The Orienteering USA President’s Award, in contrast to the Silva & Golden Service Awards, which are both based on nominations from membership, is awarded by the OUSA President to person(s) the president deems have gone above and beyond to help the organization operate smoothly. This year’s award goes to 2 people, Victoria (Tori) Campbell of the New England Orienteering Club and Andrea Schneider of the Minnesota Orienteering Club.
Orienteering USA President Clare Durand writes:
Victoria Campbell (NEOC) – After some cajoling, Tori joined the OUSA Board of Directors a year ago and jumped right to work. She has accomplished more as a Board member in one year, than many Board members do in a decade. Tori agreed to take on the large task of Vice-President of Youth Initiatives.
In this position, she has overseen the Youth Mapping Program and spearheaded a significant revision of our Abuse and Misconduct Policy. But most impressively, she almost single-handedly brought to reality a long wished for online training program. This program includes modules for beginning orienteers to learn skills and for coaches to get up to speed on the Orienteering Development Module and to accomplish most steps necessary to obtain coaching certification. Working with input from former Junior Team Coach Erin Schirm and Discovering Orienteering authors Bob Turbyfill and Chuck Ferguson, she has made it possible to bring the standard OUSA educational content to a much broader audience.
But that’s not all, Tori also did the bulk of the data analysis for our strategic planning early in the year. In an organization with little staff, her initiative, enthusiasm, and willingness to roll her sleeves up and get the work done have quickly made her a major Board asset.
Andrea Schneider (MNOC)
Andrea Schneider is a major volunteer for MNOC and works with youth and schools in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and with the US Junior Teams and National Junior Program (NJP) as well as serving as the Junior Team Administrator.
Andrea has led NJP fundraising efforts at numerous national events mostly through the ubiquitous Junior Team sandwich sales. Planning, shopping, preparing, and distributing the ordered sandwiches takes significant planning and time and is no trivial task. If she could not be at the event in person, she has arranged for others to seamlessly handle shopping, preparation, and distribution, in her stead.
For numerous national events to which juniors have traveled long distances without parents, Andrea has coordinated lodging and transportation—both to/from airports and event venues. This has enabled many juniors to participate in events that they might not have been able to otherwise. She has even hosted Juniors in her own home and with her club to enable these competitive opportunities
Andrea has coordinated uniform orders for all of OUSA’s elite teams for several years, working with the supplier, collecting orders, adjusting when minimum quantities of certain items are not reached, and then arranging delivery in such a way as to minimize costs.
Andrea is an accomplished mapper, and processes lidar data so much she is a resource for helping others get started with that difficult task. Through her maps and her educational orienteering business Andrea has exposed hundreds of children and teens in both Minnesota and Wisconsin to our sport.
Andrea also tracks Junior Team payments and costs. Tracking the team funds is a difficult task and the Junior Team fund is by far the most complex. Andrea not only helps the team by doing this, but also keeps OUSA and our accountants on our toes. Her attention to detail on these financial issues has helped us to develop procedures to work smoothly.
Finally, despite competition from soccer and track, Andrea has managed to raise two (of three) sons who love orienteering and have been members of USA national teams.
Congratulations to this years OUSA President’s Award winners. A list of past winners can be found in the Orienteering USA archives.
Additionally, the following persons were presented Certificates of Appreciation by the OUSA Board:
- Youth Mapping Program Committee
- Eileen Breseman
- Barb Bryant
- Jon Campbell
- Bill Cusworth
- Heidi Cusworth
- Andrea Schneider
- Ed Despard – for work on EventReg, medals, and results technology
- Outgoing Board Members
- William Jameson (3 years)
- Lee Todd (7 years)
- Erin Schirm – for work with Teams and Coaching Committee
- COVID task force:
- Joseph Huberman
- Jon Torrance
- Rick Worner