Attendance
Ruth Bromer
Mihai Ibanescu
Ed C.
Vladimir Stemkovski
Ian Shields
David Waller
Joseph Huberman
Ken. Hanson
Kelly Sears
Patrick Sears
Harold Meder
Matt Craig
Election of officers (3 year terms)
Vladimir 2017
Ian 2018
Ken. 2018
Joseph 2016
Mihai 2016
Ken. and Ian were nominated for the next term and were accepted by unanimous consent.
There is no set term length for President and there was no discussion so Joseph will continue as President.
Treasurer’s Report
Ruth provided the Treasurer’s Report. We have $39700 in savings, $2400 in checking. Our cash on hand has been slowly increasing from $35000 last year. We have 25 fingersticks on stock to personalize and sell as needed.
Reviewing the fee structure we found no reason to change anything except for events at Birkhead,
for which we left open the option to use a week long membership for Open events, should this be necessary to address Birkhead’s rules regarding charging admission. We need to make sure all the entry forms on the web reflect the newest form.
2016 Schedule
Vladimir moderated the schedule development and we produced a full schedule of 26 events which is posted on our Schedule page.
We changed the event type terminology to better reflect how it is being used.
“Open” event replaces the title for “Regular” event
“Member” event replaces the title for “Advanced” event
“Informal” practice is added as a new category. These will just be times when we get together to practice without actually setting up equipment and hosting an event. We will have to update our web site pages to reflect the new nomenclature.
We are also going to try and offer an advanced class for people moving from Yellow to Orange at the same time as the beginner class at some of the Open events.
Mapping projects
Ian and Dave moderated the Mapping Projects and Mapping Technologies discussions.
BOK will purchase the very good Carolina North Map that Dave produced for $5oo/ sq km, and Dave will maintain our relationship with the Forest Manager. Dave will approach the Forest Manager to see if he is agreeable to post the map on the information boards at the park. There is adequate parking at the park for an Open Event. The school next to the park is on the map and we may be able to offer them the map to teach orienteering, or possibly have a sprint on the school grounds.
Eno River (we currently have LIDAR data and will be using it on Dave’s Nov 8th event). He has about 40 hours invested in the map so far. A final decision on whether to finish mapping the park will be made after the November 8th event. The park has steep terrain and consists of two major hills. There isn’t enough parking for an Open event.
Jordan Lake Educational State Forest (NC Forest Service) – ca. 360 acres + Jordan Lake SRA, Parker’s Creek Section (NC State Parks) ca. 920 acres. These areas are flat and have few features, so they will have a low priority for mapping.
New Hope Boat Ramp (Near Burlington) – 414 acres was identified by Josef and Dave and will be evaluated.
Little River Regional Park (Durham Orange Co. Parks) ca. 610 acres
Dave will talk to park managers to see if we can use it off trail.
Cedar Rock (Near Burlington) Josef has started to map the park. Dave will talk to park managers.
Camp Durant and Camp Reeves scout camps. Ian is working on that map and will discuss it with the Scouts. We can host scout events to relieve pressure on Umstead by moving scout events there.
Mapping Technologies
Ian has been learning about mapping, and has purchased OCAD 11 for his personal use and has been geo-locating our maps and making tiffs so they can be used on smartphones for setting controls.
Ian purchased and set up our new ASUS Computer to read the download box. You need to select the correct com port in the software. Dave documented the instructions to download results from the download box and posted it on the home screen of the computer.
OCAD is very expensive and does not offer a club license, so we are leaning toward standardizing on using Open Orienteering Mapper which is a free open source program to replace our outdated OCAD 7. A Mapping committee was created, to make these decisions, and is open to any members that are interested in mapping. Open Orienteering Mapper works on Android, Apple, and Windows platforms exports to OCAD 8 format (but not OCAD 7), and is compatible with Condes.
NC has LiDAR data for the state, the Eastern areas are higher resolution than other parts of the state. LiDAR provides a good start for a basemap but needs interpretation to be useful. We could interpret the data ourselves with open source software, but the learning curve is pretty steep to get really good information. A graduate student at State has offered to help us learn how to process raw LiDAR data. Dave and Ian are heading the Mapping Committee and will keep us informed on the meetings for learning LiDAR and the mapping software.
Commercial event map printing. Kinko’s printing is about $.60 per map, and we can afford the cost. The Kinko in Cary on Highhouse and Cary Parkway has experience with printing our maps. It is important to provide them with a PDF and make sure that they print it at 100% and do not select “Fit to page”.
OUSA Terminology Changes
OUSA is no longer using “A” Meets and now calls them “National Meets”. They also want to no longer designate courses by colors and call them Beginner,
Intermediate, Advanced, and Expert [length]. We have been using these terms to describe our colors and decided to continue with the color terminology.
Thanks to Mihai who took notes during the meeting and updated the calendar in real time as we developed the schedule.