WPOC had a better year in 2021 than in 2020; but that is not saying much. We sponsored 6 local events, canceled our training day and moved Raccoongaine to June. The cancellation and move were both because of Covid-19. 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 also shows our membership at the end of 2021.
It is difficult to make a meaningful comparison between 2021 and past years. Starts were up 56% from 2020 but down 44% from 2019. Participation was up 41% from 2020 but down 36% from 2019. And workshop attendance was up almost 500% from 2020 but down 62% from 2019. I think we can say we are making a comeback from the worst of the pandemic; but we still have a ways to go. Thanks to all of our event directors (Sherry Shank, Alexis Rzewski, Ryan Knecht and Jim Wolfe), our vetters (Dave Battista, Andy Strat and Jim Wolfe), and all the event day volunteers (too many to list) for making all of the events run smoothly, even when we were still dealing with some Covid-19 restrictions. Also, thanks to Ryan Knecht for coordinating the volunteers and maintaining the control boxes, Sherry Shank for maintaining membership records, Giuseppina Mecchia for setting up one of the events and Kevin Fisher to handling Facebook advertising.
The only unexpected difficulty that the club had was with Raccoongaine. Days before the event, Raccoon Creek personnel abruptly canceled our reservation for Rec Hall because they had double-booked a wedding there. The park managed to move our base of operations to a building nearby. This forced all course planning and after-race activities to take place outside or in participant's cars. It also forced a change of menu for the food because of an inadequate kitchen and a lack of anywhere to sit and eat inside. Nevertheless, we managed to pull off the event.
In addition to the
events, Jen Livingston conducted seven in-person workshops for scouts and
scout leaders. Jim Wolfe gave a
presentation about orienteering to scouts and
leaders. Jim also conducted two workshops for school kids and a church group.
You can view the details 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.
With Kevin Fisher in charge, we advertised our local events in Facebook during 2021; however,
based on preregistration information, that advertising did not attract many people to our events. The board is going to
consider whether we want to continue advertising in this way. For
Raccoongaine, there is a separate Facebook page and Twitter
feed, as well as a Yahoo group; this is handled by
Alexis
Rzewski on behalf of the
club.
Much of Jim Wolfe's mapping effort during 2021 was devoted to finishing a map for a mini-rogaine in the Babcock Division of Gallitzen State Forest; the field checked area is over 5500 acres. In addition, Jim made updates to the Yellow Creek North and Yellow Creek South maps. He also nearly finished a map of the Churchill Valley Greenway and did finish a map of the Beaver County Conservation District. Joe Logan updated parts of the Deer Lakes Park map. Alexis Rzewski updated part of the Bradys Run Park map and is continuing to make additions to the South Park map (it is still in development).
The club helped to create two new permanent courses and repaired two existing permanent courses. We worked with Richard Voytko of the Beaver County Conservation District to create a beginner-level permanent course on BCCD land. We worked with Sean Livingston to create a beginner-level permanent course at Bradys Run Park. This was Sean's Eagle Scout Project. Several controls from the permanent courses at Yellow Creek S.P. had gone missing. We replaced those and moved several other controls that were no longer on existing features to revitalize the courses there.