WPOC had another successful year in 2019.  We sponsored 11 local events, including 8 regular events, one ski-o, Raccoongaine,  and our training day.  The statistics page  shows information about each of these events, including location, meet director,  type of courses offered, total starts, member starts and total number of participants.   The same page shows our membership at the end of 2019.  

Event attendance was down in 2019.  Several factors undoubtedly played a significant role in causing this:  weather (we had some major rain-outs, one fewer event than 2018, and having a higher proportion of events that were farther from Pittsburgh.  Of the 774 people who came to events, more than 500 were unique individuals - many of our members get counted repeated among the 774 because they come to multiple events.  It should be clear that few of the 774 attended more than 1 or 2 events.  Attendance numbers would have been even lower in 2019, had it not been for Raccoongaine which expanded to two days and nearly doubled the number of starts with a 50% increase in attendance.  Thanks to all of our meet directors (Naomi Jarvis, Alexis Rzewski, Joe Logan, Jim Wolfe, Kevin Fisher, Sherry Shank,  Ryan Knecht, Yaki Barak and Andy Strat, vetters (Dave Battista, Joe Logan, Ryan Knecht  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 Ryan Knecht for coordinating the volunteers, Sherry Shank for maintaining membership records and Giuseppina Mecchia for coordinating some of the events. 

Electronic punching was used for all but two of our events during 2019.  We how have two sets of control flags and control boxes with a few spares so that getting the meet materials to the meet director for the next event is going smoothly.  We have two laptops that we use to run e-punch events.  Consequently, we can, although we haven't, also give the meet director a laptop to enter the courses in preparation for the event.  During the year, Ryan Knecht constructed 50 control stands for us to use in out events (we already had 5).  Bags to carry the control stands were also purchased so the stands can be carried into the woods to set up controls.

In addition to the events, WPOC members also conducted 18 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, Alexis Rzewski, Jim Wolfe, and Joe Logan for conducting these sessions.  During 2019, all but three of these workshops were for specific groups, rather than open to the public.  This was simply a reflection of who asked for the workshops and who did not.   All of the workshops were free for the participants.  We had 774 people get instruction and do an exercise at a workshop during 2019; this was approximately a 50% increase over 2018.   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.  This year for the first time the club began advertising the events with Facebook ads.  Kevin Fisher handled that for us; we are planning to expand this advertising in 2020.  For Raccoongaine, there is another Facebook page and Twitter feed, as well as a Yahoo group;  this is handled by Alexis Rzewski on behalf of the club; he also handed out printed material at REI and other locations around Pittsburgh.  Jim Wolfe put notices in the Johnstown Tribune Democrat to advertise our events in Indiana, Cambria, and Westmoreland counties. 

The amount of mapping for 2019 was also down.  Alexis Rzewski made some updates to the maps of Frick Park, North Park and Raccoon Creek SP. Jim Wolfe made small updates to several maps as result of his vetting and setting courses.  Jim and Alexis combined efforts to create the map of Arsenal Park for one of the workshops.  Jim is currently working on a new map that so far has remained secret.

Because of the expansion of Raccoongaine (which took in a lot of money) and the fact that we did not need to spend much on equipment, the club came out considerably ahead financially for the year.  The low attendance and  consequent loss of money at  all local events, as well as the cost of putting on workshops was more than made up for by the income from Raccoongaine.  Our policy of waiving the map fee for minors also had a negative affect on finances.   Nevertheless, we plan to continue with this policy in an effort to get more kids interested in orienteering. This report will be put on our web site but will lack the link to the financial summary.