2021 Golden Service Awards

Each year Orienteering USA recognizes several individuals that have provided service to the sport of orienteering beyond the club level by playing key roles at National Events, organizing training camps and festivals, serving on boards or committees at the national level and more. This year we award the Golden Service Award to the following individuals. Congratulations to all of you and Thank You for your efforts!

  • Doug Berling (RMOC) – Doug has been a member of the Rocky Mountain Orienteering Club since 1993, and his dedication to orienteering has been foundational to to the club’s ability to successfully host major events. From 2010-2016 he served as RMOC’s Vice-President, using his friendly demeanor to facilitate RMOC’s permit applications with local, state & federal land managers. Doug then stepped into the role of RMOC’s President from 2016 through the present (2021), handling administrative tasks as well as serving in more visible roles when RMOC hosted national events – meet director, course consultant, course vetter, and map printer, to name a few. Doug has also become one of RMOC’s e-punch experts for both hardware & software; has promoted orienteering regionally by teaching beginner workshops at local recreation centers; has created and updated several of RMOC’s maps and coordinates the club’s other mapping projects.  Doug is a model of reliability and a selfless volunteer for RMOC and the orienteering community at large. 

  • Paul Clatterbuck (PTOC) – Paul mapped Shawnee Mission Park for the 2013 US Interscholastic / Intercollegiate Championships and set courses for one of the day of that event which included a forked course design to help discourage interscholastic competitors from following. Paul’s map of Shawnee Mission Park still gets regular use as a permanent course. Paul also led the mapping effort for the Sunflower State Games. The Sunflower Games has included orienteering every year since 2013. He also assisted with the “Possum Trot”, a popular goat-style event that draws competitors from across the midwest annually. The Golden Service Award typically recognizes regional and national activities, but like many recipients, Paul was also very involved locally. In particular, he was an avid mapper and always helped out at local events. He most recently made a map of a newly opened local park and set the courses for an event there. Sadly Paul passed away a couple of months ago. His loss was unexpected and will be felt both locally and regionally. He was a good friend of the sport of orienteering.

  • Jim Hall (COK) – Jim has been a member of COK since the early beginnings of the club and has been on the board for many years. He has been meet director for many local meets and has always been willing to help out wherever there was a need. He has also been instrumental in the organization of A-meets (now NRE’s) by COK where he has held roles as Course Setter and Vetter and has spent countless hours preparing for these meets and to make sure that every control was in the correct place. Jim was a member of the USOF/OUSA board from 2007 to 2010 and for the last few years has been a course consultant for several National Meets.

Orienteering USA would like to extend its gratitude and congratulations to these tireless individuals who have given so much of their time and expertise to the promotion of orienteering in the US. A list of previous Golden Service Award winners can be found on the OrienteeringUSA website.

2021 Silva Award Winner: Ed Hicks

The 2021 Silva Award is posthumously awarded to Ed Hicks, who sadly passed away on New Year’s Eve, 2020. Ed was an active and invaluable member of the US orienteering community for over 40 years with Orienteering USA and Hudson Valley Orienteering as well as HVO’s predecessor the Westchester Orienteering Club.

Ed was a tireless and prolific promoter of the sport of orienteering through his teaching and map making activities. He taught a full day program for Avalon Preserves Stewardship Program for 13 years as well as conducting beginner instruction at local events over the entire course of his 40+ year involvement with the sport. Ed also promoted orienteering by authoring dozens of orienteering related publications for schools, Boy Scout groups, camps and nature center personnel; teaching programs and developing maps for World Orienteering Day events and presenting at GIS conventions and conferences throughout the United States.

Ed was perhaps most well known for his passion in making orienteering maps. His map projects ran the gamut from small park and scout camp maps to numerous NRE level maps. Some of his recent projects included developing maps for HVO’s National Meet at Mountain Lakes (North Salem NY), a pair of maps for recent West Point events, Trail-O and Ski-O maps at Windham Mountain, NY and a number of maps/basemaps for BSA Eagle Scout projects. Ed had served as OCAD’s US Sales and Service Representative since the early ’90s providing valuable feedback to the software developers over the years. He also founded Orienteering Unlimited in 1979, which was the first vendor of orienteering equipment and supplies in the US.

Ed Hick’s extensive contributions to the sport of orienteering in the US are far reaching and span decades of devoted service. Orienteering USA is honored to remember him with this years 2021 Silva Award.

Call for nominations: 2021 Silva and Golden Service Award

The Annual General Meeting of Orienteering USA will be held online Thursday night, October 21. One of the highlights of the AGM is the naming of the recipient of the Silva Award.

The Silva Award is given annually to an orienteer who has demonstrated outstanding service to orienteering in the United States over the past five years. The essential quality of every winner has been service to promoting and sustaining orienteering, to making the sport work in this country, and in helping to build the organizations needed to make orienteering successful.

The AGM will also include the announcement of the OUSA Golden Service awards recognizing those individuals who have provided exceptional service to the sport of orienteering that extends beyond the local club level.

Nominations for both awards are being solicited between now and September 26th.  Full eligibility criteria and lists of past award winners can be found in the attached announcements.  Nominations for both awards should be emailed to Susan DeWitt (skdewitt@nullsnet.net) by September 26th.

Full Silva Award Announcement: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-GdPkOS3ceKGSHvzdcgO9mIAG_-dN61D/view?usp=sharing

Full Golden Service Award Announcement: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jcHCxcTeknuD4A7nhzAgNRnpaop6kvc8/view?usp=sharing

Virtual AGM – 2021

The 2021 Orienteering USA Annual General Meeting will take place online on Thursday, October 21 from 8:00 to 10:00 pm (EDT).

Your membership in Orienteering USA helps us to bring programs and services to orienteers and clubs throughout the country. Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Clare Durand
President, Orienteering USA


IMPORTANT NOTE: As outlined in a September 22 email to all OUSA Clubs, delegate appointments were due to OUSA no later than October 6th. If your club has not appointed their delegates yet you must contact Shawn Callahan immediately to rectify the situation.


Accessing the Meeting

Virtual Meeting will take place using Google Meet, Federation members who are not delegates are welcome to join the meeting and may vote their own individual vote in accordance with the bylaws. Guests are welcome, space permitting.

Delegates must join via computer to have full access to the presentation and for voting. To watch on the computer but use your phone for audio, please use the video call link and then click on “Join and use a phone for audio.”

Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/hxc-ardi-mpp
Or dial: ‪(US) +1 252-486-4182‬ PIN: ‪705 412 542‬#
More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/hxc-ardi-mpp?pin=3266043240016

The Google meeting will be staffed from 7:00-7:30pm EDT for anyone to test their connection or ask questions about the technology. Check-in and credentialing will begin at 7:30pm EDT and the meeting will begin at 8:00pm EDT.


Agenda

  1. Appointment of Parliamentarian
  2. Roll-call of delegates and members-at-large present and certification of the report by the Credentials Committee as to the number of votes and voting rights.
    • The Credentials Committee members are:
      • Matthew Robbins (chair)
      • Shawn Callahan
      • Ian Shields
  3. Approval of agenda
  4. Election of two certifiers of the minutes
  5. Minutes of the 2020 Annual Meeting
  6. Election of Board of Director members. There are four seats available for three year terms. The following candidates have been identified thus far:
    • Faye Doria (UNO)
    • Matthew Robbins (OCIN)
    • Ellen Stefaniak (CVOC)
    • Gale Teschendorf (CAOC)
    • NOTE: Bios for Candidates are included further down this page.
  7. Financial Report
  8. President’s Report
  9. Proposals from member clubs, none received
  10. Questions from the membership (time permitting)
  11. Awards Presentation
    1. Certificates of Appreciation
    2. President’s Awards
    3. Golden Service Awards
    4. Silva Award

DOC version of Agenda


Candidate Bios

Faye Doria (UNO)

I found orienteering in my mid-40’s – and fell in love with it. I spent several years trying to learn on
orange before finally graduating to green. Then it took me more years to master that, just as my body started falling apart. I mostly competed with UNO (Up North Orienteers) and NEOC (New England Orienteering Club), but occasionally found a meet elsewhere.

In the meantime, I found lots of other ways to contribute to the sport – learning a little about course
setting, being meet director for both local and A meets, being registrar for national and North American championships, and teaching lots of beginners at local meets. I was Numero Uno of UNO until I moved from New Hampshire to Nevada late in 2019. Now I’m literally in the desert, and far from any orienteering clubs. I occasionally go 4-6 hours to meets with LAOC or GPHXO, which become weekend trips. So the opening on the OUSA Board appeals to me on several levels.

Most of my working life was spent in financial issues. I retired in 2019 from 30 years as a personal
financial planner. I spent many years before that doing tax planning and preparation. There was 3-4
years doing all of the financial work (payroll, accounts payable and receivable, Medicare audit) for a
non-profit health care entity which was owned by two different hospitals. I was also a town treasurer for 2 years working with a budget of about $4 million. I took them from a manual ledger to a computerized accounting system in that time. Towns in NH run largely on borrowed money so I also had to monitor cash flow and borrow as needed to keep money in the bank. And I played a major role in developing and maintaining the budget.

I ran my own financial planning business for about 25 years, with all the accompanying headaches ofcash flow, budgeting, pricing, etc. And I’ve been treasurer of nearly every club I’ve ever belonged to – from golf leagues to hiking clubs to professional organizations. Now that I’m retired, I have plenty of time to devote to OUSA. I think I could be very helpful in taking the financial systems their final steps so they work for everyone involved.

I admit my orienteering experience is largely localized with a small rural club. But close ties to NEOC
also let me see the differences with a larger urban base. My focus has always been on trying to expand the recreational base. That means supporting smaller clubs with turn-key solutions and templates they can follow. I understand there is a subset of elite orienteers, but I feel that growing our base will allow us to attract those elite athletes.

I also think it is important to attract younger members who can shoulder the load currently borne by our aging members. Partly that requires finding younger talent. But it also means the more experienced members need to see the advantages of shifting responsibilities to others, even if it changes the way things are done. There is much collective wisdom to be captured to pass on to the next generation.

I love the challenges of orienteering. And I feel it is a good time to take on new challenges as a board
member. I would be honored to be a member of the board and help to develop the sport in any way
that suits my talents and interests.

Matthew Robbins (OCIN)

I’ve been an orienteer since I was a freshman at Rose-Hulman in 1984. I currently run SportIdent download for most of OCIN’s events, including all but one OCIN A-Meet since 2011 or so. That’s at least 12 A-meets and 36 national event download days. I was also OCIN’s President from approximately 2010 through June 2018. My first A-meet course setting was the 2005 US Team Trials Long, and I’ve set A-meet courses for Sprint, Middle, Classic, Long, Ultralong, and three US Relay Championships, two of which were forked (gaffled). My favorite discipline is Night O’. I’ve organized and taught a course setting clinic with Mike Minium and two other OCIN members. I help with OCIN’s junior TROL league as much as I can. I consider myself OCIN’s “Volunteer Number 2” because I’m running download at most OCIN events, over 30 per year, and because Mike Minium is clearly OCIN’s “Volunteer Number 1”.

My goals for the direction of Orienteering USA are:

  1. to increase the number of orienteers in the US
  2. to increase the number of juniors, scouts, cadets, parents, and adult leaders competing at orienteering
  3. to increase the number of people organizing and volunteering at orienteering events throughout the US
  4. to improve the knowledge base of the orienteering community in the technical side of orienteering: mapping, processing lidar and aerial photos, course setting, download timing (such as SportIdent), and the combination of course setting and download for gaffled events such as relays, billygoats, and mass-start ultrasprints
  5. to associate orienteering as a STEM activity because of the broad range of technical skills needed to compete in and organize events
  6. to grow MTBO and other alternate forms of orienteering, including building ties to the adventure race community

My main volunteer work in orienteering is creating basemaps from lidar and aerial photos. I’ve processed orienteering basemaps in at least 20 states, including Alaska and Hawaii. I’ve given several 3-hour lidar training sessions on A-meet weekends. I’m committed to helping motivated individuals build clubs around good maps. I have had some success asking government agencies to release lidar data. I submitted an Open Records Request to the State of Kentucky that released all of their lidar data on a publicly-accessible FTP website.

I am a licensed radio amateur, and use those skills primarily for radio orienteering, or ARDF, Amateur Radio Direction Finding. I’ve competed in (or been on the organizing team of) the US ARDF Championships every year since 2003, and I competed for the USA at the 2004 World ARDF Championships in Brno, Czech Republic. The ARDF community recently got BSA to amend the requirements for the Radio Merit Badge to include ARDF options, and we at OCIN are trying to include ARDF in our BSA orienteering events, and to help make merit badge counselors aware of ARDF and the new requirements.

In college, I was a member of the Rose Orienteering Club (at Rose-Hulman) for four years. It withered away soon after I graduated. We hadn’t done enough to build the club and create a critical mass of volunteers. We had some core club members who would decide if we were going to the US Championships or the Intercollegiate Championships, and they did the work to organize it for the rest of us. Later I realized I was just along for the ride. There are people in orienteering who inherently understand it takes more than just people showing up. I had to learn that the hard way. It takes people to organize and make events happen. I want to help people understand that, and to help remove barriers to entry for volunteers of all kinds.

Ellen Stefaniak (CVOC)

I am finishing up a 3-year term on the OUSA Board of Directors, including two years as the OUSA Secretary, and am interested in serving for another term.  I’ve been a member of OUSA since 2012 though I have been orienteering since first trying it at BAOC meets in 2003 & 2004.  In 2011, I was one of the five founding members of the Central Virginia Orienteering Club (CVOC).  I have served as club Secretary since then and handle most of the web presence, publicity, and records for the club.  I also assist with most of our meets through such activities as teaching beginners, timing, control pickup, occasional course design & setting, and other tasks as needed.

I feel that my experience with a smaller club within OUSA brings a different perspective from that of the larger and more established clubs. The needs of these smaller clubs are different and how we can support them varies.

In my professional life, I’ve held a variety of project management, process improvement, and business analysis positions in information technology at major corporations where I have developed skills that transfer well to service on the Board.  I enjoy planning and can see the greater vision as well as all of the details that go into making a project or initiative succeed.  I’m detail-oriented and enjoy working with teams and working toward shared goals.

I’ve learned a lot about the functioning of our organization during my time on the Board, which I feel can continue to make me an effective member. 

Gale Teschendorf (CAOC)

  • Experienced board member.
  • Earned a BBA with a minor in accounting.
  • Interested in growing local clubs and making USA orienteering much more competitive.
  • Have orienteered in most states & outside of the USA.
  • Have been an OUSA member since sometime in the last century.

2021 Wilson Community Growth Grant(s)

Congratulations to Grizzly Orienteering and the San Benito High School NJROTC Unit who have been chosen as the recipients of the 2021 Wilson Community Growth Grant. Winners of this year’s grants receive $1,000 to deepen youth participation through purchase of equipment and expanded event programming. While the impact of Covid-19 on the Orienteering community was significant, it only emboldened these organizations to focus on safe and inclusive ways to introduce new participants to the sport.

Photo Credit: Boris Granovskiy & Timothy Wilson

Grizzly Orienteering’s Allison Brown is a native of Missoula, and her husband Boris Granovskiy is a former member of the U.S. Orienteering Team. Their thorough approach to building from the youth upwards promises for a healthy future to their club.

San Benito High School is located near the southeastern-most tip of Texas. The area’s flatness and lack of vegetation offer a creative challenge when it comes to designing courses and hosting events. Chief Timothy Wilson brings his experience with navy ship navigation as a way to highlight the transferability of concrete skills as well as intangible skills like leadership, resilience and perseverance that Orienteering requires.

Read the full Press Release for more information. Applications for the 2022 Wilson Community Growth Grant as well as the 2022 Wilson Character Through Competition Award will be available later in the fall of 2021.

OUSA Updates Policy for SARS-CoV-2 mitigation

At its regular board meeting on June 21st, the Orienteering USA Board of Directors voted to update the SARS-CoV-2 policy to reflect changing conditions and what we know about how the virus is transmitted. Many of the previous ‘requirements’ are now reduced to ‘recommendations’ and others are eliminated entirely in the new streamlined version. There are, however, still some items that remain requirements for NRE events and are strongly suggested for organizers holding local events as well.

The executive summary reads:

  • Participants must stay home when sick.
  • Event-related activities should take place outside to the maximum extent possible.
  • Participants and event volunteers should practice social distancing: participants should maintain at least 2m distance from volunteers who are at stations (i.e. registration, start, finish, download etc.)
  • Organizers should structure the event and schedule to spread participants out in time and space.

The full text of the revised policy can be found in the OUSA Library under Library>Administrative>Policies or directly at this link.

Accommodating Youth Orienteers at National Ranking Events

A note from OUSA’s VP for Youth Initiatives:

As we return to holding National Ranking Events (NRE), I encourage everyone to think about kids who may have moved up a course – or two – during our hiatus from NREs. 12-year-olds who last competed on White in the fall of 2019 are now in their last six months of eligibility to run Yellow. Ditto for 14-year-olds moving from Yellow to Orange. These are big jumps in normal years, but made even bigger as most kids have not recently orienteered in major events with heightened attention to rules.

As we return to orienteering, we should be sure we are providing an experience for our youth aligned with the principles of the Orienteering Development Model, which emphasizes fun and play over a strict focus on competition for our youngest orienteers.

Fortunately, our Rules of Competition provide opportunities for us to support young orienteers in being able to focus on their races, be successful, and build confidence.  About five years ago, OUSA adopted several key rule changes that are even more important during this time of transition.  The rules are shown below in bold text.

A.28.5 Except at Orienteering USA Junior Nationals, White and Yellow courses may have open start times to allow parents to coordinate schedules with their children’s starts.*

Board rationale: This is a change from pre-scheduled start times intended to make events more family-friendly by allowing parents who are at events with their children to both compete, and still shadow their children. Clubs are encouraged to have the White/Yellow start as close to the parents’ start as possible, to accept parental requests for start times for their children, or to allow children to start at any time during the start window,  and to simplify the start procedures as much as possible. 

A.28.6 The competitors take their competition maps at the starting time at the start location or after the starting time at the map issue point. Except at Orienteering USA Junior Nationals, competitors on the White and Yellow courses may be given the map prior to their starting time, provided that the conditions are consistent for all such competitors.*

Board rationale: Allowing some time with the map before the clock starts allows them some time to plan a course.  Event organizers may also allow parents/coaches to review the course with their children during this brief window to help them to plan for legs and review where problems may occur. This will help to ensure that children are successful on their courses, having fun, and progressing in their orienteering skills. If white and yellow competitors will be allowed to review their maps with a more experienced orienteer prior to their start time, this should be communicated to all competitors in advance to allow for proper planning by the competitor and their parents/coaches/experienced orienteer.

*The open start time and map preview does not apply to Junior Nationals, because Junior Nationals does not offer age-class awards.

Because kids are behind on their NRE experiences, we encourage organizers to be more liberal with their implementation of these rules for 2021 and into 2022

Putting my club volunteer hat on, here’s how we are planning to implement these ideas at NEOC’s New England Championship NRE to be held in Massachusetts this fall. Other clubs may choose different approaches.

  1. Open starts for kids 14 and under and their parents. Start/Finish close to parking.
  2. Single start, with an opportunity for kids on White / Yellow to review the map with a parent or volunteer before starting when they are ready. It’s also an opportunity to talk about punching, checking control codes, staying inside the bounded areas on the map, and what to do if you’re feeling mis-oriented.
  3. Being vigilant about course difficulty. We should design White, Yellow and Orange courses on the easier side within the competitive rules.
  4. Making sure White courses have handrails for every leg. We often assume that if a control is visible from the previous control, then it is “easy enough.” However, the part of the brain that processes spatial arrangement of multiple point features isn’t fully-developed until age 14. Where streamers are necessary, we plan to string them on the ground as a linear feature.

Want to learn more about the Orienteering Development Model and our approach to introducing kids to the sport? Try the Orienteering Development Model for OUSA Members on the Education Portal, with a focus on stages 1, 2 and 3. Each lesson has a short video and the text of the relevant ODM stage. The course is free for OUSA members.

Do you have more ideas? Email vpyouth@nullorienteeringusa.org.  See you in the woods!

Tori Campbell
OUSA VP for Youth Initiatives

Photo credit: Dave Yee Photography

2021 JWOC Team Announced

The JWOC Selection Committee (Erin Schirm, Anton Salmenkylä and Jon Torrance) is pleased to announce the 2021 US Team selected to compete at the Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) to be held September 5-10 in Gebze, Kocaeli, Turkey, about 50km from Istanbul.

From Left to Right:

  • Jessica Colleran, COC, JNT
  • Ben Brady, COC, JDT
  • David Runde, MNOC and KristiansandOK (NOR), JNT
  • Anthony Riley, DVOA, JNT
  • Diana Aleksieva, QOC, JNT

Go Team USA!!

Accompanying the team as JWOC coaches will be Anton Salmenkylä, JNT Coach and National Team member, and Tyra Christopherson, National Team member.

Update: Tahoe 2021

Over the weekend, the Tahoe 2021 event hosted by the Bay Area Orienteering Club (BAOC) was sanctioned and approved by both the Sanctioning Committee and Orienteering USA Executive Committee and the event is now officially the 2021 Orienteering USA Nationals.

Venue permits for the middle and long events are still pending, which has become a routine situation in the age of COVID-19 as many agencies are not issuing permits until very close to the event dates. However, permit approval is anticipated and registration is currently open at EventReg. Please be sure to review the event page prior to registering as there are some event specific notes to be aware of.

Tahoe 2021 Registration Opens

In the schedule void left by the California Orienteering Festival’s postponement to 2023, the Bay Area Orienteering Club (BAOC) has assembled the Tahoe 2021 series of events.

The event program will include the 2021 US Orienteering Championships August 6-9 (pending sanctioning approval) with three NRE events: Sprint, Middle & Long plus a non-NRE Club Championship Relay. Also included in the program will be the 2021 North American Rogaining Championships to be held the following weekend on August 14-15 featuring a 24 Hour Championship event and a 4-Hour recreational event.

More information on the event can be found on the BAOC website.

Registration for all events is now open on EventReg.