Month: November 2019

Navigation Games Seeking Volunteers

Non-profit Navigation Games (NG), based in Massachusetts, is seeking volunteers to live in the northeast USA and help with our school programs, mid-March to mid-June 2020. Housing will be provided.

We have previously hosted volunteers from Spain, Norway, the Czech Republic, Italy, Sweden and Brazil. With their help, we have built a great program in Cambridge, MA, and are looking to expand it to other school districts.

Check out Violeta’s video about her time living with us!

If you know someone who might be interested, please direct them to this application.

2020 Junior Team Applications

Information about and applications for applying to the National Junior Program (Junior National Team and Junior Development Team) are now posted on the Junior Team page.

Note that applications for the Junior National Team are due December 15, 2019. Development Team applications are accepted throughout the year.

National Junior Program Update

At the end of 2019, Junior National Coach Erin Schirm, and Junior Development Coach Greg Ahlswede, are both stepping down from their coaching roles in the National Junior Program (NJP) to get back to working on their respective career paths. They are not stepping away from coaching altogether, or from being part of the Orienteering USA (OUSA) community. They will remain involved as volunteers at the club and national levels, Erin as the Chair of the Executive Steering Committee (ESC) of the senior National Team and Greg as an elite athlete on the National Team.

The Junior National Team (JNT) program was initiated by the Junior Team Executive Steering Committee (JTESC) in 2012, and the program has since grown and advanced under Erin’s leadership as Junior National Coach (JNC) and as the OUSA Director of Sport Development. The current NJP includes the JNT and the Junior Development Team (JDT) providing the program’s benefits to a growing talent pool of young orienteers. Junior orienteering in the U.S. has made significant progress since 2012, as seen not only in the results of NJP athletes at U.S. and international competitions, but also in the considerable increase in the number of juniors aspiring to and selected for the senior National Team.

Erin and Greg have laid the foundation with an effective coaching philosophy that past and present athletes have engaged with and appreciate, and it is JTESCs intention to continue building on that foundation. Beyond providing coaching, the NJP aims to reduce, as much as possible, the impact from the unique challenges to juniors in this country due to the geographic spread of athletes and low density of events. The NJP is a framework for our junior athletes to work together to create a team environment that encourages competitive excellence, a professional demeanor, and an enthusiastic work ethic. It also provides a strong support network for national and international travel, fundraising, lodging, and other assistance needed to enable our athletes to compete at home and abroad.

We would like to thank Erin and Greg for their dedicated work as coaches and Erin, as the main architect of the NJP. JTESC will need some time to redefine the position of the JNC, with possible further engagement of local and regional coaches as proposed recently by the OUSA Executive Committee. The JNC will provide unity and support so that our juniors are prepared to compete at the highest stages, including the Junior Nationals, the North American Orienteering Championships (NAOC) and at the Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC). NJP athletes will meet as teammates at regional and national events and will take advantage of training and coaching opportunities coordinated for them through the efforts of JTESC and the JNC in cooperation with regional coaches, clubs, and the community of NJP supporters.

We would also like to thank former JNT and NJP athletes who have come forward with an interest in contributing to the continuation and growth of the program, and to give back to a community that provided them with opportunities and support for their development as elite orienteers.

JTESC is looking forward to the next phase of the NJP. Be sure to look for the 2020 National Junior Program Application package, to be posted on the OUSA website around Nov. 15, 2019. Coaches Erin and Greg will be available with advice to current NJP athletes on future coaching options at least through the end of this year.

Mark your calendars, 2020 will be an exciting year for the juniors. JWOC team trials are slated to be held at the Junior Nationals on April 18-19, and JWOC will be in Turkey in July. With WOC 2020 being the first Sprint format year, and with many current juniors showing recent strong performances in Sprint competitions, we are looking forward to some of them trying out for the WOC team. We are further hoping for a strong showing by our college and college-bound NJP athletes in the Team Trials for WUOC. And please, everyone, mark your calendars for NAOC 2020, where NJP juniors are hoping to help the U.S. bring the Future Champions Cup home again.

Any questions to JTESC may be emailed to ousajuniorprogram@nullorienteeringusa.org, or contact the JTESC Chair Guy Olsen directly by using the email address indicated on the Orienteering USA website, under Committees/U.S. Teams.

Senior Team Coaching Position

 The U.S. Team is looking for a coach to review individual training plans, training logs, be a general source of information on elite orienteering, and help provide a basic communication structure for the team. The position would be as a private contractor with Orienteering USA.

If you are interested in pursuing this possibility, select the PDF document below to see more.

2019-2020_US_senior_coach_position_description-application

New Website Launched

Welcome to the new Orienteering USA website. We hope you like the adjustments.

Please update any links to Orienteering USA website as our site organization has dramatically changed. If you don’t update the link, you will be redirected to the homepage.

Thank you to Bob Forgrave and the many people who made up his focus groups for providing great feedback. Thanks to Dave Yee for selecting and to Dave Yee, Ken Walker Jr., Julie Keim, and others for providing us with great photos. Special thanks to Jennifer Laughlin for server-side backside support which made this all possible.

If you visit the member portal or make a donation, it will still look like the old website for now but still function appropriately. We are working on updating this section of the website. If you do attempt to visit any link on the old navigation, it will redirect you to the new homepage.

Also, keep in mind that this is a dynamic project. It is a living site that can be edited and updated as needed. Please submit any comments, suggestions, corrections, or compliments using the Contact form.

Call for 2019 Competitive Award Nominations

Nominations Open for 2019 Orienteer of the Year Competitive Awards

The Competitive Award Program’s goals are to recognize and reward outstanding competitive accomplishments by U.S. orienteers at the end of every year.

The Program Committee is currently soliciting nominations from Orienteering USA membership for athletes and teams who demonstrated outstanding performance during the 2019 national and international orienteering season. As usual, the Committee is looking for nominees in several different award categories, listed below. The winners will be selected by the Committee and will receive prizes and recognition. In certain cases, honorable mention will be made for deserving athletes. A list of past winners is included at the end of this announcement.
This year, once again, there will be voting by you, members of Orienteering USA, for the athletes who have been nominated. After the nominations are received, the Committee will select several finalists in each award category.  Each member of Orienteering USA will then be able to vote online for one nominee in each category. The committee will then use the results of the voting to help determine the winners of the awards. It is expected that the voting will be a dominant factor in the committee’s decision.

In addition to public recognition, the winner of each of the individual awards will receive a $500 stipend to be used on orienteering expenses during 2020.  The honorable mention winners will receive a $100 stipend.  The 2019 stipends have been made possible thanks to a very generous donor.

Nominations are open now and will close on Friday, November 15th. See below for the description of the awards, eligibility rules, and where to send nominations.  Nominate an outstanding athlete or team and, in a few sentences, state why your nominee deserves the award.

The awards:

1.    Orienteer of the Year is awarded to the best USA orienteer in 2019, based on results at national and international events.
2.    Junior Orienteer of the Year is awarded to the best USA orienteer no older than 20 in 2019, based on results at national and international events.
3.    Comet of the Year is awarded to the most improved USA orienteer in 2019, based on results at national and international events.
4.    Orienteering Team of the Year is awarded to the best USA national or club orienteering team in 2019, based on results at national and international events.

Eligibility rules:

To be awarded any of the individual awards a nominee has to be a USA citizen and must be a member of Orienteering USA in good standing during the current calendar year. Additionally, for the Junior Orienteer of the Year award, the nominee must be no older than 20 at the end of 2019. To be selected to the Orienteering Team of the Year award, all team members have to be Orienteering USA members and represent the U.S. or an Orienteering USA member club in competition. Competitors in any forms of orienteering are eligible, including Foot-O, Ski-O, Mt.Bike-O, Trail-O, and ROGAINE.

The committee making final selections from among those who are nominated includes Ken Walker Sr, Jeff Saeger, Sue Grandjean, Boris Granovskiy and Linda Kohn (chair).

Please send nominations (due November 15th) for any or all of the awards, along with a brief discussion of why the nominee deserves to win, to Linda Kohn.

2018 Awardees
Previous award winners