Discussion: USA strategy - juniors

OrienteeringUSA has a Junior Team Executive Steering Committee whose charge in the current rules is "the development of junior-age orienteers in the USA." I believe this is an expansion from the historical role of JTESC, which was mostly focused on selection of the JWOC team. With the fantastic opportunity provided by a donor to have Erin working year-round on junior development, we've been able to broaden out to a meaningful standing team and beyond to development.

It may make sense to have JTESC's name reflect the broader activities, or to reorganize so that JTESC, serving the teams, is part of a committee working on youth development more generally.

I also think that given the opportunity we have, for the moment, to build on Erin's work and energy, it makes sense for OUSA to leverage that, and make a strong push to attract and support families and children over the next 5 years as a major focus of the new strategic plan.

Curious what others think.

I have a comment (/rant); related, but slightly off topic; though not really. I myself orienteered as a junior... I had my small crew and it was alot of fun. When college came, other things happened and I didn't orienteer for a while. Without my junior (and scouting) days I maybe would have never even heard of orienteering, so the value is strong and I really appreciate all of the recent efforts.

I'm back now. Most of the same people from when I started 15 years ago are in my home club, which while I am constantly amazed by what these members have built and are my friends, is my biggest concern. We have some serious "key person risk".

If I look back at old rankings ('99)... our bulk of active members was 21-50. Remarkably we had about the same number of active members (155 in 99, 156 in 2013).

2013: Under 21: 9M+7F= 16 active members
1999: Under 21: 13M+8F=21 active members

2013: 21-50: 29M+14F=43 active members.
1999: 21-50: 73M+24F=97 active members.

2013: Over 50: 70M+27F= 97 active members.
1999: Over 50: 30M+7F=37 active members.

None of the juniors in 1999 are "active" in DVOA today (I wasn't ranked until 2000). At least one is in another club... I haven't verified the rest....

At least 1/3 of the 21-50 are still active in DVOA, with many names I see in other clubs.

Has OUSA ever considered looking at say 22-40 year olds? Athletes (or just adventurers) after college/high school looking for something new to try w/o as many distractions. People my age (mid 20's) who never had interest in running sports are sucked into 5k, half marathons, mud run... why not orienteering. I've haven't read anything about it.. it's usually junior oriented. This could be an extension of the junior program. This age group will have kids one day too to encourage orienteering.

Bottom line points:
* Do other clubs have this demographic shift? Or just a DVOA thing..?
* Can junior development be broadened to think about retaining valuable members in their 20's and 30's?
* Has OUSA ever focused on this demographic?
* Yes, I think changing the name/structure is a good idea. When I think of junior development, I personally think of JWOC development....developing juniors who already know about the sport.

Here's something I put together last fall. Unfortunately, the computer on which I made the spreadsheet crashed right after and I wasn't able to recover it.



Click here for larger.

Eric is that DVOA rankings or USA ones? Sorry just unclear about that. As I know at least for me my first year away at college I would have been RMOC not DVOA and I know the seattle crew also moved from seattle so wondering if its probably better looking at the whole USA rankings for a better idea of Junior results. However that also doesn't then take into account those of us that have gone to study abroad which in some cases i think has kept us orienteering more than others who stay in the states and don't have a club near them. Which is sad and i wish we could fix that. But I think erin is doing an amazing job at getting high schoolers really active and I think if we get them hooked they will more likely seek chances to orienteer in college, Wouldn't want to give something up just as they are getting good like.

Erik, I fully understand your intent. However, I am concerned that we might spread Erin's work and energy across too wide a net and compromise the key area of junior development. He is building traction and it is important that this developed further. It is important to get the number of juniors increased at the club level. At that stage the orienteering and social dimension associated with it are critical. We have seen this in DVOA when a few years ago we had a great contingent of juniors in the club who came into the sport mainly via parents who orienteered or through the scouts. We need to build this number up again.

There seem to be two valid paths. Create junior programs and attract parents, or target 20-40s and pick up some children. It depends on the taste of club volunteers.

If you want to get more 22-40's, I'd say don't rely on a strong junior program.

CascadeOC has the strongest junior league in the US, but it doesn't translate to a lot of young adults. Sure, the league has produced some high quality orienteers (Eric Bone & Tori Borish on the current WOC team, and a steady stream of JWOC'ers), but we don't have a lot of quantity of "regular joe" orienteers who came up from the league.

From what I see, a lot of the kids who orienteer here are high-achievers that do a lot of other things, and when they get to college they usually high-achieve in something else, and don't come back to orienteering right away, if ever. The attrition rate of junior orienteers is fairly high, I would guess.

As Neil says, there are two ways, and to be successful, I think you need both. You need a strong junior program to build a broader base and to generate future elites. But you also need to get post-college young adults, too. I came into orienteering post-college. I'm certainly not elite, but I'm useful to have around to direct events, design courses, design logos, serve on boards, and bring other post-college young adults with me.

Sweet graph.

@alison..DVOA rankings (it's just a quick reference).

Sorry, maybe my comments should be a different thread, but it's a worthy discussion. I guess I am thinking in terms of developing future leaders in orienteering (event director, course setter, recruitment) rather than JWOC team and am out of scope here.

Erik, I think the recruitment of the post-college/pre-birthing crowd is a big area of opportunity and would be very helpful. And maybe there are people who are more motivated to do that than to work with kids. Start another thread?

I'll start another thread to not confuse this one
http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/me...

@Pink...
- What would your graph have looked like if it included junior categories (or just one combined as -20)
- Agree about both of ndobb's approaches!
- You also design O-uniforms/kits... :-)

Something to bear in mind on that graph is that it shows (I assume) the age category that people registered for, not the one they actually fall into. What you can't see is people "running up" in a younger category. As an example, many of the competitors on M45 are actually over 50, but want to run Red. My vague sense is that this has been an increasing trend, so the drift seen in the graph may be even more pronounced in reality.

22-40: peak child bearing years.

The awesomeness of kid activities at European meets is to be admired.

The older juniors could be involved as baby sitters / mentors. Or not, because maybe they're having their own junior time and the rest of us are getting some time with the grandchild-age ones.

I do remember Corinne helping with young 'uns.

22-40 parents get to have some race time and some adult time.

Effect of coach + active Junior Standing Team. Logged hours of training on AP. These are people, for conveience, in the USA juniors group for one reason or another. The juniors in the JST are in the bottom half of the graph, starting with Addison who ahs 4 hours in the first week of 2014. Weeks of 2014 go across from left to right.

Average logged training/week for JST juniors: 4.99
For non-JST people: 0.61

Makes a difference. Not saying the others aren't active bla bla bla, just saying.