Attendance
Joseph H. Ruth B. Lina L. David W. Ian S. Imre P. Ken. H. Vladimir S. Tatyana S. Joseph M. Debra R. Jeff R. Patrick S. Kelly S. Mihai I. Harold M.
Calendar
A full slate of 27 events were added to the BOK Google calendar. (If you use Google Calendar you can search for “Backwoods Orienteering Klub” and add it so the BOK events will show up on your calendar display)
Election of officers
Mihai and Joseph were re-elected for a 3-year term. The current officers and term completions are:
Vladimir 2017
Ian 2018
Ken. 2018
Joseph 2019
Mihai 2019
Mapping
David will continue mapping Eno River as well as a few more small maps (sprint type). Leigh Farms is an example, but permissions will need to be arranged from the landowners.
Ian suggested the Boy Scout camps: Camp Durant and/or Camp Reeves and/or Camp Raven Knob. We would pay for the mapping with an arrangement that we could have one or two events a year on the map.
Financial Report & Fees
We have ample funds to support our mapping program. One of our important sources of income is selling the full size waterproof Umstead Map. We still have many in stock so we need to update the trails (any volunteers) so we can overprint the new trails on the map.
We had a gross income of about $5000. We spent about $2000 on mapping, $1500 on insurance and OUSA fees, $750 on park, map printing and other expenses, netting an annual income of about $750 for this year.
There was a proposal not to increase the fees. We discussed the costs of the insurance for members attending our events to see if our membership fees were adequate. A quick estimate indicated that we are not favoring members’ fees by subsidizing them from non-members. We decided to maintain our current fee structure.
Radio-O
Two events are scheduled, and a couple more will probably be added. BOK has 2 receivers, which hopefully will not be enough. When needed, BOK will rent additional receivers for $5 each and not pass on the cost so potential participants won’t be discouraged from trying Radio-O. We will revisit this policy if Radio-O becomes popular. We will also assist participants in purchasing their own receivers.
Pre-registration process
Ian described his attempt to simplify individual and group pre-registration. He implemented a PDF form that can be saved so competitors can easily bring a completed registration form to an event. He also produced a spreadsheet for group pre-registration which had mixed success. He will continue to work with both the groups and event directors to improve the spreadsheet.
OUSA relationship
We had a short discussion about the role of OUSA and how our only benefit is our Insurance (which is critical for us to use our venues).
We are going to propose to OUSA that they provide a web and smartphone app to handle local event registration and entry fees as well as producing reports for the event directors and taking the OUSA insurance fees. This could save work for event directors and club treasurers, bring more traffic to the OUSA website, and make OUSA more relevant to clubs and participants.
New signs
We approved purchasing new signs from Brian T. – $65 for 10 signs and extra arrows. We are concerned that the wire “H” supports typically used for the corrugated plastic signs may not be able to survive the repeated use and rough handling during transport, so we would like to investigate using wire a frame design that would protect the edges of the signs.
Boost our Social Media presence
Our social media goal is not grow the number of participants, but to get more of our current members and participants interested in helping to set and run events. Mihai will email Roman to request admin permissions to Debra so she can work on our Facebook page.
Better define event types and participation policies.
To better align our policies with our practice we will now allow members of any Orienteering Club to attend our Members events if they have competed successfully on a course at or above the level being offered at the event. Members of other clubs will pay the regular BOK entry fee. (BOK members will not pay entry fees.)
We are also expanding the nomenclature for our event titles to include the difficulty of the courses at the events.
- Open Everyone – Everyone is welcome, all levels (beginner – expert) and a beginners class.
- Open Advanced – Everyone at Orange or above is welcome
- Open Expert – Everyone at Brown or above is welcome
- Members Advanced – Members of any Orienteering Club at Orange or above is welcome
- Members Expert – Members of any Orienteering Club at Brown or above is welcome
In addition, the type of event will be added to the title if it isn’t a standard type event. An example would be: Open Advanced Sprint, or Members Expert Relay.
As usual Event Directors will choose the type of event and can make exceptions to these conventions at their discretion. Typically we allow military personal to attend any event. They are sometimes not up to the technical difficulty, but in our experience they are back on time.