WPOC had another successful year in 2014.  We sponsored 11 local events, including 9 regular events, Raccoongaine and our training day.  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) and R (red).  The same page shows our membership at the end of 2014.  

Attendance at out events was down in 2014 compared to 2013.  There were several reasons.  The rain kept people away from the Night event; and the cold may have kept them away from Pine Ridge.  National Orienteering Day attendance was far off from last year, perhaps because it was at a new location (Laurel Hill) and may have been perceived as too far away for some.  Also, Raccoongaine attendance was off by about 50 because we did not have a joint operation Grassroots Racing this time.  Thanks to all of our meet directors (Alexis Rzewski, Andy Strat, Jim Wolfe, Al Sheaffer, Sherry Shank, Jim Trautmann, Yaki Barak, Dave Battista and Joe Logan), vetters (Alexis Rzewski, Dave Battista, Joe Logan and Jim Wolfe), and event day volunteers (too many to list) for making all of the events run smoothly, even when the number of participants was very low or very high.  Also, thanks to Naomi Jarvis for coordinating the volunteers and Sherry Shank for maintaining membership records.

Electronic punching had become a standard part of our events during 2014, at least until we ran into computer problems.  The problems first showed up at the IUP event and continued through out the fall.  Andy Strat managed to obtain replacement parts and install them by November; so we are ready to try again starting next Spring.  The club acquired a lot more e-punch equipment in 2014.  We now have enough to run a regular event with all courses using e-punching or enough to have Raccoongaine use e-punching - this was one of the goals of getting the additional equipment.

In addition to the events, 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.  Thanks to Jen Livingston, Jim Wolfe, Alexis Rzewski, Dave Battista, Joe Logan, Naomi Jarvis, Sherry Shank and Eric Steinbring for conducting these sessions.   This section of the club's activities had the greatest growth in 2014.  We made presentations to 34 people and had an amazing 229 get beginner instruction from us.  This is a very large jump in numbers from last year.  You can see the complete list of these activities at workshops.
 
 The club continues in a variety of ways to try to publicize orienteering. This is done through the club's web pages, Facebook page, Twitter feed, the Attackpoint website, various meet-up groups and other social media.  For Raccoongaine, there is another Facebook page and Twitter feed, as well as a Yahoo group.  Much of this is handled by Alexis Rzewski on behalf of the club; he also hands out printed material at REI and other locations around Pittsburgh, as does Joe Logan at LL Bean.  This year we have partnered with Get Outdoors PA and the Allegheny Adventure X-Fest to promote the sport, as well.  We helped define the best practices for teaching orienteering at Get Outdoors PA and promote our workshops on the event listings.  With the X-Fest, we handed out promotional material and put on a demo orienteering course.   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. 

A lot of mapping work was done in 2014.  Alexis Rzewski finished the map for Brady's Run Park, updated the Frick Park map and elements of the Raccoon Creek map.    Alexis also worked on parts of the Settler's Cabin map.  Jim Wolfe finished the Laurel Hill map and then went back to add a couple of hundred more acres to the map.  He also redrew the Pine Ridge map and part of the Blue Spruce map. Jim made a small orienteering map of PNG park in Johnstown for use with the X-Fest.  Jim also made two base maps of parts of Laurel Ridge State Park, including the ski area and north end of the Laurel Highlands trail.