Discussion: 4 year anniversary of USOF ED

Today (Apr 15, 2013) marks the end of the 4th year of our federation's paid Executive Director initiative.

You know you've been in the USA a while when you know who posted this message and what it contains, before you click through!

And on AP for a while when you know who posted it...

THANK YOU, Glen Schorr, for your hard work and dedication to representing and growing the sport we love.

... and for helping the organization generate positive cash flow and remain on solid financial footing.

disorienteer & T/D: +1!!

Sorry to break up this lovefest, but I couldn't disagree more. My dealings with Mr. Schorr have left me with the impression he has no vision for the sport of orienteering and is incapable of bring about any meaningful change. I would be much happier if he were replaced.

and for helping the organization generate positive cash flow and remain on solid financial footing

It doesn't take 4 years and any acumen to raise race fees in a market with inelastic demand. You could raise them another $10 if you want to, and have an even bigger lovefest.

There are many ways to judge the efficacy of this initiative. The everybody's happy lovefest feeling is one of them, I guess; paying for happiness and contentment is always a good deal. Another would be by comparing actuals to quotas in the strategic plan document. A third would be comparing the cost of the initiative with the revenues its specific directives and activities have generated (not counting race fee increases and solicitation of donations from a specific foundation, if any).

They way I'd judge it is to look at the A meet roster and experience from a consumer perspective. The A meet roster always looks the same, if not smaller, than 4 years ago. And they are all in the same places, more or less. I don't have to even look at it to know, pretty much, what to expect. Same old, same old. They just cost more, despite quiescent inflation over the period, and technological advances that make product production cheaper.

And, what do you get for that extra cost? Nothing. In fact, the quality of the last A meet I went to was lower, on average, in my judgement, than in the past. Now, if the extra cost were being plowed into materially expanding the A meet roster, say in quantity, location, or quality, you could justify it. But, there is no evidence that this is occurring.

Its all the same. It just costs more.

So, from the perspective of a consumer, I'd judge it a failure, as I am getting the same quantity of a stale product of static or inferior quality at a higher price. So, I consume a different product now. JMHO, of course. Everyone be their own judge with their own metrics, of course..

All I can say is that the actual outcome is a far cry from what was articulated to me over a 4 hour phone call with a USOF board member at the time. YMMV may vary, of course.

I have an idea for "materially expanding the A meet roster": ban NAOC! It's clear at least to me that the shrinkage in A event day number last fall had a single reason.

I note Randy is studiously avoiding mentioning the local starts number, which is reliably growing (unlike in the years without the ED), albeit not at the rate that the plan prescribed.

"[T]hey are all in the same places, more or less": thank goodness. Orienteers are more than slightly insane about their beautiful and perfect maps, which the rest of the world doesn't give a squak about. Until the world (or a very small portion thereof, but still larger than the current portion) sees value in participating in events on detailed maps, keep having events in the well-used, well-known areas close to major population centers and save the mapping money to improve event quality. Otherwise, more inbreeding and more start list shrinkage. You can work on the world by making (some kind of) product readily available. Just lamenting people's stupidity isn't a vision.

The vision that needs to die is making more perfect maps and having more perfect events farther away from the people, for members of the in-club. It is this mindset that is hurting the sport, not a professional ED.

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate thread, but I have a number of questions about the goals and implementation for the OUSA Strategic Plan.

For the past three years, I have been the events director for NEOC, the third largest club in the US by membership and fourth largest by starts. During my tenure, I haven't received any communication from OUSA pertaining to the goals outlined in the Strategic Plan. I understand that some of the implementation of these goals is indirect, not acting through the existing clubs - and perhaps someone in my club has been receiving a bunch of correspondence from OUSA and I simply haven't received it. For all intents and purposes, I have been organizing NEOC's activities as though there were no strategic plan. Changes in our figures may be due to some national publicity campaign, but it is equally likely to be entirely independent of the efforts of OUSA.

I think a number of the strategic plan goals are poorly defined, and it's very questionable whether a national federation can have any meaningful impact on them. But many of the goals directly address club-level activities, for example "Increase Membership Figures and Profitability" on page 18, "Increase the number of active maps in the US" (24), and "Increase starts at both the local meet and A-meet levels" (9). Certainly much of what OUSA provides is appreciated - insurance, NOD paraphernalia (I guess), rankings, rules - but the impact of the strategic plan on OUSA's practical function seems negligible.

One topic that I believe has been suggested to OUSA is that they hire a mapper (e.g. Zherdev, whomever) and contract that mapper out to clubs. This would be incredibly helpful, as NEOC has struggled to find mappers, and could be operated at essentially no cost to OUSA by amortizing any up front costs for bringing the mapper to the US. I personally have only spectated the activities of the national federation because I'm more involved with local activities, and I have assiduously avoided most of the attackpoint threads on the topic. So perhaps no one at OUSA knows any of my concerns, or perhaps my concerns are not shared by the broader O-community. Most of the enumerated plans for the Senior Team (pg 32) seem laughly irrelevant to the national federation - except to say that the federation will support the ESC. From what I know about the ESC (who seems to do a fantastic job in a tedious and largely thankless role to make a lot happen for the senior team), they don't get much Strategic Plan specific support (i.e. something different from past years), but I'm not particularly well informed.

So briefly:

1. What tangible impact is the implementation of the strategic plan having on the US Orienteering Community?
2. What is the role of the national federation? Which of these enumerated goals are actually attainable, and are there functions that OUSA currently lacks but could undertake?

I recognize both that this is a challenging task and that it is much easier to criticize efforts post hoc than to make them. Nevertheless, there appears to me to be a fairly vast disconnect between the ambitions of the strategic plan and the practical realities of what has been done. This is pertinent to the discussion about the function of ED.

This could be fun.

To start, I respectfully ask both partisans and opponents how much impact you expect the ED has on the OUSA's strategic vision and/or the implementation of that vision?

How much do you think he thinks he has? How much do you think he should have? And, if it is less than you might expect/hope for, why do you think that is?

@T/D—while your point is tangential, and likely intended to be in partial jest, since I’ve heard this other places, I have to challenge it—why do people think NAOC negatively impacted other A events in the fall of 2012? Please walk me through the causal chain.

And, in any event, if NAOC had 1900 A-event starts (or whatever) that is roughly 3 times a normal 2-day classic, so wouldn’t NAOC count for 3 ordinary events anyway? Not that this is the point.

From OUSA's financial perspective, doesn't each of those NAOC starts also count for 1.3 regular A-meet starts? Or whatever the championship surcharge is?

Anyway, for my part, I have never spoken to Glen Schorr*, but I did read the strategic plan, which I had never done prior to our having an ED (was there a strategic plan back then?). Having read the goal on increasing starts, and feeling as though that was a worthy goal, I was marginally more inclined to do my part to increase starts, which I think I have done. I imagine other people have done the same, and that has snowballed, at least from my perspective. Sometimes you need some high-level guidance to get things rolling.

Apart from that, Glen appears to have done nothing to increase the number of starts. Appearances can be deceiving, but anyway, that's how it appears.

What else would we have expected him to do? Marketing. I know of no marketing initiatives that Glen has participated in. For the 2011 US Champs, I'm pretty sure we contacted him to get some help and got nothing. All the marketing buzz that was generated was done by chance or by Sara Mae contacting news outlets, as far as I know.

The other thing that has happened is an increase in start fees. I guess we should have seen this coming, but I think most people had a vision where starts would increase enough that fees wouldn't have to.

So in summary, Glen gave some initiative by providing a vision for increased starts. He should have done some marketing to bring about those increased starts, but instead we have increased starts as an exclusive result of local action. For that we have increased start fees.


* - other than to suggest in an AP thread a few years ago that any effort to secure visas for foreigners to come to the US for O purposes should go to o-babes. I found Glen's response to this avenue for growth to be rather disappointing.

Also, why would we measure Glen's success by A-meet day number? Who cares if I have an A-meet that attracts only 50 people? Isn't it better to have one that attracts 600 people? Total A-meet starts seems like a much more relevant number.

Hey, if Glen isn't personally working with your club, it doesn't mean Glen isn't working! (personally with other clubs!) The ED is very reasonably taking the path of most return (or least resistance, depending on your point of view) by working with organizations who share similar goals and have interest and resources in helping orienteering happen. These organizations with the most interest and resources happen to be in the Midwest, where there is also less orienteering by most measures (events, starts, per capita, per square mile) than, say, in the Boston area. So, it seems very reasonable to me that his direct efforts in the past couple of years have been focused in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. (Glen's efforts have also brought returns less directly, most importantly through a sustained media-impression campaign, but I can't be spending all of my unpaid time here on ED promotion, the ED is, after all, paid and his reports are readily available.)

As a direct result of Glen's efforts, there is support now in Kentucky and Indiana from the Commonwealth's Sports Authority and from Visit Bloomington. This support is in both direct financial contributions towards making events happen, and is also indirect in terms of gaining access to venues and retaining it... something that, you know, isn't exactly happening in some other areas. Measurable results: There were two A events last year by OCIN instead of one, the extra one made possible in part by the Kentucky Sports Authority's help. This year, the Flying Pig came to areas on which the local club had sat for a decade and a half, unable or unwilling to put on an event that would serve larger orienteering public; Glen's engagement with Visit Bloomington helped make the Pig fly. These are ongoing partnerships, with a very strong program planned for the fall of 2015.

Personally, I was witness many times to Glen's efforts to bring parties together and help events happen. Where these efforts fell apart, as I also sadly witnessed several times, it wasn't because of Glen or the outside party; it was due to lack of engagement or lack of decisive action by the local club. If Glen isn't working on Boston or PA, it's because the local club is managing reasonably fine by themselves and because there aren't enough Glens!

Maybe. But, are Kentucky and Bloomington consistent with your call that "[t]he vision that needs to die is making more perfect maps and having more perfect events farther away from the people, for members of the in-club."

It would seem that O-growth in Boston, NYC, SF, etc... would be most congruent with what you are continually calling for...?

Not that I think this is the only way to success, but you seem to harp on it.

Indeed.

Can someone link to Glen's reports?

likely intended to be in partial jest

I think my point is proven. I personally would much rather come to 3.5 days of well-attended, professionally produced extravaganza, than fly three times to compete with the same 20 East Coast people.

Those who criticize the ED's efforts should focus on metrics they use. If you state right away that "my personal orienteering experience in my neck of the woods hasn't been improved by the ED", it's a far more honest reference point than trying to argue that the ED's work hasn't improved the overall state of things.

I don't really understand who you're talking to. Everyone seems to have been pretty honest with their experiences...

Kentucky and Bloomington consistent with your call

They are, as long as you acknowledge that there are people who live in flyover states, not just cornfields. It's closer to get from central Indiana to the rest of Indiana, and to SW Ohio, than to drive from, say, SF to Tahoe.

Speaking of dishonesty and hypocrisy, I specifically refer to these:

"if the extra cost were being plowed into materially expanding the A meet roster, say in quantity, location, or quality, you could justify it. But, there is no evidence that this is occurring."

"Glen appears to have done nothing to increase the number of starts."

—and the fact that Glen's efforts are partially responsible for the creation and/or use of the three Kentucky venues of last year's Flying Pig, this year's IU Campus map and event, the release of two other ICO maps to A events, the scheduling of the fall of 2015 orienteering festival in Kentucky, the now-fallen-through but seemed-reasonable-at-the-time rerun of Bend, the negotiations with at least one New England venue, and the negotiations with state and Fed officials to use a Kentucky National Park for North American Rogaining Champs.

I also refer to the allegations that none these are relevant, since they aren't on the East Coast (but are within a 90-minute drive of many population millions, and are overall geographically closest to what's left of a formerly active adventure-racing scene).

I think my point is proven.

But how? Your point is that there was a paucity of A event days in the fall of 2012? (Is that a correct interpretation?) Another premise is that NAOC existed. Correlation, sure. But, what is the explicit or implied causality (I am asking this question earnestly, and maybe obtusely. I suppose it should be obvious?)

@T/D:

If Bend, SW IN, Kentucky pass muster with you as not being too far from population centers, what maps are all these errant orienteering clubs, left to their own devices, producing that don't? Are you tilting at windmills here?

... efforts are partially responsible ...

We need some comparative statics! Stat! Get an economist.

OK Clem, three replies for three posts...

NAOC: My point is that there was a paucity of A event days in the fall of 2012, that Randy at least partially complains about A event paucity, and that most people would agree that there is nothing to complain about at least for the fall of 2012. Clem's further question is whether the paucity is attributable to the existence of NAOC. The answer to me seems obviously yes; most event organizers correctly assumed that travel time/money of the orienteering public is limited, and that there is the one event they would all go to, so didn't schedule events on two weekends at either side of it. Given that the fall season on the East Coast is limited to about ten or so weekends, it should seem like a clear conclusion that taking five or so of them out would reduce the overall number of days.

Furthermore, some of the same people who are key to making events happen at places like Boston, NYC, and DC area were fully engaged in the NAOC and not available to create other events. So, the cause and effect seem fairly evident.

Wow, way to selectively mis-quote, dude.

Right before I said Glen appears to have done nothing to increase the number of starts, I said Apart from that, referring to the previous paragraph which I devoted to outlining what I believe Glen has done to increase starts, from my perspective. Right after I said that, I noted that appearances can be decieving.

And I started out my post by noting that it was for my part.

But hey, if you want to totally ignore my honest acknowledgement of what Glen has contributed, then I guess you're bound to conclude what you're bound to conclude.

Population density: map above. Population of Indiana is about a million less than that of the Bay Area, California; also certainly comparable in geographic extent. They applied for Olympics in Chicago, didn't they?

Maps in the middle of nowhere, professionally surveyed for $$$$$... personal picks of the latter: Camp Ripley, all of Tahoe, Bend. Places you think as of perfect for O-vacations, except that's all they are good for, with $$$$$ in volunteer gasoline money spent after a few years, thousands of volunteer travel hours, and close to zero participation by the uninitiated.

Harriman is absolutely not in that category; the fact that a comparably small percent of NYC residents know that it exists, compared to, say, a similar-size and -distance area in the Bay Area, is due to the generally smaller outdoorsiness level of the population. I would also only put maps-that-shouldn't-have-been on the list only if there aren't reasonable, perhaps less detailed, alternatives much closer to the respective metro centers.

In all cases it's a continuum: the farther away the area, the harder it is to recruit event volunteers, the more it costs to produce an event, and the smaller the interest by the uninitiated.

Is there anything wrong with doing a Performance Review of people in paid positions? Of course, not in public on Attackpoint.

The vision that needs to die is making more perfect maps and having more perfect events farther away from the people, for members of the in-club. It is this mindset that is hurting the sport, not a professional ED.

I think this is a strawman that is dragging the discussion off-topic. It isn't like the question is whether OUSA pays for an ED or whether it buys twenty perfect, remote maps that do little to advance the goals of expanding the orienteering community.

To somewhat rephrase my original question: is the Strategic Plan the right measure to use for evaluating the performance of the ED? I think that Eddie's implicit comment by his seasonal threads is that as a community, we are making a cost-benefit analysis on the function of the Executive Director. So, how do we evaluate the performance of the ED?

Thanks for the input on some of Glen's activities, T/D; this is useful to know. That said, the goal of the strategic plan is to globally increase starts at local events and A-meets, not to increase orienteering in one particular sector of the country. Certainly progress in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana is a good sign. NEOC has increased its starts at local meets over the past three years, but that growth is (as far as I can tell) entirely unrelated to the implementation of the Strategic Plan. I can't verify that some of the attendance isn't a consequence of media hits induced by the national federation, but most of the change can be accounted for by other factors.

To echo bshields, if someone could post a link to Glen's reports, it would be much appreciated. I know it's hard to summarize four years of activity in a single attackpoint post, but that would be very helpful for shaping the conversation.

Glen's reports are part of the Board reports. He also sends them to the Boardnet.

We need some comparative statics! Stat! Get an economist.

Well, was there anyone else talking to Kentucky Sports Authority or to Visit Bloomington either before Glen's era or during it? the answer is most likely no, and that's comparative enough in my book.

The answer to me seems obviously yes; most event organizers correctly assumed that travel time/money of the orienteering public is limited, and that there is the one event they would all go to, so didn't schedule events on two weekends at either side of it.

A events in the US are sufficiently infrequent and idiosyncratic that you have to analyze them on an individual basis.

And, you should consider the counterfactual, viz., what A events would have otherwise happened?

We can see the A events over the past few years here: http://www.us.orienteering.org/orienteers/on-foot/...

I (believe) there were 4 fall A-event weekends in 2012, 4 in 2011, 4 in 2010, 5 in 2009... where is the big deviation from trend alleged in 2012?

Some might have thought that contiguous clubs might have tried to piggyback on NAOC and scheduled on contiguous weekends to capitalize on certain people who might have been able/interested to make a week of it. Personal entreaties were made, and at least on face value, the lack of action was not attributed to NAOC, but rather to very specific other reasons.

@iansmith: Yes...
The vision that needs to die is making more perfect maps and having more perfect events farther away from the people, for members of the in-club. It is this mindset that is hurting the sport, not a professional ED.

Yes, a straw man, red herring, pet peeve, or something, but seemingly argued through exceptions that prove something else... All those boondoggles had idiosyncratic births... and there is no evidence that I can see that they would not be repeated with or without an ED. On the other hand, they are hardly representative nor sufficient to doom or condemn the direction or orienteering or the inclinations of its volunteers.

Anyway, I repeat a call for comparative statics in all things...

the goal of the strategic plan is to globally increase starts at local events and A-meets, not to increase orienteering in one particular sector of the country.

Well yes, and Glen is not Orienteering USA. The Strategic Plan is for and by Orienteering USA. Glen's work is part of the work done by the entirety of Orienteering USA. Glen's specific personal efforts are most productive in bringing orienteering to underserved metro areas in collaboration with visitor bureaus and such. Other people, committees, and entities in the Federation are better positioned to drive and support growth in established clubs.

I think that the conflation of the evaluation of Glen's work and the work of Orienteering USA is the biggest strawman in this discussion. Many of the discussion's participants expect tangible benefits from Glen's work to incur directly to them in order to deem his work to be worthy of his pay. That's not how the paid-ED position was envisioned nor how it's currently implemented. The Executive Director shares the workload of the federation's business by performing the organization's tasks that are best suited to a full-time, paid position. This effort frees up volunteer time. More importantly, Glen's guidance enables other programs to function that wouldn't be as effective or wouldn't exist at all without the guidance.

Specific and so far not mentioned examples of Glen's work that enables things that either weren't possible before, or weren't done, and that benefit the clubs or the orienteering population as a whole:

• Sponsorship: it's well in the five digits now, and it wasn't.


• Event registration: Online registration for local events is being rapidly implemented. This takes the workload off club volunteers; try it!


• Where the big payoff is expected to come from in terms of marketing is with the consolidation of OUSA membership, club membership, and event-attendee databases. Your club will be able to easily market to everyone in your geographic area who's on the radar. The project is being actively worked on, and will be rolled out in stages in the next couple years or so.


• Event promoters: Believe it or not, there are thousands of starts each year that aren't on Orienteering USA's horizon; we aren't talking about relatively orienteering-removed things like Thursday Adventure, but pretty darn real orienteering like rogaines put on by adventure-racing organizations. There are about 30 of such events this year. An offer is in the works to bring these under the fold of OUSA in a gentle noninvasive fashion. Many of the events' participants are ready material for the clubs' more orthodox events.


• Insurance: It was Glen who caught the embarrassing gap in coverage.
  Uncaught, this problem could have easily cost OUSA's insurance carrier far more than Glen's total pay for the four years, and would have then cost OUSA at least that much in increased yearly premiums.

I'm sure I am missing stuff, but I didn't sign up to type up things for several hours that can be readily researched if someone has the willingness to take a look at OUSA's site.

P.S. Quoting the very same Strategic Plan, Page 4:

The pervasive feeling is that while the majority of orienteers may say that they want the sport to grow throughout the country, in practice, many care only about the segment or regions of the sport that they participate in.

That's not how the paid-ED position was envisioned nor how it's currently implemented.

Wow. I can completely agree and disagree at the same time. I am starting to feel like Balter!

Actually, you're right. I took that out of context. I have issues with this: The Executive Director shares the workload of the federation's business by performing the organization's tasks that are best suited to a full-time, paid position.

You can attach a plow to your BMW and cultivate the field, but maybe you should keep the car on the road and the tractor on the farm.

I keep coming back to regulatory capture... and the highest and best use of certain resources to achieve certain ends.

A gap in coverage would have cost the insurer rather than OUSA? That's interesting. Usually it's the other way around, where if you have a gap in your coverage and something bad happens that falls in the gap, you're the one that gets hammered with the loss and not the insurance company.

If someone has their house insured for fire and flooding but their house gets blown down in a big puff of wind, and they go to their insurer expecting to get a claim approved, they're going to get some bad news.

Swampfox, yes, thank you. Had a non-member got hurt between 2007 and now, it seems that they could have laid a valid claim to some or all of the $250k or so in Orienteering USA's bank account (not sure whether the long-term assets would have been protected). Which is something that was noticed and rectified almost single-handedly by Glen a few weeks ago. Despite OUSA having a committee of well-meaning volunteers, some of whom are insurance industry professionals, tending to USOF's and Orienteering USA's insurance needs during all these years.

I am completely puzzled by Clem's latest. I am not sure I am qualified to comment on it. Can you please elaborate? Are you saying that (a) an NGB should not have tasks that best fit a full-time, paid position? or (b) even if it has such tasks, nobody should be paid for doing them because of various reasons? or something else?

I think the source of Clem's dissatisfaction with the "envisioned" passage is his neglect or misinterpretation of the word "directly". Of course the purpose of the paid ED was and is to get benefits. I am saying that it's not like you hire a mapper and the mapper creates a product in solitude and then hands it off to you: direct benefits, product for money. Without the ED, there were many things that just weren't done, due to lack of leadership or lack of volunteer interest for direct execution. These things are now getting done, but few of them are done directly by the ED, other than the visitor bureau and sponsor relationships. All of these things benefit the clubs and their members, but the link may be less direct and in many cases not readily discernible (at least not by those who can't be burdened to read the organization's reports).

If you are hungry you can go to Olive Garden where there is a cook. If you want to win a James Beard award, you hire Daniel Boulud. If Boulud is working at Olive Garden he will still be a cook, but he won't win any awards. Whose fault is that?

If you really want to know what I think, beyond these parables, you'll have to talk to me offline. Sorry.

Well, if the intent of parables is that people expect Glen Schorr to populate their online calendars and call up local newspapers for them ("He should have done some marketing to bring about those increased starts") to earn his keep, no, that's not the way it's supposed to work. Glen has, however, raised over $20k in sponsorship just in this early part of 2013, and the money can well be used to hire a systemwide calendarer, and to the best of my knowledge there are indeed plans to do just that.

Note that if Glen were busy calendaring, he'd certainly not have the time for making contacts that enable sponsorship kilodollars to roll in on an ongoing basis, and the BMW/tractor analogy seems appropriate to this extent. Less bluntly, you could have just raised the fees and hired a calendarer for a fraction of what Glen costs, and then there wouldn't be sponsors who can and should keep on giving, either.

My shoelace was undone when I got to the train station this morning. I cursed Glen's name roundly.

hire a systemwide calendarer

Wait...that's a job? "What do you do for a living?" "I calendarer...erise."

Hey, beats being a professional orienteererer!

T/D has written alot and tired us all out with his ramblings. Nothing he has said has changed my opinion. His list of Mr. Schorr's accomplishments is very short and unimpressive for a 4 year tenure. It also comes with a very high price tag.

If T/D considers Mr. Schorr to be a worthwhile investment, I suggest he hire him.

Care to put together a coherent argument, or would you rather stay at the level of meaningless generalizations ("us all") and absurd dismissals (what would I personally need to hire Glen for?)

I encourage everyone to submit your observations on the role, function, and execution of the Executive Director to the OUSA Board, as it's unrealistic to think remarks cast into the void of AP forums will have a lasting impact on policy.

That's a fantastic suggestion! ... better yet: let your opinion be heard and counted. Besides letting your Board members know, also let your club representatives at the Annual General Meeting express your support, or disapproval, of the job the Board is doing. This plan requires at least some intellectual curiosity to keep staying informed of what's going on in the organization, and at least some critical reasoning skills to understand the tradeoffs involved in the decisions made by the Board and the Executive Director.

I think the very fact that plenty of people here on Attackpoint have no idea what, if anything, Glen is doing is itself a failure by Glen. He must see that his job includes updating orienteers in the forums they actually use so as to maintain his own legitimacy. Posting a link to his reports every time he submits one would be a start.

Compare Glen's communication intensity to Barb's missives on the junior team. I may not be involved in the junior team, but I sure can easily find out what they're doing if I want.

While Glen's communications may not be perfect, I don't hold it against him that he has not been having town meetings on AP. This community is clearly important, the tail that wags the dog, etc., but a rational calculation might suggest that he is better able to reach constituencies he deems important through other channels.

ARe there two separate issues here?
1. Does OUSA need an Executive Director?
2. Is the current ED doing a good job?

I would start with a different angle:

0. For the money clubs pay to Orienteering USA, do they see a value in the goods and services delivered?

Then add 1. and 2. above. Could the same or better goods been delivered without a paid ED? Or would the goods be of a better quality with a different person in the ED's role?

Here's some comparative analysis: To insure a single day's orienteering event costs about $300 on the open market. From this point of view, simply receiving insurance from Orienteering USA for just over $1 per start is a terrific bargain. Everything else that the clubs receive from Orienteering USA is gravy.

Of course a paid ED isn't necessary for clubs to band up to buy group insurance, you say. Certainly not; the all-volunteer organization had been doing this for years. And then witness the insurance product apparently purchased (by well-intending volunteers) in 2007, which left a significant portion of event participants, perhaps the majority, not covered.

But it would certainly be great to hear arguments along this lines, as opposed to a hatefest of unsubstantiated grudges or opinions from under a rock.

I personally see a great value delivered to me by the organization as a customer, principally in the shape of a performance-improved national Team with dramatically increased support and a full-time paid coach. I left Orienteering USA in 2009 because this item was not being served, and rejoined as soon as things started turning towards the better.

Was Glen Schorr necessary for this improvement to happen? Well, getting the organization on a solid financial footing was certainly a precondition. That in itself could certainly have been achieved without hiring a paid ED. But, simply stapling an event surcharge to a 2007-style USOF would have yielded a quite different product than what the organization is now. The ED has been instrumental in shaping Orienteering USA into what it is.

The current state of the organization with dedicated Board members and a professional-style workflow to me seems like a necessary condition to move forward to achieve at least some objectives of the Strategic Plan. A full-time ED is an intrinsic part of this framework.

Can anyone quantify the number of new orienteers in the USA over the past 4 years (or any other arbitrary timeframe)?

Everything else is noise.

Second.
Not that all the other comments/questions are irrelevant, but I think this question trumps everything.

However, shouldn't this question should be targetted at the BOD even more than the ED, since they have the responsibility to provide the direction and oversight of activity.

I doubt it, j-man. For QOC I could, after consulting our secretary to get up-to-date numbers, tell you how many new memberships we got in the last year or any other time period and compare it to similar intervals a year or two or three, etc. earlier. I couldn't easily tell you exactly how many of those were new orienteers as opposed to already existing orienteers new to QOC's sphere of influence. Maybe all the other clubs could produce similar numbers and they could be aggregated nationally - they certainly could going forward - but if anyone is doing that now I haven't heard of it.

So if the starts number is known pretty well (not exact but is extrapolated from the exact numbers of a subset of clubs), could there be some kind of a subsample survey on how often people orienteer? Then derive the number of first-timers from that. E.g. if starts are 40k–>50k, but you also deduce with good validity from your survey that people orienteer on average about 1.25× as often, then there aren't likely to be many first-timers. Sorry I'm not that good at statistics. Also, first-timers probably != new orienteers.

(Jon, clearly this would miss people who move in from elsewhere, but I'd say there are fairly good reasons to believe that about as many established orienteers move to the U.S. each year as there are those who leave.)

However, shouldn't this question should be targetted at the BOD even more than the ED, since they have the responsibility to provide the direction and oversight of activity.

Yes. Although there are interaction effects.

Strategic Plan A-meet start goals

2009 had 8,000 starts according to the strategic plan document. The goals were the following.....

..............Goal ................................ Actual figures(from board report)
2010.... 8,000 ................................. 7,399
2011.... 8,800 ................................. 7,030
2012.... 9,600 ................................. 7,318
2013.... 10,400
2014.... 11,200

A-meet starts are down 9% from 2009 to 2012.

A-meet starts are down 9% from 2009 to 2012.

Was 2009 a typical year for the interval... let's say from 2000 to 2009? It's hard to decide what significance to see in a 9% decrease in A meet starts without knowing whether the baseline year was typical of what had gone before, lower than what had gone before or higher than what had gone before, and by how much. Though I'm leery in any case of assigning too much significance to numbers that could have been changed substantially by nothing more than Ted Good being a slower mapper or having less dedication and free time and QOC therefore holding the A meet it held in 2009 in 2010 or 2011 instead.

Not to say the A meet starts metric is doing well but it's not yet clear to me that A meet starts have meaningfully declined or are in a clear declining trend rather than just noisy.

A event starts are flat, while local events are on a steady 5% or so growth to perhaps record highs (impossible to verify due to lack of historic data), slightly below the pace prescribed by the Plan but verifiable and tangible. Which isn't bad, given the assault of the mudders.

The organization is clearly failing the A event goal while doing well on the non-A and overall goals. Which statistic is more important? some opinions above...

Also, how many A events did, say, BGR or NEOC put on in 2009 through 2013, compared to prior years? If there was a decrease in the average, was it attributable to internal or external factors?

Yes, Jon. I totally agree with you. We don't know all the factors involved in the numbers. I stated them for general interest amd leave it to the readers to draw their own conclusions.

The same can be said about local start statistics. Some would rashly assign credit for increases or blame for decreases in local attendance to the hiring of an ED with no evidence to that effect. In my club, there is no indication that the national organisation has had any impact on our local attendance numbers, good or bad. Crediting OUSA or Mr. Schorr for those increases or decreases makes no sense whatsoever.

Our local numbers have been impacted by the efforts of our wonderful volunteers who deserve all the credit for any successes we have had in that area. Those who give credit elsewhere do a disservice to these hardworking individuals in my club. I love my volunteers! Our numbers have also been impacted by weather, event locations and a few other factors, unrelated to an ED.

bgr is too modest to mention the success he's had building up local meet attendance at the BGR club in Wisconsin:

Year.......Goal ................................ OUSA ......BGR
2010.... 8,000 ................................. 7,399........342
2011.... 8,800 ................................. 7,030........422
2012.... 9,600 ................................. 7,318........491
2013.... 10,400
2014.... 11,200

OUSA A-meet starts may be down 9% from 2009 to 2012....but BGR local attendance is UP 58%! I'd say that gives him a bit of credibility to speak to this issue.

You're comparing apples and oranges. How are BGR A-meet starts doing?

Thankls for publishing BGR's numbers, Clark! The total cost of Orienteering USA's services to BGR for these three years appears to have been about $1900, just over $600 per year.

I'm curious which "services" T/D is referring to?
$600/year for (the illusion of) insurance is irrelevant to the progress of grass-roots efforts toward the growth of a small club. Our club is getting better all the time, and with all due respect, I would give OUSA exactly zero credit for that. It's Kevin's expertise and leadership, and our hard-working volunteers, that make the difference.

I didn't want to chime in at all in this discussion because... it's the internet and arguing on the internet hardly ever makes me feel warm and fuzzy. But I think people have short memories of what USOF was like 4 years ago. I was on the board before and after the hiring of the ED, and what I saw was a major change in productivity of the organization. Things that people had been trying to accomplish for years -- changing the name (to OUSA), new logo and branding, new website, online donations (!), more online registration, sponsorships, more social media, etc. -- finally got done.

Did the ED personally do each of these things? No. In fact, many of these things were accomplished by volunteers who put an enormous amount of time and effort into the projects, but who also have always volunteered for the organization. Why did it all finally get done? Perhaps because there was a professional, someone hired to worry about these things, who said, 'make it so'. (I dunno if Glen is a Picard fan or not, that's me putting words into his mouth.)

It's hard to put a $ value on someone working in that capacity, but it is definitely valuable. I am all for voicing concerns and for communicating suggestions and criticisms to the BoD and to the ED directly. I just wanted to point out that there is a lot of value in having someone paid to be on your side and get balls rolling.

To be very blunt... how would your hard-working volunteer club like to go without group insurance? It'll be about $10k for your 33 or so events within three years, on the open market.

To be even more blunt, my organization went from zero to about 750 participation in three years, with three unpaid staff, and sharing turf with two other organizations. Although the three of us certainly feel very fortunate to have achieved these results, we do not at the same time feel the need to bash those who help us, those who could have helped us more, or those who could have helped had we asked better.

If your club chooses to not avail itself of Orienteering USA's help, then please save your complaints to other causes. Take guidance from a smaller club south of you that worked with the organization, brought in a $5k grant, and held its first A meet this March (with attendance of about 650).

There was no bashing or complaining in my post.

I simply stated that we have grown without help from OUSA -- whether it's our choice not to avail ourselves of their services, or because they are irrelevant to us at this time. The reason I felt the need to state this was in response to the comment about our "costs" for "services".

No, we wouldn't like to go uninsured, even though that's exactly what we've been doing, as it turns out. Incidentally, we have received a local quote for $600/year for the same level of coverage. Because our events are small, the premiums are understandably less than the national average.

All Orienteering USA clubs and members were insured. The non-member participants weren't, and are now thanks to Glen (personally), at no increase in cost.

But, if BGR doesn't find any value coming from Orienteering USA, and perceives that it can find equal or better value elsewhere, why continue within the organization? There are plenty of fine entities who put on enjoyable, well-attended, in some cases world-class navigation events, that do it as non-member clubs of Orienteering USA. On the other hand, the 491 starts by BGR represent noise on the starts of clubs such as Quantico and BAOC, and the loss of them would be more than covered by an extra A event in the Midwest, which is what Glen is working on among other things.

Just a thought.

We're just noise? I feel so worthless.

I've just out of time for this conversation.

T/D, thanks for elucidating the various things Glen has contributed to the organization.

From where I sit, and from where the people I talk to sit, Cristina's remarks are the most evident effects achieved during Glen's tenure as ED. And just to be clear, I think the less tangible differences between then and now (essentially, it feels like the organization is going somewhere, v.s. stagnating), are valuable differences.

Hey, I'm not the one who brought dismissals of other people's work or opinions to this conversation.

On the other hand, the 491 starts by BGR represent noise on the starts of clubs such as Quantico and BAOC, and the loss of them would be more than covered by an extra A event in the Midwest, which is what Glen is working on among other things.

Hey, I'm not the one who brought dismissals of other people's work or opinions to this conversation.

Not to nitpick, but the above constitutes an entirely unnecessarily and rude dismissal of the work of everyone in BGR. Your criticism is also absurd in that the contribution to the orienteering community is not accurately encapsulated by number of starts. My club had about 3000 starts in 2012, and I do not consider BGR's volume "noise." Judging by your numbers, you shouldn't, either. Your attitude of "if you disagree with me, we don't need you" is reprehensible. It doesn't matter whether your club had 1 start or 10,000: your view matters.

I believe the subject of this thread is the Executive Director and the very real cost-benefit analysis that OUSA should be doing. Everyone in the federation is entitled to their assessment of the data, since we are all sharing the cost and benefits of the ED. This thread is not a review of BGR. I encourage you to respect the views of others, T/D, as you surely are benefiting from that respect.

The whole point of this is for people to weigh in and influence decisions about the future of the Federation. If anyone "doesn't find any value coming from OUSA" or sees preferable alternatives to the policy of the Federation, they should argue for change. There are many other steps long before quitting the Federation.

I believe the subject of this thread is the Executive Director and the very real cost-benefit analysis that OUSA should be doing.

I see no reason to think OUSA isn't doing that cost-benefit analysis (not that it being done was explicitly denied but I suspect many would read that implication into that phrasing). Not that we should trust evaluating the ED's performance entirely to the board - I'm with T/D that the more people who pay attention to what the board and ED are up to, the better - but I'm fairly certain they are the body charged with directly supervising Glen and I'll need more than j-man's vague fears of something akin to regulatory capture to convince me they aren't equal to the task.

One observation about this thread - it seems to me that the people who have had the most/closest contact with Glen at work (Cristina and T/D) think what he's doing is useful and most of the people who are uncertain of his utility or firmly of the opinion that he's not worth anything near what he's being paid have had little or nothing directly to do with Glen and often haven't been paying much attention to what he does (sorry bgr but you'll have to be more forthcoming about your "dealings with Mr. Schorr" if you want me to assign any weight to them - as of now I've found your contribution to this discussion unconstructive on account of lacking any detail about what you wish the ED would do or what qualities you think the position requires that Glen lacks). I find that encouraging.

Ian, how is what I said materially different from what bgr said? I pretty much repeated the few points by bgr back, trying to echo the attitude as closely as possible—except with numbers. Sorry if you didn't catch the drift.

Bgr, last year you spent a half hour telling me what you didn't like about Glen. And honestly I tried to understand. But I still really do not get what it is you feel that he is (or is not) doing that could help your local club. Can you please try to lay out in very concise and specific terms what you think he could do for you that he is not. I don't want to just brush off your statements here, but I'm just not getting what you want from Glen that you are not getting. I think others are also wishing for a clearer explanation of your concerns.

Yes I acknowledge that your club has done exceptionally well in increasing local starts on your own initiative. Great job. But what exactly is it that you think Glen could do for you that is not being done?

@jtorranc: Other people besides T/D who have weighed in on this thread may have contributed to the development of the USOF strategic plan, been involved with formulating the job description for the ED, interviewing, hiring, and reviewing performance. Don't forget them.

@j-man: I can't forget what they've done if they don't tell us about it.

Also, that should be "besides T/D and Cristina". Cristina is, as far as I can tell, the only person in this thread who was on the board when Glen was hired and therefore directly involved in "formulating the job description for the ED, interviewing, hiring, and reviewing performance."

Actually, there was a separate committee that did the interviewing and hiring work.

Well, USOF indeed screwed itself, by hiring a generic manager and expecting a “vision” from someone happily walking an orange course, with no in-depth knowledge of orienteering. So, the vision is —more pop-corn, compete with mudders and zombie-runners, dumb it down. IMO, it was a no-brainer to try to get a couple of mappers from Europe for a fraction of the money.

The thread had run it's course, Yurets, and had gone into hibernation. Coming in two days later with an ad hominem attack is not cool. Save it for the fifth-year anniversary party.

I let it pass the first time but I'm baffled by the people who seem to think it's part of the ED's job to supply a vision rather than to work to make the vision supplied by the OUSA board a reality

Agree. I personally want to save my ad hominem attacks for T/D, because he gives as good as he gets. ;)

Maybe yurets would like to take this outside?

Don't just stop with mudders and zombies. Now there's "color vibe" where they spray you with color, and foam runs where you run through immense amounts of bubbles, a rave 5k where they blast rave music the whole way at you... still no Tough Crapper™ though... oops, I forgot, that's orienteering in the cow parks in the bay area, especially the high meadow of Sunol. Crossing minefields of cowpies...

someone happily walking an orange course

I'm pretty sure there are dozens/hundreds of employees that could turn a better lap time than the CEO of my auto company employer, but he's done a great job of turning it around.

Also, I'm not sure NBA commissioner Stern can dunk, Onion photoshop notwithstanding.

Glen should have started up Zombie-Os when it was obvious that zombies were becoming popular. Is it too late now? :-)

bgr does not think Glen or ONA are worth the cost. He thinks all small clubs should be helped to grow. New maps have made orienteering in Wisconsin much more fun than before.

Wouldn't Zombie-O just be a slight variation on Vampire-O?

GuyO, if by "slight" you mean costumed zombies and the race followed by a large loud party with copious quantities of food and alcohol. I think the party is more the draw for the zombie runs than the actual "run".

By "slight", I mean having zombies instead of vampires, along with associated changes in defenses. Sort of what ROC does with their "Scrooge-O"s.

And that would miss the point.

The "point" being...?

Large loud party with copious quantities of food and alcohol attract people, and that's what they expect when they hear "zombie".

Yes. It's also Glen's job to rescue stray puppies, mediate world peace, and cure cancer. Anything less will continue to elicit whines from blind people living under a rock who haven't attended an A event in years that Glen isn't doing enough. Maybe Glen should do back massages, too? or would that still not be enough return on investment?

One thing that Glen appears to be accomplishing is to bring for-profit organizations such as T/D's Get Lost under the OUSA umbrella for insurance purposes, thus allowing such organizations to promote the sport more easily by saving them thousands of dollars in insurance expenses.

Get Lost!! is a California nonprofit corporation. It isn't mine; it is governed by a board on which I am a Director, and has a small number of members. The organization is similar to orienteering clubs, but is focused on producing events for the public, not on serving members' interests. The thousands-of-dollars estimate (per year) may be correct; our savings per year, assuming 2013 attendance levels, may be a hair over $2k so indeed the "s" in thousands may be justified. My best estimate is that we will have paid Orienteering USA this year about $1.5k in sanctioning fees, a contribution entirely unrelated to the insurance matter. We have also paid, and continue to pay, hundreds of dollars each year in sponsorship and fees for the privilege to use Event Register.

To the best of my knowledge, the option to use Orienteering USA's insurance is likely to be close to a wash for bigger organizations such as MerGeo, due to their 3–4× higher attendance and better insurance purchasing power. Conversely, for smaller organizations the insurance may be a sweeter deal than for us.

It is very true that part of Glen's vision, on the one hand, has been to expand the pool of organizations that can help further Orienteering USA's goals; and on the other hand, to expand the array of services available to member clubs well beyond insurance, creating revenue streams that can then help fund programs such as the Jr. and Sr. Teams. Event Register is an example of such a program, but a much more powerful tool (in its ability to drive the bottom line) is on the horizon in the form of a membership and marketing database.

So, without a CEO, USOF would not be in the same league with NBA, right?
$100k per yer is the price tag of the status of a respectable mainstream organization, as opposite of a marginal obscure group.

for helping the organization generate positive cash flow and remain on solid financial footing

I guess those halcyon days have come and gone. Blink and you miss it sometimes, I suppose. Maybe if we just take what made it work so well then, and apply it again now, all will be fine. Seems rational to me. (oh yeah, jack race fees again; silly me for not being the first in the room to remember how its done).

OTOH, if you manage the problem like you would manage a business, you would look at both revenues and expenses. For example, the latest financial report (Q1 thru Q3 2014) from the OUSA web site --

http://www.us.orienteering.org/sites/default/files...

Lots of things in the report leap out to the critical mind, but this one is a real eye-catcher --

8599-11 · Executive Director 29,937.72 18,100.00

This is from the YTD expense ledger. The first column is actuals, while the second column is budgeted. And the report only covers thru 3Q. Prorate it out, and you hit nearly 40K. Ouch. Almost the size of the divot. And the Board proposes rank and file racers pay for this? How fair is that? How do the racers benefit? Remember, this isn't "payroll" or "salary", it is simply "expenses" on top of that (if one trusts the labeling in the report, and there is no reason not to).

So, what is even 18K needed for on top of a salary, much less 30-40K? Has anyone done any critical thinking on this? Has anyone done any ROI analysis on these expenses? What are these large expenses anyway? Are these large expenditures helping the sport grow?

They may be, they may not be. My guess is that no one knows. Until one does ROI analysis, how can one make an informed decision on the budget? OUSA needs to start thinking like a business, rather than just punting and raising race fees as a cure all. (Remember, most people still feel the economy is in a recession (even tho it hasn't been for several years, officially), but people make consumer expense decisions based on how they feel, not what economists tell them is technically true).

My personal opinion on the matter is that you could cut this line item to 0, and the present growth rate of starts would not change materially, the clubs' experience would not change materially, and the racers' experience would not change materially. That is just my personal opinion. Jack race fees, and I believe the growth rate will change materially for the worse, but that opinion could change if someone showed causality between those expenses and the growth rate.

Otherwise, I propose a new experiment. Cut this item to 0 for two years, and then measure the effect on start rate growth, club experience, and racer experience.

So your proposal is that for the next two years we should, on an experimental basis, continue to employ an Executive Director but give that person absolutely no budget for travel, accommodations, office supplies and the like?

I have a different proposal: Stop paying the ED and instead pay everyone who contributes at an event at least minwage, and see what the fees would be. (They would be something in that notorious "wanton Silicon Valley", or perhaps "wanton Golden Horseshoe Valley", range.)

See the problem? The ED seems expensive and kinda useless not because he is paid a lot, but because he is paid at all. The ED's share of activities is not disproportionate; his work is foundational, material, and not easily replaceable. He just happens to be paid at all. Remove the ED, and the burden will get a ton cheaper, proportionally. But only so because nobody else is paid.