The weather was great by day and challenging by night, but the crowd was great all day long and it was easily the biggest we've ever had at at our holiday event at Stanford University. Despite the lure of shopping and fears of nightly rain, 159 people came out to sample the cornucopia of orienteering activities planned for the day. Below are the complete results.
We had the standard start-O, white, yellow, orange, and long orange foot orienteering courses plus a trail-O course (only partially set up), a photo orienteering course, three memory map copying events, two night score-O courses, and a huge social complete with a potluck dinner, numerous orienteering jigsaw puzzles, lots of orienteering songs, A-meet course reviews, and the BAOC service award (awarded to Joe Scarborough). There were also some very well-attended clinics on mapping, mapping for kids, beginner's skills, intermediate skills, and an event director's workshop. For those in need of orienteering supplies, Bruce Wolfe was on hand to cater to their needs. We had something for every orienteer.
No event is complete without its complications. This year we found out just 30 minutes before opening registration that our facility had been taken by another group. Fortunately, the group vacated another facility that we preferred to use, but we still had a frantic hour of shifting to the new facility and setting things up. The move didn't delay our white, yellow, and orange starts, but it did distract me from placing the first yellow control before the first two people started on that course. The move also delayed the start of the long orange course by 90 minutes, and meant that we couldn't finish setting up the trail orienteering course before the starts ended at 4:00 pm.
Unfortunately, the trail-O course setter, Dwight Freund, couldn't attend due to an injury and one of my assistants, Julia Tussing, couldn't attend due to a business trip. I had been looking forward to working with both and definitely missed them at the event. We'll use Dwight's full trail-O course at another Stanford event, and I hope to work with Julia at another event in the future.
As things settled down, people went out on their courses. Many people tried multiple courses and attended the various clinics. With the shift in facilities, we had to hold the clinics in a remote location on the third floor of our new building. Fortunately, many people did eventually find the clinics and they were successful.
As the sun set behind darkening clouds and the participants finished their daytime activities, Mike Poulsen and I went out to set the night-O. Unlike the day courses that focused in the northern wooded area of the campus, the night-O courses covered the entire map. As usual, a shorter course covered the lit areas of the campus and a longer course covered the entire campus including the unlit areas far from the buildings. The approaching rain convinced some not to participate in this event but we still had a good number of hardy orienteers ready to brave all conditions. Good thing because while they were out the rain clouds cut loose and drenched the participants from head to toe. Many came back with a wad of pulp for what was once a control sheet, but everybody seemed to have had a good time.
It wasn't long before all the participants had changed into dry clothes and had begun their end-of-the-year celebration in the annual BAOC Social. There was lots of great food in a potluck organized by Louise Madrid and Leslie Minarik, lots of very popular orienteering jigsaw puzzles made by the Minariks, a very well attended orienteering sing-along led by Dennis Wildfogel (with fiddling by Werner Haag and a new song by Mike Poulsen), and course reviews led by Tapio Karras, one of the A-meet course setters.
When the fun ended around 10:00 pm, our members cleaned up the facility and Sarah Minarik, Travis Laird, Werner Haag, and Neeme Loorits picked up a major portion of the 120 controls set around the campus.
Events of this sort are way too big for one person to put on and this event was no exception. I never had a shortage of people who I could turn to for help. We've got a great club and it's getting better--many of the helpers were new members and first-time participants. All seemed to have had a great time and I expect we will see much more of all of them. Here's as complete a list of helpers as I could put together (my apologies to anybody who I have left off the list). With over 40 people helping, this was truly a club event.
Start-O 1. Angela Pierce (12 years) 10 controls 4:38 2. Kirstan Haag (9 years) 10 controls 7:00 3. Erica McConnell (13 years) 10 controls 8:19 4. Abby Cilker (8 years) 10 controls 9:38 5. Karen (6 years) 10 controls 11:06 6. Wilma Leonard (94 years) and Barbara Robben 10 controls 23:20 (wheelchair user) 7. Christin Phillips (12 years) 9 controls 6:57 8. Caelin Brooks and Pat Rabuzzi (6 and 7 years) 6 controls 10:28 9. Sara (15 years) 1 control 4:36 10. Margo Cilker (5 years) 1 control -- White Course 2.0 k 1. Cathrine Hicks and Brent Boeckmann 18:12 2. Nicky, Jake, and Rich DeFrancesco 18:33 3. Mike and Suzanne Britton 19:33 4. Brandon and Scott Timpe 19:43 5. Scott and Waiki Wright 25:59 6. Bryn Oh 26:34 7. Erica McConnell and Angela Pierce 26:46 8. Amit Padukone and Ryan Yee 27:40 9. Jillian Hamma and Lindsey Dow 27:56 10. Pei Lin 29:43 11. Brian Cilker, Abby, Margo, Mark, and Sarah 30:32 12. Anie Mangan and Karen O'Connor 31:56 13. Troop 1337 group 1 32:49 14. Christina Phillips and Sara Weir 34:13 15. Jason Erickson and Chris Canham 38:07 16. Stephen and Charles Gribble 38:55 17. Leonard and Nathaniel Shar 41:02 18. Wilma Leonard and Barbara Robben 43:00 19. Murty, Valiveti, Lakshmi and Sravya 64:30 20. Troop 1337, group 2 72:35 Yellow Course 3.6 k 1. Eric Concannon and Greg Thrash 44:48 2. Cathrine Hicks and Brent Boeckmann 47:37 3. Nancy Lindeman 54:12 4. Vivian Söderhom-Difatte 55:03 5. Baby and Scary Spice 59:53 6. Suzanne and Mike Britton 62:17 7. Scott and Waiki Wright 64:36 8. Peter, Mary, and Jon Matheu and B&G Walker 65:50 9. Dan and Gregg Hobbs 69:19 10. Brandon Fuller and Kim Coburn 73:37 11. Matt and Pat Rabuzzi and Caelin Brooks 78:06 12. Toby, Jane, Hamish, and Cameron Ferguson 77:30 13. Yvonne and Terence Rabuzzi 80:24 14. Eyal, Karen, Ori, and Dorit Opher 81:13 15. Fishkin and Wuarell 96:43 16. Diane Hall 118:50 17. L. Madrid, Rachel Care, and Kirstin and Tania Haag DNF (14/16) Orange Course 4.1 k 1. Chuck Spalding 30:13 2. Mattias Kohler 30:43 3. David Miles 32:00 4. Tina Lindquist 39:29 5. Richard Chin 40:16 6. Marsha Jacobs 43:12 7. Vivian Lee 45:23 8. Dan Rose 47:05 9. Ron Renwick 49:00 10. Dave Modiano 51:19 11. Shawn Larsen 52:12 12. Paul Allman 53:00 13. Yelena Savranskaya 53:19 14. Jeff Lanam 55:48 15. Paul and Alan Heiple 60:43 16. Orlando San Martin 61:27 17. Frazier Stevenson 61:50 18. Emily, Mary, and Fran Linkin 68:05 19. Galena Shakhnovsky 72:07 20. Alan Charcy, James Chen, Sean Teague 72:41 21. BJ Spindler, Scott Timpe, Nick Rao 82:08 22. Tom and Leslie Rogers 108:06 23. Harry Hall MSP #3 24. Bjorn Widerstrom MSP 25. L and N Shar MSP 26. Andrew Eib, John Shun, and Kevin Chang MSP #9 Long Orange 5.0 k 1. Bruce Wolfe 30:49 2. Dennis Wildfogel 34:55 3. Mattias Kohler 36:01 4. Peter Rexer 37:26 5. Gary Carpenter 39:15 6. Alan Glendinning and Meg Gerstner 42:21 7. David Jorgensen 43:02 8. Chuck Spalding 43:43 9. Hugh Wright 44:23 10. Ralf Willecke 49:16 11. Gary Kraght 49:56 12. Oleg Shakhnovsky 52:30 13. Aileen Abernathy 55:12 14. Robert Lewis 59:00 15. Steve Beuerman 59:35 16. Thorsten and Olivia Graeve 61:17 17. Bill Straka 62:13 18. Dana Chaney, Austin Teague, an Sunden Chen 66:19 19. Martin Weiss 71:52 20. Vic Revenko 83:18 21. Barbara Straka 104:08 22. Werner Haag DNF 11/12 23. Jeanette Karthaus and Glenn Egnie DNF 4/12 24. Dana Porrat DQ Trail-O 1. Anita Yerneni 7/7 controls 1. Steve Beuerman 7/7 controls Photo-O 1. Lans Taylor 16/16 pts 9:36 (original mapper) 2. Thorsten Graeve 16/16 pts 30:00 3. Richard Chin 9/16 pts 28:13 4. Lewis 11/16 pts (no time) Memory-O: Beginner's Course on Bon Tempe map 1. Bjorn Widerstrom 11/11 pts 2:46 2. Yelena Savranskaya 11/11 pts 4:12 3. Dan Rose 9/11 pts 3:12 Memory-O: Intermediate Course on Joe Grant map 1. Vicki Woolworth 12/12 pts 5:14 Memory-O: Advanced Course on Annadel map 1. Lans Taylor 18/18 pts 4:16 Short Night Score-O (50 minutes) 1. Wyatt Riley 23-1=22 pts 50:40 2. Robert Lewis 17-0=17 49:08 3. George Minarik 18-1-17 50:33 4. Sarah Minarik, Travis Laird 15-0=15 45:16 5. Angelica Riley 16-3=13 52:01 6. Paul Allman 11-0=11 47:42 7. Andy McGugan 10-2=8 51:59 8. Nancy Lindeman 14-15=0 64:44 9. Edith Jacobi 18-22=0 71:59 Long Night Score-O (70 minutes) 1. Stefan Carlsson 28-1=27 pts 70:38 2. Thorsten Graeve 25-0=25 68:11 3. Tapio Karras 25-0=25 69:38 4. Bruce Bassett 24-0=24 68:11 5. Dan Greene 24-0=24 68:27 6. Bob Cooley 22-0=22 69:25 7. Scott Aster 21-0=21 64:27 8. Alan Glendinning 21-0=21 68:44 9. Steve and Sheila Smith 13-0=13 69:06 10. Jeff Lanam 8-0=8 68:52 11. Mark Blair pulped results 60:12