WPOC accomplished a great deal in 2009 and has big plans for the future.  First, the club became recognized as a non-profit corporation in the state of Pennsylvania.  Technically, this was completed at the end of 2008; but the required advertisements of the status weren't finished until March 2009.  Also at the beginning of 2009, we applied to the IRS to become a 501(c)(3) organization.  This status allows us to apply for grants, to receive discounts on the use of some facilities, and to apply for tax exempt status from the state; it also makes any contributions to WPOC tax deductible for the giver.  I had thought that, at best, we would be granted provisional 501(c)(3) status; however, the IRS accepted our history of activities as sufficient and awarded us full 501(c)(3) status retroactive to our non-profit incorporation date.

At the beginning of 2009, NEOOC (the Northeast Ohio club) asked our board to consider putting on an A-meet in association with the national convention of the USOF which will be in Akron, Ohio in 2011.  An A-meet is a nationally advertised, very high quality, two-day orienteering event.  Such events typically attract a couple of hundred orienteers, usually including some of the best in the country, as well as a few from other countries; however, the event is still open to local participation.  We solicited and received the promise of help from a group of orienteers from DVOA (the Delaware Valley club) and submitted a propoasl for the A-meet to the national sanctioning board.  The event was approved last July; so, Keystone Capers (what we named it) will take place on June 25-26, 2011 and will  use Keystone State Park and Deer Lakes Park as the venues.  We are going to need your help to pull this off.  You will be receiving more about the A-meet and how you can help in the coming year.

WPOC sponsored eleven orienteering meets this past year, the most ever.  We also had the highest number of starts ever, 404.  The  associated page  shows information about each of these meets, including location, meet director, the type of courses offered, the number of starts and the total number of participants.  The courses are mostly single letter abbreviations:  W (white), Y (yellow), O (orange), B (brown), G (green), R (red), S (score), L (line), N (night), Street, and Scramble.  This was the first year we tried Brown (an expert level course that is shorter than Green), Line (follow the line on the map with controls not marked), and Scramble (a cross between score and cross country).  All these new courses seemed successful;  so you will see them again in the future.

WPOC members also conducted a number of presentations or workshops to educate a variety of people about orienteering.  Most of these included an orienteering exercise of some type.  Following is a list of these events; if I've missed any, let me know and I'll update the report).

Jennifer Livingston's sessions:
June 8  Taught Junior Girl Scout troop 10014 orienteering and did a small white course at their overnight camp (about 18 girls and a few adults).  They earned the Finding Your Way Junior Badge.
June 9  Taught Cub Scout Pack 495 and their families orienteering and did a small white course at their overnight camp (about 20 kids with parents)- also worked on letterboxing.  They earned the Map and Compass Belt Loop (or the Pin if they had previously earned the Belt Loop).
June 15 through 29  Set up and monitored  "In-library mini- orienteering course" for elementary school kids.
July 31  Taught Orienteering skills and conducted 60 minute score course for students at Westomoreland County Conservation School at Keystone Park (about 25 teens and a few adults).
August 11 Taught  orienteering to multiple girl scout troops from Natrona Heights at Deer Lakes Park (about 25 girls and a few adults) and set up our original white course for them to try in small groups.  They earned either the Finding Your Way Junior Badge or the Orienteering Interest Project Patch for older girls.

Dave Battista's sessions:
Spring  Held an adventure race for high school students that involved a foot - o section, followed by a marked mt. bike loop and a final stage that involved a playground challenge.  We had over 50 students (in teams of two) at Richland Park, in Bakerstown.
April   Did a training and score course for grassroots adventure racers at Deer Lakes.
Fall   Did a 60-minute score meet for high school students (about 60 kids) at North Park.

Jim Wolfe's sessions
April 2  Made PowerPoint presentation and had a discussion with a roundtable meeting of Boy Scout leaders (about 20) in Indiana regarding orienteering as a sport.  Invited those who hadn't been to any of our events to any upcoming ones.
July 9  Taught basics of map and compass to about twenty 4th, 5th, and 6th graders and their parents as part of Stackhouse Park summer program.  Then, had them do a white-level score course.
July 18  Taught basics of orienteering to six participants at a Keystone State Park program.  Then, had them do a white-level score course.

A variety of WPOC club members have also been involved in promoting the sport of orienteering in western PA.  Sometimes this effort has been at a specific event; other times it has been on an on-going basis.
April 25  Bryon Roland and Jim Wolfe handed out pamphlets and maps and discussed orienteering with boy scouts and leaders at a camporee at Yellow Creek State Park.
May 16  Stephanie Martineau, Sandy Augustine, Dave Battista, Tom Knapp, and Tom Kaveney represented WPOC at the Venture Outdoors Festival, talking to many prospective orienteers and handing out literature.
June 27  Jennifer Livingston operated an information table at the Times Senior Fair in Beaver (for adults 50+)- gave demonstrations with compass, handed out pamphlets.
November 21  Alexis Rzewski and Jim Wolfe handed out literature and talked to customers at the opening of the new REI store.
On-going  Alexis Rzewski has been distributing announcements of WPOC meets at the branches of the Allegheny County Library and online at Walls Are Bad.  He also set up a Facebook page and includes lots of pictures and commentary on orienteering at his blog.  Joe Logan has been posting meet notices at LL Bean in the Ross Park Mall.  Mary Roland cranks out our newsletter three times a year; it gets posted online for everyone to read.  Jim Wolfe puts announcements of our meets in Indiana, Cambria and Westmoreland counties in the Johnstown Tribune Democrat; he also got announcements of the Allegheny county meets into the Allegheny County Park Web pages.  The Indiana County Tourist Bureau, to which WPOC belongs, sends e-mail blasts including our meets, posts notices of our meets on its Web pages, and distributes our pamphlets throughout Indiana  county.

The club developed two new maps in 2009, for Keystone State Park and Camp Twin Echo.  We also revised the Stackhouse Park map to have standard contours and revised and extended the Camp Seph map, adding another kilometer of shoreline.

Finally, the  associated page  shows our membership at the end of 2009.  Our membership is about the same as last year; perhaps we have stabilized.  Financially, we are doing OK; we are back in the black this year - last year we lost a bit because of the expenses of incorporation and getting 501(c)(3) status; most of those were paid last year.  The details are shown in the table below.

This report (except for the financial part) is also available at the  www.wpoc.org  Web site.