Category: Announcements

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.

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

OrienteeringUSA along with many of its clubs use yahoo groups to manage email lists.  Yahoo is removing most of Yahoo Groups’ capabilities very soon.  

On 28 October the ability to upload files to Yahoo Groups was removed.
On 14 December all remaining functionality of Yahoo Groups ceases with the exception of email capability.  All historical records of emails or files of the group will be removed.

OrienteeringUSA uses has two active groups which use Yahoo Groups – BoardNet and ClubNet.  We are replacing our Yahoo Groups with Google Groups. No one currently signed up for the BoardNet or ClubNet will be automatically transferred.  You must sign up for the new Google groups yourself.

The easiest way to sign up for the new groups is to send a subscribe email as shown below.

Sign up for the NEW BoardNet 
Email: Boardnet+subscribe@orienteeringusa.org
or
Visit https://groups.google.com/a/orienteeringusa.org/forum/#!forum/boardnet and click join

Sign up for the NEW ClubNet
Email: Clubnet+subscribe@orienteeringusa.org orVisit https://groups.google.com/a/orienteeringusa.org/forum/#!forum/clubnet and click join

No later than 14 November, OrienteeringUSA will no longer use the yahoogroups BoardNet or ClubNet for any messages.

If you manage a group for your club, you can transition your group to using an @orienteeringusa.org ending.  If you are interested in doing this, please send an email to tech-committee@nullorienteeringusa.org.  Please include the proposed group name, group type (i.e. club email list), and club point of contact.  OrienteeringUSA will not archive any data and will only assist in setting up the group and providing information on usage.  If you want to learn more about the feature reduction or learn how to archive your data, visit https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN31010.html.

Download this announcement (PDF)

Please Note: This page is for reference only and the links in this post are no longer valid and have been disabled. Please refer to this link for the most recent updates and current forms. {As of June 5th, 2020}

Goal

Our goal is to make it easy for any school or non-profit youth-serving organization in the United States to get a standard orienteering map and isometric drawing made of their school or nearby park to help in teaching orienteering. OUSA will take information from mappers and schools, and match them up.

Cost

$2000 per square kilometer, with a minimum of $500 for each school campus or park. (A typical urban school or small park will be $500.) The school or organization must supply a field checker to work with the map maker. Schools will be asked to report back how they have used the map within one year.

Application

Schools and other organizations may apply using this application form (Google Doc).

Grants

Schools may apply for a grant to pay for some or all of the map. Grants will be awarded based on available funds, whether the school is cooperating with a local orienteering club or service provider for advice and support, and how the map will be used. A pilot project has been selected, and volunteers are currently being identified to serve on the Map Grant Committee.

Mappers

Map makers are encouraged to register using the same form. You may be paid or volunteer your time.

You can orienteer at the Older Dash in Gunstock, NH and learn more about mapping, too. Friday October 18th, the day before the event, a mapping workshop will be held at a nearby site for those interested in learning how to map. The workshop will use LIDAR data to assist in the mapping process.

The workshop will start at 9:00 AM and end around 4:00 PM (you can probably leave early if you want to run the model event). LIDAR use and how to get it will be part of the discussion.

This workshop is for people new to mapping and people who want to learn a bit more about the process. Experienced mappers may also benefit because of discussions about what and how to map. You can talk with others about the process that is often done in the woods, alone, so feedback and discussion about how to map is always helpful.

At the workshop, attendees will work with a basemap, aerial photos and other data to learn the basics of making field notes with the goal of creating orienteering maps. Discussions will be focused on what and how to map particular areas. This will be hands-on and materials will be provided for making field notes. The materials provided will be traditional map boards and colored pencils. There will be no charge for the workshop although you must pre-register so there are enough materials for all the participants. 

Email Peter Goodwin to register or to get more information.

Calling all U.S. orienteers!

The OUSA Strategic Planning Committee seeks your input as we conduct long-range planning to inform how OUSA focuses its efforts and distributes its resources.  Whether you are an OUSA member, a local orienteering club member, or an occasional orienteer, we want your thoughts.

Please fill out the general survey at: https://forms.gle/6ezRaB9JxcmVsF9p6.  It should take 20-30 minutes to complete.

We also have more detailed questionnaires for some topics based on information from the last in-depth survey of orienteers in 2010.  We would like to validate priorities identified at that time, as well as identify new goals and individuals interested in working towards their achievement.  Depending on how much you have to share with us, each survey should take about 15 minutes to complete.  There’s no need to complete them all, but please fill out those that interest you.

Our recommendations will inform not only OUSA fiscal policy and organizational focus, but also identify achievable goals based on the passions, skills, and resources of our membership.  

We appreciate your time and thoughtful input.  Thank you for all you do for orienteering!

Sincerely,
OUSA’s Strategic Planning Committee
Chair: Clare Durand
Members: Tori Campbell, Gregory Fasig, Joseph Huberman, Ian Smith, Ellen Stefaniak

The following Bylaws change proposal was approved by the board to be considered by the membership at this year’s AGM.

Bylaws , Article IV, section B.1.f

Current language:

A family membership consists of two or more individuals related by blood or marriage living in the same household.

Proposed language:

A family membership consists of multiple people with a single primary address with at most two over the age of 24.

Rationale:

This change is intended to have two effects.

1. Allow for more flexibility by deleting the “blood or marriage” requirement and allowing family memberships based on shared residence alone.
2. Insure that adult children begin maintaining their own memberships instead of remaining indefinitely on parental memberships.

The specific age requirement matches the newly adopted age limit for student memberships.