Discussion: student wanting to do orienteering

Hi,
I place foreign exchange students in homes. I have a scholarship student coming next year for High School in this area. He is a champion at orienteering. I thought it would be great if we could find a family for him with the same interest. Could you please tell me how to get him involved in the local orienteering clubs and activities? Also could you tell me more about what you do?

Thanks

Also if this isn't a local group how do I find a local group for this student?

Thanks again

Hi Laura,

This isn't a local group, we have members all over the world. Where are you looking to send the student? With a bit more detail it's likely someone here may be able to help.

Leep4Peace: Attackpoint has members from all over North America and across the globe. I think many on Attackpoint would be happy to take him in and there are also many orienteers not on Attackpoint that are likely happy to take him. What area are you looking at?

Leep4Peace, we could all probably talk for hours about "what we do" as orienteers. ;-) Mostly we love maps and love running in the woods with them. For a quick summary there's information right here on Attackpoint: http://attackpoint.org/orienteering.jsp, with a link to the Wikipedia page for orienteering, which is also a nice overview. The Orienteering USA page has all kind of information about our sport, including a list of clubs around the country where anyone can get involved. If you're in Canada there's the Canadian Orienteering Federation.

A good decision on location is crucial if he wants to be able to orienteer regularly through the winter. There are orienteering clubs in the US and Canada (Seattle, Cincinnati, San Francisco Bay Area, Toronto, and Vancouver come to mind) which have a series of school league events and orienteering races most weekends through the winter. Placing him with a family that travels to national "A" meets would also be a plus since distances between major events in North America are large. On the other hand, if he goes to somewhere without an active club, it may be very difficult or impossible for him to get to events or find orienteering maps on which to keep up his training, especially if his host family is not willing or able to travel to events.

Feel free to ask more questions here or email any of us who have responded so far and we'll be happy to help.

USA list of clubs
Canada list of clubs