BAOC Casual Forum
Date: (Tue.) Feb. 6, 2024
Location: Video Conference
Event Director: 
- 669.264.4761
Type: All club members are very welcome. This will be an informal forum on Zoom from 8–9 pm — the goal is to provide a space to brainstorm ideas and chat with other club members. We will forward any popular suggestions to the Board to consider.
Meeting Summary
By John Richardson
Hi folks,
Thank you to everyone who participated in the inaugural BAOC Casual Forum on Tuesday, February 6! We had a great turnout, and a lot of interesting discussion.
Unlike our regular Board Meetings, we will not publish detailed minutes, since this was meant as a casual discussion. However I would like to share a summary of the topics discussed, in case you are interested.
Volunteers
The club is actively looking for more volunteers to help us put on high-quality and more-frequent events. The pool of candidates is small, and we identified the need to help develop beginner/intermediate orienteers to nurture their enthusiasm and skills to participate more actively in the club. There are plenty of opportunities for training (both formal and informal), such as “intermediate/advanced clinics”, Zoom course reviews, and in-person training such as shadowing, but we need volunteers to make this happen. 🙂 It is also important to engage with new club members, and to build relationships at orienteering and social events.
Livelox vs RouteGadget
RouteGadget has been available to track GPS routes and hand-drawn routes for the majority of club events for nearly 20 years. Livelox is a more modern (but paid) alternative that is available for the club to try for free for one year through OUSA. The general consensus was that RouteGadget does most of what everyone wants already, and the additional features of Livelox (such as live tracking) are probably not that useful for our local events, especially as cell reception can be poor. It seems worth a try, but we would need a volunteer to set it up.
Other Forms of Orienteering
We have not held non-standard orienteering events in some time. Night-O could bring life to less technically challenging maps if we can find parks/colleges that will permit evening races. Ski-O, Kayak-O, Bike-O are all possible if we can find volunteers. Score-O has overlap with Rogaine, but is generally less work to organize and can be fun for all, including beginners.
Regular Calendar of Events
There would be benefits to making our annual calendar more regular, and publicizing events further in advance. However, this is tricky because parks are not providing permits more than a few weeks at most in advance, and in some cases have asked us not to advertise events until permits have been secured.
Supporting Other Clubs
BAOC is doing well financially, and there is an opportunity to set up new (or help nearby existing) clubs. This could benefit our members living further afield, and allow us to partner in organizing “destination events”, such as weekend festivals in other parts of California.
Next Steps
The core theme here is that there is a lot we could accomplish with more volunteers! If any of this interests you, please share your ideas with the BayONet email group (i.e., if you are a member of the email group; ) or reach out to any of the Board members.
Hope to see many of you at Calero on February 11th!