WPOC had another successful year in 2013.  We sponsored 10 regular local events plus our training day; and we tried to insert a little orienteering into Step Trek on the South Side of Pittsburgh.  The associated page  shows information about each of these events, including location, meet director,  type of courses offered, total starts, member starts, total number of participants and meet fees collected.  The course abbreviations used are:  W (white), Y (yellow), O (orange),  G (green), and R (red).  The same page shows our membership at the end of 2013.  Incidentally, we reached a milestone in 2013 as we achieved the level of double-digit votes (10) based on club members who are also members of Orienteering USA.

Attendance at out events was down in 2013 compared to 2012.  I think the major reason was the weather.  There were several events when there was rain just before or during the meet and the last event was held despite temperatures below 20^o.  The two big draws were Raccoongaine and the Frick Park event ; between them, they accounted for nearly half of the participants for the year.  Raccoongaine was larger than in the past because it was offered in cooperation with GrassRoots Racing; this cooperation shifted some of the parking problems away from Rec Hall and added about 50 participants to our numbers.  The Training Day at Keystone was a nice surprise in 2013 as we nearly doubled our attendance from 2012's Training Day.  This was the second year we have put on a sprint event at Bushy Run; our attendance was low again in 2013, even though the weather was nice; we are planning to try the sprints in a new venue in 2014.  Thanks to all of our meet directors, vetters, and event day volunteers for making all of the events run smoothly, even when the number of participants was very low or very high.

Electronic punching has become a standard part of our events during 2013.  The only events not to use it were Raccoongaine and the Night-O (too many control boxes were needed) and Pine Ridge (too much trouble with the annual meeting also being held) and Frick Park (an urban setting too prone to theft).  The club currently has enough control boxes and finger sticks to accommodate two or three courses at a normal event.  We are planning to increase those numbers in 2014.  By 2015, we may be able to have all courses using e-punching.

In addition to the meets, 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.  The table below is from our workshop web page for 2013; for most of these events, we did not keep track of numbers of participants.  Thanks to Jen Livingston, Alexis Rzewski, Al Sheaffer, Dave Battista, Joe Logan and Sherry Shank for conducting these sessions.
 
 

Date	Time	Location	Type of Activity	Audience	Presenter
Feb 13	7:00 pm	Pittsburgh REI	Intro to rogaining  and orienteering	Open to the public	Alexis Rzewski
Mar 16	10am-3pm	Ringgold High School	Promotion, University of Scouting	Scouts & Leaders	Jim Wolfe
Mar 23	10:30 am	Bradys Run Park	Map and compass instruction	Scouts	Jen Livingston
April 7	11am-2pm	Keystone S.P., Shelter #1	Instruction for all orienteering skill levels	Open to the public	Jim Wolfe Dave Battista Joe Logan
Apr 20	1:00 pm	Bradys Run Park	Map and compass instruction	Scouts Must call  before coming	Jen Livingston 724 770-1120
Apr 21	2:00 pm	Yellow Creek S.P.,  Lakeview Shelter	Beginner instruction	Open to the public	Jim Wolfe
Apr 27	1:00 pm	Mingo Creek Park, Shelter #9	Beginner Instruction	Open to the public	Jim Wolfe
May 5	10am-3pm	Keystone State Park, Shelter #1	Promotion of events	Open to the public	Jim Wolfe
May 25	2:00 pm	Canoe Creek S.P.	Beginner Instruction	Open to the public	Al Sheaffer
June 8	11am-4pm	Moraine S.P., Lakeview Beach	Beginner Instruction and Promotion	Open to the public	Jim Wolfe Sherry Shank
June 12	10:30-2pm	Yellow Creek S.P., Day Use Area	Beginner Instruction	Justice Works Youth Care	Jim Wolfe
July 10	?	Brady's Run Park	Map and compass instruction	Boy Scouts	Jen Livingston
July 26	Afternoon	Keystone State Park, Shelter #2	Beginner instruction	Westmoreland Conservation School	Jen Livingston
July 27	3pm-5pm	Prince Gallitzin S.P., Muskrat Beach, near Pavilion #3	Beginner instruction	Open to the public preregister with park	Jim Wolfe
July 28	2:00 pm	Stackhouse Park	Beginner instruction	Open to the public	Jim Wolfe
Aug ?	?	Brady's Run Park	Map and compass instruction	Girl Scouts  Must call before coming	Jen Livingston 724 770-1120
Sep 29	9am-11am	Hopewell Community Park	Map and compass instruction	Cub Scouts	Jen Livingston
Dec 14	4:00 pm	Squirrel Hill residence	Map presentation	Invited guests	Alexis Rzewski

Alexis Rzewski has turned into a publicity machine by making sure that all sorts of groups are aware of WPOC events.  He maintains the club's Facebook page, as well as a Raccoongaine page there; and he has a Twitter account set up to deal with Raccoongaine.  He distributes printed information at REI stores and other locations around Pittsburgh.  He posts notices to the explorer's club, hash house harriers, various meet-up groups, and on the Attackpoint website.  Jim Wolfe put notices in the Johnstown Tribune Democrat to advertise our events in Indiana, Cambria, and Westmoreland counties; he also tries to get our Allegheny County Park events listed on the county's web site.  Joe Logan also puts flyers out at L.L. Bean in the North Hills.

A lot of mapping work was done in 2013.  Alexis Rzewski took the base map of Brady's Run made in 2012, did a bunch of field checking and drafted it for a possible 2014 event.  Jim Wolfe made a base map of the South Side Slopes in Pittsburgh; Alexis then field checked and created the map that was used in Step Trek.  Jim made a base map of Settler's Cabin Park and Alexis is currently working on field checking that area.  Jim revised the contours for Raccoon Creek and Alexis added more details from end-of-year field checking.  Jim created a new map of the IUP Co-Op Park and Whites Woods, starting over from scratch, rather than trying to revise the existing map.  Jim made a base map for Laurel Hill State Park, field checked about half of it and created a map to be used for National Orienteering Day in 2014.  He has also created new base maps of Pine Ridge Park and Blue Spruce Park - the existing maps of these areas are in desperate need of updating.  He will be field checking more of Laurel Hill, Pine Ridge and Blue Spruce in 2014.  Jim made an orienteering map of a small section of Oil Creek State Park for the DCNR educator there to teach orienteering and/or create a permanent course.  He also made a small orienteering map of the Lakeview Beach area of Moraine State Park a the workshop held there.