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News and Notes
Various tidbits will be posted here from time to time.
U.S. Orienteering Rules of Competition Revised
From the USOFclubnet mailing list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/USOFclubnet/) (with links added):
"The Orienteering USA Rules for Competition (revised January 10, 2012) are now available here (http://orienteeringusa.org/rules) and as a PDF file (410KB) (http://orienteeringusa.org/sites/default/files/userfiles/u6/rules.pdf). These rules are effective immediately. All sanctioned event organizers and competitors should make sure that they become familiar with the rules.
"A complete survey of all Board minutes available on the web was done to insure that the rules are up-to-date. A list of changes is included in the document. This document supersedes all previous versions. In addition to the changes listed, rule numbers were reformatted to consistently include the entire rule designation including the section letter. In a few cases, some rules were renumbered where duplication of numbering existed. In general, however, the rule numbers were not changed. Any gaps in numbering that existed have been retained. It is expected that a more thorough reformatting and renumbering of the rules will occur for the 2013 version, and I didn't see the point of renumbering two years in a row. Any documents that reference the rules by rule number are still likely to be accurate.
"If you have any questions or corrections, please send them to 
.
"During 2013 the rules committee will be working on a much more extensive rules revision, including reformatting the entire document and separating competition rules from sanctioning guidelines. I will do my best to keep the membership informed about our progress and issues of interest during this revision process."
Rules Committee Chair, Orienteering USA
(January 13, 2012)
Volunteer Vacancy Update
The Insurance Coordinator position has been filled by Marina Keating. Thank you Marina!
The Volunteer Coordinator and A-Meet Coordinator positions are now vacant.
A-Meet Coordinator Position:
- The A-Meet Coordinator collaborates with the A-Meet Committee to schedule one to two BAOC A-meets per year, arranges for permits with the parks, and recruits Event Directors and Course Setters.
- George Minarik has already arranged with the Ranger to hold an A-meet at Boggs Mountain in September 2012, but he won't be able to continue the work due to illness. We are looking for someone to take over the position and pick up where he left off on the Boggs event.
- January 23 update: Gary Kraght has volunteered for this position. Thank you, Gary!
Volunteer Coordinator Position:
- The number one reason that people do not volunteer is because they aren't asked! I would like to increase our pool of frequent volunteers by asking new people to help out. People who volunteer feel like they are a part of the club instead of an outsider, are more likely to renew their membership, and are more likely to later take on Event Director and Course Setter positions. If you agree that the strength of the club lies in its volunteers, and are interested in getting more people involved in the club, then this position is for you.
Please contact me if you have any questions.
(January 5, 2012)
Staples Discount Program
I want to let you know about the Staples Business Discount program that BAOC belongs to.
When you place a Staples copy/print order referencing our Rewards Number (2867824258), you will receive a 10% discount and BAOC will earn 10% in Staples Rewards. You can use this for BAOC printing and for any other printing needs.
You can submit orders online or in any Staples store. I can send you the login and password if you wish to place orders online.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
(December 22, 2011)
2011 BAOC Service Award Recipient
Congratulations to Kelly Wells for winning the 2011 BAOC Service Award. Information about Kelly's accomplishments (and information about previous recipients) is available here.
Bob Cooley Received Golden Troll Award
Congratulations to Bob Cooley, one of four 2011 recipients of the Orienteering USA Golden Troll Award, the purpose of which is to recognize those individuals who have provided exceptional service to the sport of orienteering that extends beyond the local club level.
Bob has been the Mapping director for BAOC for over 30 years. As such, he has been behind every map used at an A-meet, including our newest maps: Boggs Mountain, Pacheco State Park, and Little Truckee Summit. His influence beyond the club level has been felt by everyone who has attended an A-meet, and the precision and care with which he makes the maps can be attested to by anyone who has run on them.
Bob instituted the mapping program of the Bay Area and Sierra parks, which has produced over 40 excellent maps. He has done much of the mapping himself, and directed professional mappers for the other projects. Bob spends many hours personally updating maps before an A-meet (and also for C-meets and B-meets), and prints all of the maps that the club uses. Bob is also one of the world experts on the fine art of high-resolution inkjet printing of maps. Having a good map is a real pleasure in orienteering and course setting, and Bob has devoted innumerable hours to improving BAOC’s map inventory.
In addition, Bob has worked as course setter and vetter for multiple A-meets, and is a highly ranked international radio orienteer, who introduced radio orienteering to BAOC.
Bob has had a strong positive impact on the sport of orienteering beyond the club level.
Thank you Bob, for everything you have given to the club and to the sport of orienteering!
(More information about the Golden Troll Award is available here (http://orienteeringusa.org/news/2011/announcements/nominations-golden-troll-award-now-being-accepted).)
(August 4, 2011)
BAOC Hosted an Event for Outdoor Nation
On Saturday, July 30, several BAOC members hosted a "demo" orienteering event for the Outdoor Nation summer youth summit at the Presidio of San Francisco (http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/7/prweb8676674.htm). The event provided beginner clinics and a standard White course for 27 participants. (That "small" turn-out was almost double what we had been told to expect.)
In addition to introducing orienteering to those youth, we had an opportunity to enhance our relationship with The Presidio Trust (http://www.presidio.gov), which promotes activities in the Presidio. And it doesn't hurt that the permit fee is being waived for our September Presidio event.
Vic Revenko was the main organizer for the event, which included a lot of interaction with the Outdoor Nation organizers and recruiting club volunteers. The following people helped at the event: Bill Papendick, Chuck Spalding, Greg Ehrensing, Jim Fish, Kent Hetherwick, Marina Keating, Nancy Lindeman, Scott Aster, and Steve Haas. Also, Alex Finch helped with pre-event planning, Bob Cooley printed the maps, Brad Wetmore arranged insurance, Ben Legg prepared a flyer with a schedule of upcoming BAOC events, and BAOC equipment was provided by Alan Glendinning and Mark Blair. (I apologize to anyone I've overlooked.)
(July 31, 2011)
BAOC Membership Now Available On-line
I've now got on-line memberships up and running on our website at this page. Renewals can also be processed this way.
In order to save some money I've chosen to break it into two steps: 1) fill out a Wufoo form to capture the membership contact information, etc., then navigate back to the BAOC website to 2) pay through Google Checkout. Once you click "Submit" on the Wufoo form, it automatically sends the information to me. You'll need a Google Checkout account to pay on-line, which you can set up in a few minutes the first time you pay this way. Please remember that your membership is not complete until you do both steps. Once I get both parts and I record the membership information, you'll get a confirming e-mail from Google that your membership has "shipped" (don't expect anything at your front door!).
There is a small cost to using Google Checkout that we have added to the one-year Individual and Family/Group memberships, which are now $16 and $21, respectively, if you pay on-line (but it saves you at least a $0.44 stamp and a lot of time). But if you sign up for multiple years or Contributing, BAOC will absorb the cost (5 years is always a good choice ☺).
You can still sign up at events, or by printing a membership form and sending it with a check, but I am hoping everyone will get on board and find it easier to do it on-line. Note: Please do not split the difference, i.e., fill out the Wufoo form on-line and send in a check by mail. This can be done if absolutely necessary, but it will make my life more complicated, so please avoid it if possible. If you go the other way and pay on-line and send in the form by snail mail, the form will be conveniently "lost", and we will gladly accept the voluntary "anonymous" donation.
Try it!
Membership Guy
(June 10, 2011)
BAOC Facebook Page Is Active
I'm writing to make sure everyone knows about BAOC's active Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bay-Area-Orienteering-Club/208432029957?v=wall&ref=sgm). We keep making progress — this week had more "active users" than any other week, and 10 people have joined this month. We try to keep it updated regularly, and if you browse through the wall, I think you'll notice some interesting stores and photos.
There is one thing I really want you all to know: please feel free to share stuff! You are not undercutting the page administrators. I assure you — we don't want to be the only ones making posts. The way Facebook is set up right now, the administrator can't post as a person, and every time I make a post that people ignore, our page gets demoted. But every time some member shares a link, comments, or "likes" something, the page gets promoted and more people see it. And since we really want more people to know about orienteering, we really want you to contribute. If you have a cool orienteering video, picture, event invitation, or story you'd like to share, please step up and share it!
(June 1, 2011)
Upcoming Vacancies on OUSA Board
We have one definite person willing to run for the OUSA Board, but we are still seeking candidates since we now have at least two open spots. The term would begin in August, and would run for 3 years.
Every Board member is responsible for specific areas of the Strategic Plan based on the skills and interests of the member. You would be expected to work on the area, keep in touch with the rest of the board, and write a status report prior to each Board meeting. The entire Board is working together to implement the Plan, and you would not be going it alone.
The Board meets four times a year, usually at an A-meet, but conference calling is now available if you can't make all the meetings in person.
Give me a yell if you have any questions.
Thanks much,
Secretary, OUSA Board
(April 22, 2011)
Americans at World Ski-O Championships
After five days of competition at the World Ski Orienteering Championships in Tänndalen, Sweden, we have seen by far the best results for the United States in an international competition. Alison Crocker, who skied on the Blue courses at the last events of the 2011 Sierra Ski-O Champs (see a video here), and tied for the best time on the Sierra Ski-O Relay, has placed 18th on the sprint course, 18th on the middle-distance course, 12th with Greg Walker on the mixed relay, 8th on the long course, and 8th in the women's relay (with Alex Jospe and Cristina Luis)(and she finished 6th for the leg that she skied). All those placings are the best ever for an American. On one of Alison's mixed relay legs, she had a time that was within 6 percent of the winning time. Also of note is Alex Jospe, who placed 24th on the sprint course, 29th on the middle-distance course, and 25th on the long-distance course, and 8th on the womens relay (with Alison Crocker and Cristina Luis).
For the men, competition has been quite severe with the fastest American, Greg Walker, finishing 51st on the sprint course, 50th on the middle-distance course, 12th in the mixed relay (with a couple of legs that were within 25% and 30% of the winning times) with Alison Crocker, and 56th on the long course. Scott Pleban improved his performance on the long course and finished with his best placing at 50th, and Nikolay Nachev finished just ahead of Greg in 55th place on the long course. Overall, the men finished about 35 percent behind the winner when in previous years they tended to finish about 55 percent behind the winner.
All the members of the U.S. team have attended the Sierra Ski-O Championships over at least the last three years, some repeatedly. They've done wonders for us (especially with Greg Walker setting some of our best courses at Tahoe Cross Country) and now they are doing wonders for the U.S. team. Next year, the U.S. team will form an essential backbone for our management of the World Cup events. Alex Jospe has already started her publicity work with Alison Crocker by passing out pamphlets for our 2012 events at the Ski WOC. They are a great bunch of people to work with, and I hope many of our club members get a chance to work (and compete) with them next year.
Photos and movies of the U.S. team in action are available here (http://usa-orienteering.blogspot.com).
Up-to-date info on the events, including GPS tracking of the top 25 competitors each day, can be seen here (http://www.skiwoc2011.com/index.php?en&subj=18).
Here's a photo of Alison Crocker finishing a relay leg.
Tony Pinkham
BAOC Ski-O Director
(March 26, 2011)
BAOC to Host 2012 Ski-O World Cup Events?
The BAOC Board is currently considering a proposal to host one of the four 2012 Ski-O World Cup events, but the BAOC Board, which is largely composed of non-skiers, would like to hear from the BAOC ski-O community about their thoughts of this proposal and the volunteer possibilities. If interested in learning more about these possibilities and speaking to the people who are working on this, we urge everyone to join us at Tahoe XC after the Day-6 ski-O event this Saturday (Feb. 5) in the lounge of the ski resort. We also welcome online discussion [on the BayONet (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baoc/)], especially by those who cannot come in person to the discussion at Tahoe XC. We need to hear from you.
More information about this proposal is available here.
[It's definite — BAOC is hosting a multi-day 2012 Ski-O World Cup event in January and February. All the details are available here.]
Tony Pinkham
BAOC Ski-O Director
(February 3, 2011)
Orienteering Videos on the Internet
There has been a recent discussion on the BayONet (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baoc) about orienteering videos on the Internet. I spent some time searching through people's recommendations and YouTube, and came up with this list (PDF/68KB). I tried to pick ones that cover the main aspects of orienteering, showing beginners, how to's, as well as advanced races, relay, night, and Ski-O, plus a few short advertisements for orienteering. I sorted them in what I think would be roughly the order of interest for a newcomer.
I think it would also be useful to add one made at a BAOC event, showing the entire process from finding the road signs to get there, to registering, running, reporting back, downloading, and post-mortem discussions with friends. I also could not find anything good explaining how to read an orienteering map, so we might want to make one of those if we can't find one already done. Anybody interested in helping?
Werner Haag
(November 19, 2010)
Important BAOC Vacancies
We have important vacancies in the club. If you or someone you know might be interested in helping, or if you would like additional information, please let me know.
Regional Registration Volunteers
The Regional Registration Volunteers would be trained on registration procedures and work with the Registration Director to ensure that a volunteer and appropriate equipment is available at all BAOC events. Ideally, we will have two people in each region (South Bay, North Bay, and East Bay) to share the workload for events in that region.
BAOC President
(September 1, 2010; latest update March 18, 2011)
[Editorial Note: Information about the positions that have been filled is available here.]
Older News
Items previously posted on this page are available here.
