Training Log Archive: iansmith

I seem to have caught a cold - symptoms appeared over the weekend of running nose, malaise, some coughing, and congestion. I suspect a mild upper respiratory infection and am treating with rest, fluids, pseudoephedrine, occasional ibuprofen, and Vicks Vaporub at night to help me sleep (in a moustache configuration).

Event: 2018 CMOUSA Corn Maze Champs
 

Yay, reelected to the OUSA Board! I'm almost certainly not going to run for a third term in 2021, partly so I can heavily invest in these three years, to motivate more Board turnover, and because I've done my part. I ran for reelection because the organization is not yet where I want it to be, and I want to bring it to a more stable position before I depart.

OUSA Board meeting, Laramie Wyoming.

In attendance: Pat Meehan, Alex Jospe, Barb Bryant, Matthew Robbins, Kris Beecroft, Clare Durand,
Calling in: William Jameson, Ian Smith, Ellen Stefaniak
Absent: Nate Orwaschel, Lee Todd, Susan Grandjean,
Election results: Ellen Stefaniak, Susan Grandjean, Ian Smith, Matthew Robbins

Welcome and congratulations to Matthew, Ellen, and Susan!

Update from the AGM: Dave Yee updated everyone at the AGM about the progress and goals of the technology committee. The plan going forward is to focus on the website and move to a wordpress solution. Open question: what are we doing about our registration system? Eventreg is largely held together with duct tape and hope, and it looks like we aren't going to have the budget to update the registration system this year. We are also currently using NEON for our general database. Priorities over the next two years:
1. OUSA website
2. Back end, especially the NEON database
3. Registration system

Officer elections:
OUSA President: Clare Durand
VP Competition: Alex Jospe
VP Finance: Pat Meehan (who will not run for the Board next year; I will learn the ropes under Pat this year to ensure continuity of knowledge)
VP Youth Initiatives: Barb Bryant
Secretary: Kris Beecroft
VP Clubs: William Jameson

Barb discussion: there are four groups - (1) JROTC (Ron Fisnovsky, GAOC, Bill Jameson, Mike Minium), (2) Scouts (Brian Coleman, Clare Durand), (3) Schools [chair vacant], (4) Clubs (VP of Clubs). A big goal for clubs is having activities for children at events, especially national events. World Orienteering Day was a major initiative for youth initiatives. Other work: Safety with Nate Orwaschel, coaching with Alex Jospe. Barb is going to two different meetings with USOC to study how other National Governing Bodies have grown their youth programs.

Personal note: Bob Forgrave was an excellent VP Clubs and will be very difficult to replace.

And so ends the Kris Beecroft administration.

Finance update: We anticipate a budget shortfall of about $15,000 for 2018. Club dues, membership dues, and event proceeds are all down a bit. Our budget for 2018 was conservative, so this won't necessarily restrict our activities, but it is concerning.

Long range planning:

1. We are holding NAOC 2020 in BAOC. World Games is in Alabama in 2021; Cristina Luis is competition manager, and IOF is going to be heavily involved, especially with arena production. We are on the hook for a lot of manpower.
   
2. World University Games in 2023 will be in Lake Placid, New York - which will include Ski Orienteering (!!). The local club is EMPO (sort of), but they are heavily understaffed.
   
3. Alex wants more World Ranking Events and Trail-O World Ranking events. Ideally US Nationals would be a WRE.
   
4. It looks like we have a complete bids for all three national championships in 2019; there isn't a bid for US Champs in 2020.
   

On competitions/championships: for some clubs (e.g. OCIN, per Pat), the national championship events are the biggest sources of revenue. Other clubs like Cascade don't see much incentive for holding national events. It is proposed that we divide up the country into some number of regions (e.g. nine) and have a rotation of the championship events among them.

Question: (1) How many clubs have the infrastructure and capability of hosting national events? (2) How many clubs have interest? A subject of conversation between the Board and the clubs.

Question on course consultants: How many course consultants do we have? How many do we need? Is there training?

Observation: Rankings are complicated. Apparently this is a problem for results of Junior Nationals and the scoring system was brought before the grievance committee this year. Alex will convene a committee or task group to evaluate the rules for Junior Nationals.

Rankings: rankings are really hard because the data is not very clean or organized. We need to interface with a membership database (which we don't currently and probably can't really support). Valerie needs help. Short term solution is probably to get a minion to help with data cleaning.

This is the last in-person Board meeting currently scheduled for this year. Next Board meeting call TBD.

Action items:
- Ian agreed to be an assistant VP Finance to Pat to ensure smooth transition in the future.
- Kris will be the OUSA Board contact for Ed, especially concerning future tech development and registration.
- Alex will talk to the Junior team about resolving disputes concerning Junior team finances.
- Alex is forming a task group to address Junior national scoring and will recruit a helper to assist Valerie with scoring as a temporary fix.

C • clarifications 3

C • Congratulations! 2

C • Champs rotation 4

A few thoughts of mine on some current challenges in US orienteering:

1. The decline of national meet attendance and production, with emphasis on championships. We only have a National Championship meet due to some scrambling and a late OCIN bid; there isn't a national championship currently planned for 2019.
   
2. Lack of organization on the OUSA Board. We have a lot of vision, but we haven't devised a strategy or plan of execution. Part of the immediate problem is getting organized with documentation and project management tools. The organization is also still very opaque, especially to the community.
   
3. While the US senior and junior teams continue to improve, highlighted by the BK and FC cup victories, we still suffer from lack of unity of team. Especially among the seniors, everyone is training in isolation. We need more training camps and opportunities to come together.
   
4. While OUSA's club offerings continue to improve, many clubs are not receiving levels of support and resources that the federation could provide if its ducks were in order. These specifically include technical support (databases, web services, website integration), publicity guidance, opportunities to interface with other organizations, and additional exposure.
   
5. Membership growth - right now, OUSA doesn't offer enough value to the typical US orienteer to be attractive to a majority of community members.
   
6. Youth growth and strategy - increasing the visibility of orienteering to young people is paramount.
   
7. Communication and a clear strategy for the direction of the federation. Who even knows what we're doing right now?
   

Solutions (sort of spitballing, but I want to make some SMART goals out of this):

1. On national meets: rather than waiting for clubs to sign up, recruit them. Perhaps we do some sort of regional rotation - divide the country into ~5 sections, rotate the national champs among them. A more supervised calendar rather than a laissez faire one can also ensure that all regions have some competitions every year, which might help increase attendance. We could also try to encourage multi-event festivals like Laramie or like the 2018 NAOC, with more than 3 races in a period longer than a few days, say from 2 or more clubs coordinating.
   
2. OUSA needs (1) a wiki and (2) a project management tool like basecamp or Asana. Ideally, most of the projects would be completely public so people could sync up and get involved. This is a pet project of mine; basecamp is looking like a leading contender.
   
3. I would really like to see a series of national team training camps - say one on each coast twice per year. The camps would ideally be partially funded to reduce cost to the team members, perhaps centered around national events. Juniors and seniors could use the same infrastructure but train separately much of the time. I certainly progressed dramatically during formal US team events or club training camps. The cost probably wouldn't be prohibitive. Need to talk to Schirm and GSwede.
   
4. OUSA needs a coherent club support program, with dedicated efforts to add components to it. Bob Forgrave did a great job assembling best practices into the club handbook; we need a central club support area on the OUSA website regularly populated with articles, videos for training, funding opportunities, and OUSA-researched avenues for collaboration with other entities like park services and educational programs.
   
5. Membership growth is an open problem; some of our technology offerings may help increase the appeal of joining the federation. A longer term strategic plan might also help motivate enthusiasm.
   
6. Youth development: execute Barb's grand plan.
   
7. Communication: communicate with member clubs. Routinely check in with clubs, and listen to them. The OUSA board can too easily become disconnected from the concerns and interests of the membership.
   

Agenda for the next year:

1. Build a wiki and set up a project management tool to help organize the Board.
   
2. Set up a strategic plan with objectives for club development/support, youth programming, elite development, competitions and events, and member engagement.
   
3. Select a small number of achievable goals and throw the energy of the federation at those objectives.
   

C • solutions 10

Commute.

Event: 2018 Rocky Mountain Orienteering Festival
 

Morning commute and evening trip to High Park then home.

TOC's Wednesday night training at High Park. I brought Smirnov, and as this was his first course, I decided to accompany him. The terrain made interesting legs difficult to set, as there was thick vegetation on most off-trail sections. We alternated who led on each leg - he took the odds, I took the evens. I asked him to explain what he was planning, what he expected to see, and how he wanted to get there, and when I was leading, I verbally described my plan, what I was thinking, and what I would and did see.

I think he enjoyed the outing, though the terrain wasn't ideal. He has had a gimpy foot for a few months, so it's unclear if he will do it in the future. I will try to invite him to the Turkey Trot.

Bike to work. I used my clip pedals for the first time, which was interesting. I also crashed rather violently - as I was decelerating into a red light, my front wheel got stuck in a gap between a grate and the pavement that was just wide enough to accommodate the tire and narrow enough to stop it immediately. I flipped over - my rear wheel rising into the air over my frozen front wheel - and landed on my helmet on the crown of my head. Even after I came free of the bike, my bike was still locked into place. A few pedestrians stopped to ask if I was ok, though I was immediately responsive without any apparent damage.

I don't appear to have any of the symptoms of a concussion, though I will monitor the situation aggressively. I work next door to a hospital, so care is nearby as needed. I also need to replace my helmet, which has a crack.

And unfortunately, I did fall over once while clipped in - at the door to my bike parking area. Oops.

On the plus side, my left hamstring seems to have recovered. While I'm monitoring my status closely, there fortunately doesn't appear to be any significant damage either to me or the bike.

C • Crash 11

Some great photos from NAOC:

Credit: Robert Svoboda, Sprint
https://www.flickr.com/photos/118341495@N05/433883... (itsame, Mario)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/118341495@N05/424867...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/118341495@N05/442948...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/118341495@N05/435773... (RIGHTEOUS)

Credit: Robert Svoboda, Relay
https://www.flickr.com/photos/118341495@N05/435095... - waiting for the handoff

Easy run. Left hamstring felt tight and a bit gimpy, but it seemed to have loosened up somewhat near the end. There was some pain, so I will take it easy.