Discussion: Top Ten Reasons to Attend

Let's count down the 10 months to the event with the Top Ten Reasons to Attend:

10. It's in Kansas!

There hasn't been an A meet in Kansas since 1996, so there are many orienteers out there who need to add this O state (bonus: you can fly into Missouri).

And while it has been proven that Kansas is flatter than a pancake, we do, in fact, have a few hills to give you a challenge :)

A lot of people think Ohio is flat too...

None of them have been to a Flying Pig.

I don't think anyone will think Washington is flat anymore...

Might as well skip right to reason #1 --

9. Historical O locations!

Shawnee Mission Park (SMP) has been mapped and used for O events ever since PTOC was founded in 1974. Here's the 1982 version of the map:

From Maps

Camp Naish was the site of the 1981 Team Trials. The top 10 men and women's finishers were:

From Maps

Could this be a candidate for the comparison between 1982 and 2012 maps thread?

We won't see the 2012 maps until 2013!

8. Easy to get to!

Kansas City is within driving distance for many orienteers. And it's a short flight from either coast, with many non-stop options. Even east coasters can be home on Sunday night!

Is that mapped as a knoll?

7. Fun things to see and do!

There will be plenty of time on Saturday afternoon and evening to visit the attractions of Kansas City. You can actually play tourist while on an O trip!

Just a sampling of attractions:

Culture:
Truman presidential library, the WWI museum or the steamboat Arabia museum.
Kansas city has a first rate art museum

Sports:
Sporting KC (major league soccer) will be in season
NCAA Basketball Hall of Fame, including the Basketball Experience

Grown up activities:
Casinos
Great nightlife in the Power and Light District

Shopping:
High end at the Plaza or Oak Park Mall
Discount at the Legends

Plus great restaurants, ranging from KC style BBQ to high end (Top Chef Master Debbie Gold)

Lots more attractions listed here

6. Perfect running weather!

Kansas City temps are historically in the 50s and 60s in early March. No snow. Plus, there will be no leaves on the trees. It will be perfect weather for running through the woods. I guarantee it.

8a. you can take the train in thru missouri also. highly recommended - not next to the highway, but the river, very scenic and a lovely ride thats ends in historic union station.

5. Map art!

Spend Saturday afternoon at the cool exhibit sponsored by Garmin

4. Sponsored by Garmin!

Garmin International, headquartered in the Kansas City area, is sponsoring the ISIC Champs! They have provided two Fenix watches to be given away at the event. In addition, there will be a Garmin booth at the event center. If you ever wanted to talk to Garmin directly, about a problem with a current product, or suggestions on how to improve the product, or see the latest and greatest new toys, now is your chance!

suggestions on how to improve the product

I want them to add orienteering as an activity to Garmin Connect. I submitted several customer service tickets to no avail, and after reading the forums, I'm not the only one asking.

Sandy commented: That is great on so many levels. Great that you got a sponsor, great that it's Garmin, great that they're going to be there and see how many orienteers use Garmins, and on and on. Kudos to whoever brokered that deal.

We were fortunate to have Eric Shumaker (son of Paul Schumaker, one of the first Garmin empolyees) get us an introduction. Glen and I consulted on the contact, and I went in for the meeting on sponsoring our event. The Garmin contact person is interested in talking with OUSA about more opporunities, so maybe this first step will grow into something more.

I'm with Pink Socks. It is incredible that Garmin Connect recognizes indoor treadmill running as an activity where a GPS device would be worn but not orienteering.
I registered my suggestion two years ago. What is the reason for their reticence?

Suggestion - I would like an app that would allow download of my route to my iPad. Then wouldn't have to wait till I got to a computer.

The relationship between Garmin and orienteering has always frustrated me, in part because I have a personal connection to both (I was an intern at Garmin from 2000-2002 before I knew about orienteering).

I was one of the earliest adopters of the Forerunner 405, and therefore Garmin Connect, and I contacted Garmin about adding orienteering to Garmin Connect very early on, and then again a year or so later. I even mentioned it to a friend of mine who works there. And again to the Garmin rep at one of the Road Runner Sports adventure runs where Garmin was one of the headlining sponsors. It's still not there, and there are several threads in Garmin's customer service forum from orienteers around the world asking for this update.

It's like Garmin is deaf to orienteering, which doesn't make sense to me. Yes, yes, I know that cycling, running, hiking, geocaching, boating, golfing, automotive, and general aviation are much, much bigger markets than orienteering. I don't expect Garmin to dump millions of dollars (or even tens of thousands) into marketing to us. But they don't even seem to realize just how many orienteers around the world use their products. We're a small audience, but we're a captive audience.

When Garmin has been a sponsor at the RRS Adventure Runs, I (as a fellow sponsor representing an orienteering club) have chatted with the Garmin reps before the event, and I've just gotten some polite nods when I talk about how influential Garmin can be within our community.

So I'm curious to see how the Garmin presence at IS/IC Champs differs from their presence I've seen at the Adventure Runs, where they have a booth, a rep, and some fancy watches to give away. (Or their presence at some marathons, but I've never seen those.) Since Garmin HQ is just a 20 minute drive from the event venue, I wonder if we'll see either Peg or Jake (the Garmin fitness bloggers) at the event.

I'm also curious to hear why they are deciding to give away Fenix watches, as opposed to Forerunners. The Fenix watch was developed by their outdoor team, not their fitness team, so it seems like more an all-purpose outdoor watch (mountaineering, hiking, geocaching, backpacking). It says that the Fenix is also targeted to trail runners, and its battery life is a big improvement over the Forerunners, but the Fenix doesn't have any of the advanced running features (workouts, intervals, pacing). From giveaways, it's like Garmin is pigeon-holing orienteers into the outdoorsy crowd, and not as athletes.

Don't get me wrong, though. It's great that Garmin will be there, I'm sure I'll talk to them, I'd love to win a Fenix (if I'm even eligible), etc. I just hope that this develops into something heading into the future, and not just a continuation of what I've experienced with Garmin in the past.

suggestions on how to improve the product

Maybe make them so that they last longer than a year?

Get used to it... we aren't on any sponsor's screen because we choose to be tiny, obscure, and cheap.

Plus you have to use your brain to compete in the sport. People don't like doing that so sponsors aren't going to line up to sponsor something that people don't want to do.

I am not a marketing person but----if I were going to approach garmin, I would be very emphatic that we as orienteers are absolutely the best human naviagators in the world. Plus, we are VERY HARD on equipment. And, orienteers use garmin products regularily for tracking were we have been plus we use differnt products just for getting to the competions. The hook that Garmin could use in their advertising is "if the best navigators in the world rely on Garmin products, shouldn't you?"

Good one Carl.

Top Ten Reasons to Attend. Funny thread title. 2 A-meet days on the same smallish old map. Pretty unique experience, I'd say.

#3 reason to attend: yurets won't be there to complain about it

maprunner, it might be worth talking to Mike Hendricks of USMAOC. I think he's worked with Garmin on some of the cadet navigational activities (not necessarily just USMAOC, he's in charge of overall navigational summer training) and may have some insight to share or research projects to reference. I've got his email address if you need it, although it should also be on the club's website.

Wow, "rather aggressive advertising" is one post per month in one thread on one message board. How did you survive election season?

For what it's worth, the area has been remapped for this event, the area is larger now. And also consider that the age of the demographic competing for the championship. They weren't even alive when the area was first mapped, so it's irrelevant.

3. Cool slogan and logo!

Do you have what it takes to orienteer in Kansas?

From Logo

logo credit: Patrick Nuss

Stylish logo. Reminds me of Sportsman's Guide

OK, haven't checked, but
1. have all clubs who have a FB page liked the OUSA page?
2. has OUSA posted Patrick's Logo? with the above challenge "Do you have what it takes to orienteer in Kansas?
3. and asked the clubs to "Share" it?

Because I agree with Pink Socks "aggressive adv" comment.
Then again, we are struggling to get the young orienteers to form IS club teams...

Sportman's Guide? Hmm...?

(I rather enjoyed my original graphic design for the event. But it was, uh, a bit too stereotypical and well, not very welcoming. Haha.)

Regarding Facebook and OUSA's visibility, sharing is more important than liking (from a club's perspective).

A club can't simply 'like' the OUSA page, because for most Facebook users, they won't ever see the connection between the two Facebook pages. Once a club likes OUSA, that's that. That club's fans will only see that once (if at all), and anything that OUSA posts beyond that isn't seen by any of them.

Another thing to do would be to get OUSA as one of your club's 'featured likes', which your fans can see on your timeline, should they decide to go there (which probably isn't all that often, honestly).

It would be interesting to know the demographics of each club's Facebook likes. How many people is each club reaching? And how does that compare to other methods of communication?

Here in Seattle, a large proportion of our Facebook likes are through our involvement with Road Runner Sports, many of whom haven't yet attended one of our formal events. For us, promoting Heart, Brain, Courage! on our Facebook page wouldn't be as effective as going directly through our junior league (which we are already doing with direct emails to coaches and posters at league races).

Regarding IS club teams, historically, there haven't been that many, especially outside the hosting club's area. There's more caché (and physical hardware) for a school team to win a national school championship than there is for a group of juniors from the same club. For school orienteering programs, this is the big event. For individual juniors, is it? Or is it competing, say, at M18 or F18 at US Champs?

As a former winner of both JV and Varsity School Team trophies and also Individual Varsity winner and also attending every interscholastic championship since 2007. I can surely say that there have been many club teams that have traveled well to almost every interscholastic championship that I have been to. Another thing to keep in mind is that its not just the school pushing there team to go to the interscholastic but the clubs helping and encouraging the schools to be active at the interscholastic championship. If it wasn't for DVOA I'm sure I wouldn't even have a school team or in matter of fact started orienteering in the first place.

Most of the past individual winners at the JV and Varsity level have only been active at the club level and are unable to form a school team. So there is an example of clubs domination at this competition

I myself would say that the interscholastic championship is a much bigger and stiffer competition compared to the M-18 and F-18 at the US Champs. Where most the time just signing up for those classes can guarantee you a medal. Honestly if a boy or girl is competitive at the US champs they are most likely running in M-20 or F-20. Since those tend to have more competition and will allow them to start collecting a ranking for JWOC.

The thing I loved most about the Interscholastic championship is the number of kids being able to compete against each other in an event that is open to every kid that is willing to compete. It was always really cool to show up and have there be at least 30 or 40 kids to compete and compare against. I hope in the future that this isn't an uncommon thing and that almost every A-meet has this many youth going head to head fighting each other to be the best.

Just simple promotion is a great thing by hanging up flyers and getting the sport buzzing around the street. This is what Alexis did for our last WPOC event and even though I wasn't there they were just over whelmed by the number of people that showed up to orienteer. Promoting as much as possible for nearly every club and every event is such a key thing to expand orienteering.

Another thing to keep in mind is that its not just the school pushing their team to go to the interscholastics but the clubs helping and encouraging the schools to be active at the interscholastic championship...

Most of the past individual winners at the JV and Varsity level have only been active at the club level and are unable to form a school team. So there is an example of clubs domination at this competition.

I won't disagree with this. I guess I was trying to say that there's more incentive for school teams to form and attend. If you're a top junior, you're probably going to come anyway, whether you're on a school team, a club, or no team at all. But if you're already on a school team, I think that's a vehicle that gets more kids to IS. (And the numbers bear this out. There are more school teams than club teams).

I can surely say that there have been many club teams that have traveled well to almost every interscholastic championship that I have been to.

I was curious about this statement and also my earlier assumption that most club teams were local. So I looked it up. In the past 5 years, there have been 37* club teams at Interscholastics (club teams in primary, middle, JV, and varsity).

Of the 37, 20 have been from CascadeOC (6 from the year they hosted). 6 have been from BAOC (3 from the year they hosted). 6 from DVOA (didn't host), 3 from OCIN (2 when hosting), 1 from GAOC, and 1 unknown (Team Spleen?).

My assumption was wrong (only 11 of 37 club teams were local). But I'd hesitate to say that there are "many" club teams that have "traveled well". Only three clubs have sent club teams beyond their own time zone in the last 5 years.

The thing I loved most about the Interscholastic championship is the number of kids being able to compete against each other in an event that is open to every kid that is willing to compete.

This sentence is spot on!

* I didn't count two teams from Plano East Senior High as club teams. The only reason they are club teams is because of the unique feeder school structure with their JROTC programs. #marriedtotheregistrar

DVOA hosted the IS in 2007, but I guess you only went back to 2008...

If I am not mistaken, 2006 (COK) was the first year in which Varsity & JV Club Teams could participate. 2010 (OCIN) was the first yeat in which Intermediate Club Teams could participate.

I remember the t-shirt design from the 2007 event!

I only went back to 2008 because the front page of the results page only went that far back. Plus, once you click on the "older results" link, the 2007 IS link is broken, and the research department here at Pink Socks Inc was too lazy to dig any further.

I figured 5 years worth of data was sufficient to answer my question of how many club teams were local vs. not-local.

This page might help with further research. (There's a similar one for IC.)

I can't do much about links to pages that clubs remove.

Interesting how IS results, starting with 2009, include Primary School and/or Club Team Champions, despite not being officially recognized by OUSA.

* I didn't count two teams from Plano East Senior High as club teams. The only reason they are club teams is because of the unique feeder school structure with their JROTC programs. #marriedtotheregistrar

We are likely to see more club teams like this forming, as the rules have been changed to make it easier for groups that don't all go to the same school to form club teams as opposed to school teams.

Interesting how IS results, starting with 2009, include Primary School and/or Club Team Champions, despite not being officially recognized by OUSA.

Hmm, yes this is misleading. These teams are not US Champions, they merely won in a non-Championship class at a championship event. And the reason relates to this thread. You will note that all but one such primary team was from the local area of the host club. While there is some traveling going on for Intermediate and High School club team, it's virtually nonexistent for Primary teams, making the idea of this being a true US championship for them somewhat ridiculous.

Purely in the interest of stirring up controversy, I will point out that southern teams have won 9 of the last 13 Interscholastics Varsity titles, counts by state:

TX - 5
GA - 3
WA - 2
PA - 1
NY - 1
FL - 1

As for teams that travel, I am aware of three GA teams that planning on attending, I also believe that the defending champs from FL are planning to return.

How is that controversial? It's a fact!

Will someone please tell me which IS championship lists need to be updated and what results removed? Thanks.

Janet, I just sent you an email.

These teams are not US Champions, they merely won in a non-Championship class at a championship event.

Just for transparency, none of the unofficial teams received medals from O-USA. They did receive medals from CascadeOC. (Actually, everyone received medals from CascadeOC, and those who earned official medals received another one). I kept good track of which teams should receive the right medals and which ones should not.

When the local coaches from the primary school teams asked me about championship status, I basically said, "You won't get medals from O-USA, and you won't be recognized by them on their website, but we'll include the category."

I'm finding more and more reasons NOT to attend now, besides the fact I live in another country.

Note them as unofficial if necessary, but please KEEP the Primary School/Club Team results on the page.

2. Special events for Juniors!

Erin Schirm , US Junior Orienteering coach, will be offering training before the event (Thursday and Friday) for juniors and beginners. In addition, he will lead course review discussions on Saturday and Sunday. What a great chance for juniors to improve their orienteering, meet others, and hear more about the junior team and national training programs!

Erin is s girl's name.

Not necessarily, if you're Irish.

Maybe he should change it to E-ing.

juniors need a nurturing feminine touch

Not necessarily, if you're (Irish)-American?

Jean is a girl's name.

Not necessarily, if you're French.

But I'm Irish!

and i am not Japanese

1. It will be fun!

Great weather, nice new map, hundreds of competitors from across the nation, cool things to see and do, lots of chances to socialize; how could it not be fun?