It’s almost time for Clubs and Supporting Members to recharter with Orienteering USA!
OUSA Clubs (regular and associate) and Supporting Members can start the recharter process in January 2025. More information to come in January.
Are you interested in mapping? Already have some mapping experience and want to learn more?
Join us December 19th at 8:30 ET for the December O Forum on Mapping, presented by Jeff Teutsch of Navigation Sports! Jeff has over 10 years of experience in making orienteering maps, from basemap creation to the final product. His work includes everything from schoolyards to the giant wilderness area used in the North American Championships this summer. Through his orienteering venture Navigation Sports, Jeff has taught mapping skills to a multitude of other aspiring mappers.
This session is aimed towards those who want to get started with mapping or have just started their journey, but even the most experienced mappers will learn something new!
Learn from Jeff on December 19th at 8:30 ET on Google Meet.
As a volunteer run organization, Orienteering USA recognizes that many of our most important initiatives come from our membership. At meetings held during the Fall of 2023, the OUSA Board of Directors discussed ways to promote individuals and clubs to pursue ‘passion projects’ that further the sport at the local, regional and national level. The board has subsequently adopted a strategic focus to sponsor innovation and improve services in orienteering!
We are looking for projects you want to make happen, but don’t have the funding to support. Projects may be of any scope: local, regional, or even national. At the end of your project, we’ll ask you to report back on how it went, at least to the Board, and possibly to a broader audience (especially if your idea is really successful).
Some examples of ideas we’d like to see take off:
Interested? Fill out the Google Form by following this link:
Did you know that Orienteering USA has a long-term development model to describe the development of orienteers over their lifetimes? From that first spark of interest to becoming a senior mentor, the Orienteering Development Model (ODM) describes the evolution of orienteers as athletes and specialists in the sport.
First introduced in January 2020, the ODM is a living document that continues to evolve, and is an essential component of OUSA’s coaching curriculum. We are currently working to reflect the alignment of OUSA programs with the framework on our website. You can learn more about the ODM on the OUSA Education Portal. Do you have something to add to the resources for one of the ODM stages? Email vpyouth@nullorienteeringusa.org.
Earlier this year, due to the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, Orienteering USA waived the EventReg fees for local club use through the end of next year (2021). This gives clubs the opportunity to utilize the online system to streamline registration & administration at their local events to help maintain social distancing protocols while still holding regular events.
We realize that every club has slightly different procedures and protocols for holding their normal events and that adapting to the new online system is not always as seamless as it could be. The EventReg team is actively developing new functionality to ensure all clubs are able to utilize the system in a simple and effective manner.
We would like to get feedback from club officers, registrars and event directors on the features that would make it most expedient for you to adopt the system at the local level. Please take a moment to fill out our Feature Request Form with your feedback so that we may prioritize our ongoing behind the scenes work to make the system work for you. This form can also be used to report bugs with the system if you come across them.
You can also check out the current list of enhancements currently in the development queue. If you think something on this list should be a higher priority, let us know!! Feedback from you is the best resource we have to make sure the system works for everyone.
Orienteering USA is pleased to announce new technology capabilities available for its member clubs. Due to licensing stipulations, these capabilities are only available for certified nonprofit (501(c)3) clubs. All of these capabilities are provided for free. Orienteering USA will assist with setup of the capability.
This option can save you from purchasing your own domain or add a second address to your existing domain. Add another URL or switch URLs for your club’s webpage. A subdomain is the portion prior to the ‘.orienteeringusa.org’ portion of the URL. Some clubs currently use the ‘.us.orienteering.org’ URL for this same. Shifting to .orienteeringusa.org would keep a better continuity of websites. (e.g. eventreg.orienteeringusa.org, but ‘eventreg’ would be your club’s acronym)
A Google team drive is a shared space that allows teams (organizations) to store documents and easily search for them. It also allows all members to access the drive. This drive belongs to the entire team instead of an individual as in the personal drive.
Benefits
Limits
A Google group is a group of email addresses that can be used for a specific purpose. A google group can be configured to act as a group inbox (e.g. where a question is sent to an email address and is then distributed to multiple people instead of one) or as a contact list (e.g. an announcement is sent by a club representative to all those in the club wishing to receive those announcements.
Benefits
Limits
Send an email to Tech-committee@nullorienteeringusa.org containing:
For a subdomain:
For the Team drive:
For the Google Group:
Review Period through January 31, 2020
The Youth Development Working Group has completed its initial draft of the Orienteering Development Model (ODM), a long-term athlete development model based on the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s American Development Model.
The framework document is available for community review and comment here (Google Doc). Please provide feedback either through comments in the document, or by emailing vpyouth@nullorienteeringusa.org by January 31, 2020.
We recognize we are not effective graphic designers. If you can do better with either (or both) of our graphics, please do so. The first is embedded in the framework document; the second is available for download here. (Don’t try to open it in Google; it is a PowerPoint file and can only be edited in PowerPoint, although you are also welcome to recreate it in a different file format.) If you have suggestions to share or problems with download, email vpyouth@nullorienteeringusa.org.
Thanks in advance for your input and suggestions!
Tori Campbell
VP, Youth Initiatives
Orienteering USA
