WPOC had another busy year with a lot of my time devoted to dealing with Keystone Capers (the national orienteering event we will be hosting June 25-26, 2011).  Last year, I explained that Keystone Capers would be held in conjunction with the USOF convention in Ohio.  Unfortunately, the convention effort in Ohio fell apart; however, Keystone Capers is totally on track for June.  All of the following activities were accomplished during 2010 for the Keystone Capers event:  1) Course setters have designed the courses which have been reviewed by the course consultant - one day's courses are now finalized, the other day's courses are being adjusted a bit.  2) A Web site has been set up for the event -  www.wpoc.org/capers/   3) An online registration system has been set up - after a few more entries, the system will be made accessible.  4) People have been lined up to handle the tasks that require significant expertise:  registrar, start chief, and e-punch and results manager.  5) The nature of the awards has been decided.  6) A Saturday-night dinner has been set up for participants.  7) A block of hotel rooms has been set aside.  8) A PayPal account has been set up to make registration payment easier.  9) Land owner permissions have been acquired and insurance coverage has been arranged.  10) The maps of the parks (Deer Lakes Park and Keystone State Park) have been revised to meet international mapping standards with added details.  11) Arrangements for printing the maps have been set up.  12) A volunteer sheet has been set up so that WPOC members can volunteer to help with some of the event tasks yet to be done - www.wpoc.org/capers/tasklist.htm

WPOC sponsored nine events during 2010.  This was fewer than last year to allow for more time to be devoted to preparing for Keystone Capers.  Still, we had 336 starts at these events,  with 677 participants.  We did offer our first mini-rogaine event at Raccoon Creek; it turned out to be a big success.  We also offered a strictly bike event in the form of a scavenger hunt in Pittsburgh - this one suffered because of a lot of competition with other bike events at the same time.  We also continued two course types we introduced last year:  Scramble and Line.  The  associated page  shows information about each of these meets, including location, meet director,  type of courses offered, number of starts, total number of participants and meet fees collected.  The course abbreviations used are:  W (white), Y (yellow), O (orange), Br (brown), G (green), and R (red).  The map fees probably seem to be all over the place.  There are several reasons:  for Raccoon Creek we charged "adventure race prices" because that is who we expected to attend; for the bike scavenger hunt, it was free; and for the Camp Twin Echo meet, it was National Orienteering Day and we let anyone who was new to orienteering in free.

WPOC members also conducted a number of presentations, workshops or classes to educate a variety of people about orienteering.  Most of these included an orienteering exercise of some type.

Jennifer Livingston's sessions:
February   Taught 7 classes of Fourth Graders, 3 class-days each.
July 16  Taught NAWEOA kids at Millvale Sportsman's Club - about 60 participants.
End of July  Taught orienteering skills and conducted 60 minute score course for students at Westmoreland County Conservation School at Keystone State Park
October  Taught 3 classes of Fourth Graders, 3 class-days each

Jim Wolfe's sessions:
June 19  Taught an orienteering class for all ages  at Yellow Creek State Park - 8 participants.
June 27  Taught an orienteering class for all ages at Keystone State Park - 10 participants.
July 6   Taught map and compass use to cub scouts at White Oak Park - about 50 participants.
July 13  Taught orienteering to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders (and their parents) at Stackhouse Park - 22 participants.
July 16  Helped Jennifer teach kids at NAWEOA event at Millvale Sportsman's Club - about 60 participants.
August 7  Taught an orienteering class to Sea Cadets (JROTC) at White Oak Park - 15 participants.
August 22  Taught an orienteering class at Keystone State Park, mostly girl scouts - 14 participants.
September 12  Taught an orienteering class to members of Women in the Wild Adventure Challenge - 3 participants.

Dave Battista's session:
Spring  Taught some map and compass work to high school students at Hartwood Acres.

Mike Adametz's session:
October 9  Taught an orienteering class for all ages at Mingo Creek Park - 13 participants.

Dave Torick's session:
October  Taught an orienteering class at Boyce Park.

WPOC has also been distributing information about the club and orienteering in general through various media.  Alexis Rzewski made two presentations at separate REI stores in Pittsburgh during February.  Jim Wolfe handed out information at the Youth and Family Outdoor Show at Keystone State Park on May 2 and at a convention of Women in the Wild Adventure Challenge on September 11.  Mary Roland produced the club newsletter which was sent to all WPOC members and also posted on the WPOC Web site.  For our meets in Indiana, Cambria & Westmoreland counties, Danielle Pisarcik got notices out through Renda Broadcasting in Indiana and Jim Wolfe put notices in the Johnstown Tribune Democrat.  Jim Wolfe also did a 5-minute TV interview that was broadcast on Comcast cable and posted to YouTube.  Jennifer Livingston and Jim Wolfe were interviewed for a newspaper article about orienteering that appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette on Octobter 31.  Through contacts with Allegheny County Parks, our events at Boyce, Deer Lakes and Hartwood appear on the county's web site and in its activities brochure.  WPOC is a member of the Indiana County Tourist Bureau which distributes pamphlets about the club, and posts notices of our events on their web site and distributes the notices through e-mail.  Alexis maintains the WPOC Facebook page and posts notices of our events in a variety of online forums.

In the mapping department, an enhanced base map was created for about 3/4 of Raccoon Creek State Park.  The orienteering map of Boyce Park was redrawn from scratch to correct some problems in the map we were using.  Mini orienteering maps were created of part of White Oak Park, part of Mingo Creek Park, Camp Harmony (Somerset county) and Millvale Sportsman's Club (near Wexford).  A new color printer was purchased so that larger maps (11" x 17") could be printed.  The Board of Directors also created a policy framework to deal with other organizations who want to use our maps for their events.  This allowed us to sell some of our maps in a consistent way (see the result in the financial report) while sharing the maps with low-budget operations like boy scout troops without being hung up on money.

Finally, the  associated page  shows our membership at the end of 2010.  Our membership is about the same as last year; there are a few more family memberships.