and offer them a seat in your car. Let them know if you'll have a spare seat during COC. Don't wait for them to ask. Tell their parents about the invitation too.

I'm very grateful to all the people who have helped me to get meets (and continue to do so). I really believe that getting juniors to bigger events where there are lots of people, especially other juniors, is the best way to win them over.

One of the comments that seems common on attack point that bothers me a lot is about how adults should be bring their children and seems that a large portion of the blame for low attendance and few juniors is being put on the parents. If we want the sport to grow we need to have programs to attract juniors from outside the sport.

No one in this discussion has blamed parents for not bringing their children. My point is that orienteering parents make a great focus group for market analysis. With a few exceptions, our sport isn't overly successful at junior development in North America, and a good starting point is to try to understand why the majority of orienteering parents don't bring their children. Most adults in the general population have no idea what orienteering is, so we already know why they don't enter their kids in orienteering meets. If we can remove that variable and limit our analysis to a group of adults who enjoy orienteering themselves, then we can learn what *other* barriers/issues exist for juniors and parents who have heard of the sport.

I'd guess that over 2,000 Ontario juniors orienteer in school, Scout and cadet meets each year, yet almost none of them joins a club and begins orienteering regularly. So there's more to it than just raising awareness. If we go to families who are *very* aware of the joys of orienteering, we can figure out some of the other pieces of the puzzle. And that will help us understand how to attract juniors from non-orienteering families.

>>>And that will help us understand how to attract juniors from non-orienteering families.

Attract them to what? There has to be something to attract them to. B-meets once every 3 weeks is not frequent or regular enough if you want to maintain the interest of kids and compete with the wide variety of other activities available. Clubs must make an effort to set up regular weekly junior practices or have a junior race series, like Hammer suggests.

..and like the Shadow organizes each week in Whitehorse.... :)

Getting into this thread late...

As Adam indicated, the timing of the COCs probably resulted in several young orienteers being unable to go. Schools in the midwest -- the US area closest to Manitoba -- tend to end classes in May and start the new school year in August.

BTW, I would really like to know why the 2010 NAOCs were scheduled in direct conflict with JWOC. Perhaps the M/F20 winners at that event should get asterisks. (j/k)

I think there are reasons to be optimistic about the US junior scene, that need to be highlighted, and ultimately emulated.

First the Southeast region has established a strong tradition of very well attended school events. I believe the US Interscholastics has become a great event, possibly second only to the US Champs for participation and money making. I didn't see it coming, but a whole lot of people have been doing something right for about a decade(?). The arguments about scoring systems are actually a good sign.

There are other hot spots as well, most notable in my mind in the Northwest.

At least three clubs (UNO, DVOA, and a Texas club) have well established and successful family camp weekends that I think are worth noting as being part of the program.

Besides quantity, the quality of the top juniors competing at JWOC has also improved. I believe there is concensus that this year's Jr Team performance was the best ever.

Obviously there is great room for improvement, but it seems to me that we are curently in the best era ever for US youth orienteering. Some people are making things work, and I don't think their success is based on new ideas. I think it is mostly based on old fashioned work and hustle, from individuals who are simply asking," what can I do?", and then doing it.

I would like to share my perspective on the matter of junior development in North America, having moved from a non-orienteering background into someone that competes at the national level.

I think that there are a number of factors that prevent prospective orienteers from developing past the local level, and these are critical mass and logistics.

First of all, the logistics of orienteering for an unsupported youth are a nightmare. My mom was a scout leader, so she didn't have a problem shuttling me to forests in weird parts of the province to participate. However, as recreational orienteers at best my parents didn't find it particularly enjoyable to drive 1-2 hours out of the city only to watch me run off into the woods for two hours while they waited in their car at the side of the road. At orienteering events, if some members of a family are not interested in orienteering often the entire family might lose interest, as it is difficult to entertain children in the middle of nowhere when both parents want to go out for a run.

...also, if parents are not willing to take their kids out to forest events, a lot of them are uncomfortable allowing their child to be taken by some weird people who like to run around in their pajamas out to the middle of nowhere, unless there is some sort of official shuttle and junior program leader.

The cost factor also comes into effect for regional and national level events. The amount of money to pay for airfare alone before any other expenses are added for one person only is quite significant if you live in a barren wasteland with very low population density like Canada. Where I live it is 300km to the only nearby city with an orienteering club, everywhere else requires at least a 1 day drive or a flight. I think the problem with Manitoba is that Winnipeg is over 1000km from the nearest city in Canada with an active junior program, so it will not even attract families that are willing to make a 1 day drive to get there as it is too far for Eastern Canadians and too far for Western Canadians.

As a student living on a limited budget, it is only possible to go to a few select events a year, for instance last reading week I had the choice between a 3 day sprint orienteering camp in Vancouver or a 4 day ski/party trip in BC for roughly the same price. I chose the latter. As well, in the 2 years that I did JWOC I was unable to schedule and afford to do the COCs as well.

The timing of the COCs this year is also a little bit too close to the end of summer. For instance, this year I am doing a geology field school before the semester begins and as a result am unable to make it to the COCs. If it were 1 week earlier, I might have been able to work something out or at least go to the Western Canadians.

This gets to the critical mass factor. There have been a few times when I have ran in my category as the only competitor and there is nothing more discouraging to someone that is competitive. There are juniors out there, it is just a matter of them knowing that there will be enough of them to make the journey worthwhile. For me, I only truly got into orienteering from past the provincial level to the national level when APOC came to my home province in 2002. It was really an eye opener to see that there were people that liked orienteering and competed hard in it other than some weird old people and a few kids of orienteering parents from Calgary.

The friends I made from the string of 4 consecutive COCs in Western Canada became as big of a reason for me being excited about orienteering competitions as the competitions themselves. They also made it worthwhile when later I went to events overseas and out of province on my own.

There's no sense in my opinion getting worried about really low registrations for one specific event. In my mind, the most important thing that clubs can do is worry about building up their own junior programs and try to convince kids that going out to forest events is fun and worthwhile, even if they are only competing amongst themselves.

For instance in Edmonton where I live we have had a good schools program for years but never a very strong junior program. However the last year or two we have had a surge in registrations and we have a healthy crop of kids aged 8-12, but only interested in river valley city maps. As well, we have 3 or 4 older kids who are keen to do forest orienteering, but the few events we have just don't always fit in well with other activities.

The other thing to keep in mind is that orienteering is a weird mixture of physical running through terrain and nerdy mapreading, and it is something that I don't think would ever really appeal to the general population. If only 1 of every 3 or 4 kids of orienteering parents are interested in orienteering, that may be as high as it could ever be given the strange nature of the sport.

It is important that we are as accommodating to new kids trying the sport as possible and try to meet parents halfway in terms of logistics, otherwise they are just going to end up playing hockey or soccer instead where they can get the mixture of competitiveness and comradery. If we don't take care of that, we can't ever expect orienteering to thrive at regional or national levels.

(As a side note, while my orienteering club does not produce a lot of competitive orienteers it has a large membership of largely recreational orienteers who enjoy walking and running in the river valley at our Wednesday night park events. Our single largest recruiter of new orienteers is Corporate Challenge, an inter-workplace relay race....so maybe we should stop worrying about juniors and start looking at young adults who enjoy wilderness trekking, adventure racing or running as our target demographic if we really want to grow the sport)

"I would really like to know why the 2010 NAOCs were scheduled in direct conflict with JWOC. Perhaps the M/F20 winners at that event should get asterisks"

or maybe our top juniors should focus on competing and winning in our larger NA events before heading overseas to compete in an event that may be over some of their heads.

I wonder if the Norwegian Junior Hockey would compete in a tournament with Canada, US, Russia, Sweden or in one with Denmark, Germany, and Belarus? I know the players may want to spectacle of playing against the best players, but after the score is 21-0 then that may change.

Our provincial associations / clubs need to help subsidize and support the costs of travelling and competing in our national championships every year.

The current lack of juniors is a national concern and has little to do with what weekend the COC's is on. While getting school groups out is great for exposure...like Brent said...you need committed volunteers to put in the time to run junior programs, drive competitors to events, etc....all the work needed to get competitive juniors to compete in an national event....for some reason this happened a lot more in Canada in the 70's to 90's but it does not seem to happen as much now.

My father took myself and at least 6 other juniors to numerous WCOC/COC/USOC events in Prince George, New Brunswick, St.Louis, Kamloops, Sundre, Sudbury, Edmonton, and all over Manitoba...we got there by car and plane....he set things up and we went...great fun! Our club at times had 6 males competing in courses 1-3 at COC's. It seems nowadays that people are too "busy" to committ the time....or maybe we just aren't reaching those kean adults who would be willing and able to do it?

If the JWOCs are up against the NAOCs, of course the best Canadian and American juniors should be going to JWOC. They should whatever domestic races they are scheduled against. We should have it under our control to schedule domestic races while mindful of the international calendar, but if we don't, you have to prioritize.

"[H]eading overseas to compete in an event that may be over some of their heads"? What is that supposed to mean?

I believe that means the U.S. Red M20 course is 6 km, and the JWOC Long is 11 km.

Agree with j-man and all the juniors above who have stated that going to JWOC or other large meets and making friends has kept them in the sport long term.

If the event is truly over their heads then they would not have been selected to go. If they are capable of competing it will be a motivating and empowering experience. You do not need to win a race at JWOC to succeed.... expectations are set artificially high by both the athletes and the spectators for these large international races. A performance that would win at NAOC would not necessarily score you in the top two thirds at JWOC. I think the implication that not making the top XX of the field means that you are in over your head can be pretty discouraging.

I also agree with the sentiment that attracting and retaining orienteers (juniors or otherwise) is hard work. If it weren't for people like Tom Moran, the Worners, Guy Olsen, Jeff Saeger and countless others inviting all interested juniors on trips and to training camps, junior orienteering would have really been poorer for the time that I spent as a junior. I do hope that I can help to pay off this karmic debt by emulating their example one day...

There are so many good points here, but I'm with Eric W. - I think there are lots of positives!

When I was a junior, back in the early 80s, there were almost no juniors at all in my age range. Pam J., me, Mike W., Jeff Shaeffermayer, the two Colletta girls from St. Louis, Dave Knight. Um. Oh and Hugh McMullen (just thought I'd put the names in for those who enjoy a blast from the past - I'm sure I've missed and misspelled a couple of names). Yup that was about it at big meets. No junior training camps. No JWOC. No junior trips to Europe. No junior team.

So, we've come a long way. I'd have given anything to have the number of 16-20 year old girls that there are now!

I was lucky enough to enjoy the sport and to have parents who enjoyed it too. Now that I am a parent, I hope I'll be able to offer my own kids the same support if they want to - but I honestly expect that it will be out of our budget range to travel as much as my dad did with me.

So I am a strong supporter of a regional junior team structure - with regional training camps and regional coaches and regional competitions. More affordable for families, and more potential to make it possible for young people from 'non-orienteering families.'

In response to the 'what would it take?' question: the cost of 2 days times 3 entries plus child care for 2 kids, plus a place to stay and transportation and meals out ... it makes it a once or twice a year thing to go to an A meet. Local meets are much more affordable for young families. The more the better.

There are some very good points here.

I think the most important one that has been brought up several times is the concept that parents and or children who aren't wanting to compete themselves dislike waiting around for an hour or two while family members are out running in the woods and the can't even watch or understand what they are doing. Orienteering isn't a sport one can understand without actually getting into the woods and trying it.

One of the big things that keeps most of us in the sport is the social aspect of meeting up with friends that we only see at O meets. I'm pretty sure I have yet to meet an unfriendly orienteer!

I think as a community we need to try and push the social side of things for spectators and families. We need to encourage mingling, banquets and social events around the races. Here in Ottawa our annual series of score-o events is especially popular because of the mass start and controlled finished time. Everyone ends up being at the event arena at the same time before and after the race and gets a chance to talk to friends. If parents don't want to orienteer themselves, they should be fully encouraged to come out and volunteer and get to know people. There's never a lack of things for volunteers to do.

I know my parents have become a lot more willing to drive to out of town meets since helping at Sass Peepre over the last couple of years and making friends with other parent volunteers.

Similarly, club vans and busses to out of town meets should be encouraged. Spending a multi hour bus trip with friends you don't see every day is always a fun thing. That's so much of what makes JWOC the awesome trip that it is! You get to know people on your own team so much better as well as people from other teams.

I like that the tenor of this thread is getting more productive and constructive.

Some thoughts: "Lack of Juniors" is a broad problem. Before latching onto a solution or roadblock, consider what the overall goal is. Is it to:
Grow the sports participant base?
Improve the sport experience for current families?
Produce a elite orienteers?
Provide a good outdoor, learning, athletic growth experience for youth?

Then consider how you will define a successful change...
More youth starts at local meets?
More youth who regularly participate at local meets?
Active youth programs with workouts, social activities?
More youth who consider themselves orienteers?
More youth participation at A-meets?
A JWOC medalist?

Those questions will help you decide how to structure a solution.

Even though low Championship participation spurred this thread, I (and others) feel that the root cause of the issue is low participation at the local level. USOF seems to feel similarly, and I'm told that future junior development is going to focus on establishing local interscholastic orienteering leagues. So this is a timely discussion for US orienteers.

I only see one real big omission from the discussion above; and that is parent recruitment. I know that certain successful youth groups put more effort into recruiting new parents than new kids.

Whenever you recruit a new kid, it's very smart to recruit their parents to serve as volunteers. It's important for sustainability (so programs don't die when one person moves on). It increases the likelyhood that a kid will stay in the program. It's critical for keeping a pool of invested volunteers and financial supporters that scales with the size of your youth program.

maybe everyone is tired of this topic but I wanted to share a couple things that I believe contributed to our boys wanting to go to orienteering events. Maybe they'll help some other parents with YOUNG juniors (these things won't work with teenagers)

First, we got a portable DVD player so when we (the parents), were o'ing or visting with people, they could watch movies. At home, we restricted the amount of TV/movies they could watch but there were no restrictions at the meets---oh, we also had snacks they could much on at will.

Second, we would stay in a motel that hopefully had a pool but certainly had TV with a bizzlion channels. Again, no restrictions on watching so it was a treat.

Third, we did not shadow them after they were 7-8 years old. That way, they could do their orienteering and then go back to the car and watch movies while we did ours. (at least twice they killed the car battery and we had to get jump started), More importantly though, doing the courses without a shadow gave them a sense of confidence and independence. I'll admit to being very nervous sending them off by themselves and always checking the car immediately when we got back. Our instruction to them before they started was "check the map at every intersection" and if you get got "lost", stop any adult with a map (ie. another orienteer), and ask them for help.

Fourth, they had some early sucess--not because they were good, but because there usually wasn't many kids doing the white course.

Fifth, when they were older and socializing with other teens became important, we sent them on a junior trip organized by John Fredrickson in 2007 to the COC and US.Champs. They came back from that trip with a will to be at JWOC someday.

Just feel I need to add the NEOC classic story (true, I think) that at least one if not both of the Saeger girls spent at least one if not more orienteering events sitting in the car while Jeff and Judy ran, because they HATED orienteering. ... So all those parents with kids who hate the sport shouldn't give up!

:) We did hate it :) Mom and dad tell us stories about how Hill locked herself in the car once and refused to come out and orienteer. After the meet she was angry because they didn't force her out. Sometimes, you just can't win :) But what kept us going to orienteering meets were our friends. That's why we went - to build dams in rivers, spy on other people, play cards in the back of a van and eat junk food (special treat). Eventually we grew up enough that going out in the woods wasn't so bad. Early success was also a motivator. I still remember winning my first white course at an A-meet where I wasn't shadowed. I won a gold calculator. Dad told people in the parking lot that I won and I felt so proud :) I still have the calculator. So the reason I stayed in orienteering as a child and teen? part early success, part my parents never giving up, but mostly my friends :) Now... it's still my friends ;)

And you still get to build dams in rivers?

May I say something, perhaps at odds to some things already said.
I guess every family has some incentive to get their kids to O meets,
(did we really let you have junk food, this must have been Mom's idea).
But what I believe in most is:
You know what is best for your children, they don't. So keep pushing them to go orienteering, and be supportive. Help them in every way. Talk with them, ask them about their course, help them meet other kids, but keep it up. Kids take many years to grow up, so you have to stick with them.

"and you still get to build dams in rivers?...isn´t that obvious?"

Start them early, and they never forget!

I thin there are many good points to why there are not many juniors in orienteering. Form my experiences, I was an athlete I splayed sports year around. I went to orienteering meets because I enjoyed orienteering, however much of a social aspect there is in and round the orienteering I never felt like there was a sense of belonging or team/ club aspect. Yes we are all part of clubs but the only time in the use clubs really come together is the US relay champs. In Europe the club is like your team once you join you have an obligation to it, and it can be fun and social as well. Its great what has happened down in texas and out in washington with the school leagues, because kids can really have a team to train with and commit to and have something in common with. Obviously this is a work in progress but we might all make more of en effort within the individual clubs to having regular trainings or something for kids and teens to count on. From my own experience theres no way I was going to miss a game or a meet for orienteering because my team was counting on me, and there was no one in the orienteering world really counting on me to be there. Ya it would be nice and maybe increase competition. Most of the kids today from ages 10-18 play some kind of organized sport and orienteering can not compete because it is not organized. Its hard to travel really far it costs money and its a weekend commitment. Also a new incoming junior probably will not have friends right off the bat in the orienteering community so whats to keep them coming if their friends are at home? This is why I suggest a team/ club aspect that needs to be developed so kids feel and obligation and commit to orienteering. The club then in return needs to help Provide training, transportation to training, information and transportation to A meets and larger meets, and the kids will learn and develop friends over time that will keep them coming back. This will probably take a long time to develop and I know there are already efforts in place that are doing this. But from own experience as and athlete it was not the community but the challenge of the sport, but it was hard if not impossible to commit to it because there was no really opportunity to really try and get better other than going to local meets and A meets. But if you look at European clubs they have training twice or more times a week where you can really work on your skills and improvement so that when you actually go to a race your ready, rather than trying to improve at the race like we do in the use. Its funny but I think most US juniors would say when they go to JWOC they get a lot better which is good. But what if we went to JWOC already good then I think the possibilities open up much more. So I think in order to really get a bunch of young juniors conically coming into the sport it needs to get more organized in terms of training day to day logistics.

A ton of great points have been made here, and I am not sure I can add much other than my observations as a parent.

I've only been orienteering for three years, and one of my twin sons (but not the other) really enjoys it. We love it the way it is, and don't see any problem. The bottle is way more than half full for us.

But if the goal is to attract more kids, or retain those kids who from time to time show up at events, I think youth teams is worth considering. Teams would increase the social context. Teams would engender more commitment. From what I have heard and read, countries that have school teams or club teams have more participation. You could debate which thing leads to the other, but I think youth teams might be a good way to start.

Imagine any other youth sports club announcing that the club was going to sponsor unofficial practice games in the park once a month (roughly), but with no coaching, until enough kids seemed interested to form teams. The result: Participation by individuals would be sporadic, and overall participation would ebb and flow. Kids who are motivated and athletic would look for something more regular where they could develop and show their stuff. The club would never be able to form teams using this approach.

The tried-and-true method for youth sports is as follows. You announce tryouts. Kids show up. Always fewer than you hoped. You conduct the tryouts and congratulate them all for making the team (although, honestly, exceptions sometimes have to be made). Then you recruit some more. You tell the recruits that the team already has the best local athletes in the sport, and the team is going to train once a month with a great coach, and also have some social events, and get a uniform, and at the end of the year the team will travel together to compete in an A-Meet (that hopefully is not halfway across the country). A key ingredient for this model is finding a coach who can do this well, and that's not easy. Coaches are usually paid and if they are good at what they do, they deserve to be paid real money, and not per session, but paid up front for the entire season.