Draft Minutes
Western Pennsylvania
Orienteering Club
10 November 2019
Memberships represented: Battista (2), Fenn, Fisher, Jarvis, Knecht, Livingston (2), Logan, Opila, Puda, Shank, Stiles, Strat, Wolfe.
1.
Minutes
from 11 November 2018 were
approved.
· Kevin Fisher was nominated and elected by acclamation to a two year term.
· Sherry Shank and Ryan Knecht were both nominated for the other non-officer position. A vote by ballot was conducted by the membership present. Dave Battista and Joe Logan counted the votes. The results were Sherry Shank with 8 votes and Ryan Knecht with 7 votes. Sherry was elected to a two year term.
· Eight regular orienteering events were held, plus a Ski-O at Laurel Ridge, Raccoongaine at Raccoon Creek, and a training event at Deer Lakes.
· Eighteen workshops were held by club members, mostly for specific organizations. Four workshops were in conjunction with World Orienteering Day. Only three workshops were open to the public.
·
One
new demonstration map (Arsenal Park) was
produced. Many WPOC
competition maps got
minor updates.
4.
Thank
You
· WPOC thanked the 9 Meet Directors, 5 Vetters, 5 Workshop Presenters, and all the Meet Volunteers for their many hours of service to the club.
· Special Thanks also go to Volunteer Coordinator Ryan Knecht, Membership Coordinator Sherry Shank, Event Coordinator Giuseppina Mecchia, Social Media/Photographer Alexis Rzewski, Marketing Manager Kevin Fisher, and Equipment Repairman Ryan Knecht for their time and efforts.
5.
Report
on Board Actions in 2019
· WPOC Board purchased batteries and o-rings to replace batteries in control boxes as well as purchased a few spare control boxes.
· The Board also arranged to purchase materials for and assemble control stands, bringing the total available to 55.
· The Board agreed to acquire orienteering exercises from Go 4 Orienteering who created the free Pac Man Challenge exercise.
· The Board began paying to advertise our local events to a wider audience on Facebook.
· The Board continued to make one map free for groups that contain at least one minor at our local public events.
6.
Financial
Report
· A financial report was made for WPOC through November 2019. A complete report for 2019 will be sent to the membership in January 2020 after the fiscal year is completed. The report shows the club to be financially stable.
· A brief explanation showed that although we didn’t lose as much money this year by allowing a free map for groups that contain at least one minor, it was likely because we had fewer groups overall participate in local meets- likely due to the weather.
· It was also noted that memberships with WPOC continue to remain around 50 with the majority of those members showing up to only one meet or fewer per year and never volunteering at an event.
· WPOC discussed the goals for next year to include 10 or more local events with one being training oriented, one for ski-o, and one for night-o. Brief discussion was had regarding if there would be any benefit on increasing or decreasing the quantity of meets that WPOC holds each year.
· Raccoongaine will be using the two-day format that was started this year. It will be held on March 28-29.
· WPOC will continue to provide workshops and promotional events for orienteering.
· WPOC wants to continue to increase club membership and retention of new members. Data shows that often times, a new member will not show up in the entire following year.
· WPOC wants to increase volunteerism in the upcoming year. Discussion was had regarding how other clubs utilize volunteers to run their local meets. We discussed asking for fewer volunteers per meet, however, those persons would have to double up on jobs or make participants wait in line for longer times. We discussed having a few volunteers at each meet- none of whom would actually run a course, but at other meets, they wouldn’t have to volunteer which would allow them to participate. Ideally, we would like for volunteers to only have to volunteer a maximum of every other meet.
8.
New
Business.
· A call for meet directors for 2020. Utilizing parks closer to Pittsburgh will increase overall participants, however, meet directors will need to choose these parks for their meets.
· Discussion on continued advertising through Facebook. A chart was given to the membership which shows results from our Facebook advertising. There were only a few people who RSVP’d to events through these efforts. It was decided to increase the amount of money we spend on advertising and possibly adjust the geographic center of the target area to not be directly on each meet location. It was also suggested that the club continue to create the events on Facebook early in the year, but then have some posts in each event in the week or two leading up to it. We will re-evaluate this approach either at the end of the spring season or at the next annual meeting.
· Pac-Man Challenge- no discussion needed. Just need to take action to purchase the other Go 4 Orienteering activities and prepare some of them for use in the coming year.
· A possible mini-rogaine was suggested for North Park in the fall of 2020. Discussion on the benefits of a mass start vs. score-o with a starting time range format seemed in favor of a mass start score-o. Discussion regarding if the score-o should be suitable for all levels or if it would be better to provide a white/yellow course for inexperienced participants seemed in favor of having an easy course which would not open up until after a mass start of the mini-rogaine participants. The Board will discuss with the meet director and attempt to make this event happen.
· Discussion on our Annual Meeting location seemed in favor of switching back and forth between North Park and Pine Ridge Park, both of which have space for our gathering. However, if we end up holding a mini-rogaine at North Park in the fall, our annual meeting would have to be at Pine Ridge.