Minutes
Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club
7 November 2021

Memberships represented:  Barak, Bash, Irvin (2), Jarvis, Knecht, Livingston (2), Logan, Opila, Roach, Rzewski (2), Shank, Smith, Wolfe.

Jim Wolfe called the meeting to order at 2:32 pm.

1.    Minutes from 8 November 2020 were approved.

2.    Election of Non-Officer Board Members

• Sherry Shank was interested in continuing to serve another term, so was self-nominated.  She was elected by acclamation to a two-year term.
•  Lee Bash was nominated and elected by acclamation to the remaining non-officer board position.
  

3.    Report on the Achievements of 2021

• Six regular orienteering events were held with Covid-19 precautions in place.  The training day was canceled due to Covid-19.  Raccoongaine was held but needed to be delayed until June since gatherings of that size were not permitted at our normally scheduled time of year.
• Two new permanent courses were developed- Beaver County Conservation District, and Bradys Run Park.  Two permanent courses originally installed at Yellow Creek in 2011 were updated and three new control posts were installed.  An urban treasure hunt remained available from 2020.
•  Seven workshops with orienteering exercises were held for a variety of groups as well as 2 training sessions for BSA leaders.  One presentation on orienteering was given.
• Several club maps were worked on.  Field checking of the Babcock Division of Gallitzin State Forest was completed for the mini-rogaine to be held in 2022.  A map of the Churchhill Valley Greenway was completed.  Updates were made to Yellow Creek North and South.  Those were all completed by Jim Wolfe.  Joe Logan made updates to the Deer Lakes map.  Alexis Rzewski made updates to the Bradys Run map and continued work on the South Park map which is still under development.
  

4.    Thank You

• WPOC thanked the 5 Meet Directors (Shank, Rzewski, Logan, Knecht, and Wolfe), 3 Vetters (Battista, Strat, Wolfe), 2 Workshop Presenters (Livingston, Wolfe), and all the Meet Volunteers for their many hours of service to the club.
•   Special Thanks also go to Volunteer Coordinator Ryan Knecht, Membership Coordinator Sherry Shank, Event Coordinator Giuseppina Mecchia, Social Media/Photographer Alexis Rzewski, Marketing Manager Kevin Fisher, and Equipment Repairman Ryan Knecht for their time and efforts.  
  

5.    Report on Board Actions in 2021

• There were no voted-on Board actions in 2021.
• Jim Wolfe kept the Board informed about changes he was making to the club website throughout the year.  Many pages were made dynamic (i.e. created when you click a link) and a collection of management pages have been created so that less specialized knowledge is required to make recurring updates to the web pages.
  

6.    Financial Report

• A financial report was made for WPOC through November 2021.  A complete report for 2021 will be sent to the membership in January 2022 after the fiscal year is completed.    The report shows the club to be financially stable.
• A discussion was had regarding donations in 2022.  See new business below for details.
  

7.    A Discussion of Goals for 2022

• WPOC discussed the goals for next year to include holding as many local events as possible within Covid-19 guidelines as well as Raccoongine and Babcock Bog and Boulder Challenge. 
• WPOC will continue to provide workshops and promotional events for orienteering.
• WPOC wants to continue to increase club membership and volunteerism at meets.
  

8.    New Business

• A discussion regarding marketing was had.  Concerns were that our Facebook marketing strategy may not be bringing in any new participants.  Suggestions to try new terms such as “navigation” or “trail running” might reach new people who are interested in trying orienteering.  Other clubs are using terminology such as “Mountain Marathon” for a Rogaine.  Suggestions for advertising with REI’s online billboard and through Instagram were discussed.  Jocelyn Roach suggested that WPOC reach out to organizations such as Search and Rescue or others who need to practice their navigation skills in order to increase participation at meets.  Alexis Rzewski will reach out to the marketing contact person from Step Trek to see if he can get any ideas for marketing with WPOC.  Jennifer Livingston also mentioned that there seems to be a disconnect with the public seeing things on Facebook and not going to the wpoc.org website.  Many of the questions they ask can easily be answered on our website pages.
• Discussion was had on where donations should be made.  Options include donations to makers of free software for orienteering events such as Purple Pen, US orienteering teams, and Friends of the Parks organizations for the parks where we hold public events.  The majority of members were in favor of donations to the parks or makers of software as the Board decides appropriate.
•  Discussion was had for ordering clothing items.  Several members were in favor of uniforms including Yaki Barak and Guiseppina Mechhia.  Most members didn’t have an opinion one way or the other.  Others were in favor of a new t-shirt design.  Discussion was had in favor of offsetting the cost of a possible future t-shirt sale with club funds so that people would be paying only a portion of the cost themselves.  No decision was made by the membership, so this will default to the Board.
• Discussion regarding orienteering related software and programs was had.  Jim Wolfe attempted to explain to the membership about OCAD 6 (the free version) vs. the purchasing of a license for the updated version of OCAD.  The membership asked several questions, but ultimately decided it would be best for the Board to get more details and decide the course of action on software purchases for map making and course design.
  

Meeting adjourned approximately 3:30pm.