by Meg Gerstner, Secretary
PRESENT: Aileen Abernathy, Scott Aster, Everett Beuerman, Jean Beuerman, Steve Beuerman, Mark Blair, Bob Cooley, Nick Corsano, Evan Custer, Christian Frøyd, Meg Gerstner, Stacy Goss, Steve Gregg, Marsha Jacobs, Gary Kraght, Jeff Lanam, Robert Lewis, Nancy Lindeman, George Minarik, Syd Reader, Chuck Spalding, Ian Tidswell, Vicki Woolworth
1. APPROVAL OF MINUTES - Evan Custer
The meeting was called to order at 7:00 pm at the Hartley Conference Room of Mitchell Building, Stanford University. The minutes of the December 7, 1998 Board Meeting were approved with the revisions distributed on Bayonet.
2. PRESIDENT'S REPORT - Evan Custer
Evan stated that we are off to a good start this year, with the weather cooperating. We have new East Bay registration people: Aimee Grimes and Vivian Lee. There is an opening for a South Bay social director following Louise Madrid's resignation. Please contact Evan if you would like to volunteer yourself or someone else. LAOC will hold their first A-meet at Mt. Pinos in June; check their Website for details. Wyatt Riley's term on the USOF board ends this year. Gary Kraght and Clare Durand will be running for the position with the election held at the Mt. Pinos meet. All Pacific Region members of USOF as of 12/31/98 are eligible to vote, so please send in a ballot or proxy if you won't attend the A-meet. A group of visiting Swedish orienteers will participate in a mini-event on Thursday, March 18th at the Reliez Valley entrance to Briones. A party will follow at Evan's house.
3. TREASURER'S REPORT - George Minarik
The year has started well with income ahead of last year and expenses (except for advertising) less than expected. About $650 of the $800 allocated for advertising has been spent. George commented that the club does not apply a value to its map inventory, and that, with the switch to OCAD, there will be higher expenses for maps for each event than for the preprinted maps, the costs of which have already been incurred.
4. MAPPING DIRECTOR'S REPORT - Bob Cooley
George Kirkov has been redrawing some parts of the Spooner Lake map. We have received photos of Northstar and a base map will be made of it, including some adjacent timber company land. George Kirkov will field check it this summer. The western side of the Golden Gate Park map has been redrawn and field checked by Bob and Fabian Meier. The eastern side has not been completed. The rest of the Morgan Territory base map has been received. In May, George Kirkov will field check Tamarancho. Bob has expanded the Royal Gorge map which he believes is the best Ski-O map in the country, due to the extensive trail network and large mapped area. Nancy Lindeman suggested that it would be a good idea to have a Ski-O A-meet using this map. Bob has checked and evaluated Skyline next to Montebello and determined that it is good for White, Yellow and Orange courses. Rangers have given permission for use and Bob has photos of about 3-4 sq. km. We are still looking for Peninsula and South Bay locations. Bob will check on Calero, which has recently doubled in size to the southwest of the existing map. Bob thinks that the upper part of Joe Grant is not as good orienteering quality as the lower (already mapped) part but may be mapped in the future. He will also check out a large area recently added to Henry Coe Park. Other areas suggested were ranches on the west side of Highway 101 south of Calero, Almaden Quicksilver Park (in the past rangers have expressed concern over falling into mercury pits) and the Phleger estate. Christian Frøyd may do some field checking at Briones, Bob may add a few hills between the parking lot and Oakmont at Annadel and Bob is looking for ideas in North Bay counties, including Napa.
5. OFFICER'S SLATE - Evan Custer
The slate of proposed officers was unanimously approved. The slate is Scott Aster, president; Harold and Penny DeMoss, event coordinators; George Minarik, treasurer; and Meg Gerstner, secretary. The slate of officers presented by the board will be voted on at the annual meeting at Stanford on April 18th.
6. COURSE CLOSURE TIME POLICY - Evan Custer (action)
A discussion of the proposed course closure time policy was held. The policy would have courses closing officially at 2:00 pm unless previously announced, but, if possible, would have an official at the end until 2:30 pm to record times of late arriving participants. Control pickup would begin at 2:00 so a late finisher would risk being on a course for which some controls have been collected. Points made during the discussion included the desire to ensure fairness to all competitors, safety issues, the need to ensure sufficient time for control pickup, the long drive to some of our meet locations, the possibility of modifying the policy during daylight savings time, and the desire to accommodate meet volunteers. The policy would not apply to A-meets, where all participants would have 3 hours to complete a course. The policy was passed unanimously as written.
7. PROPOSAL TO PUT MEMBERSHIP LIST ON THE WEB PAGE - Evan Custer (discussion)
It has been suggested that the names of members be included on the BAOC web page. The consensus was that while such a list may be helpful to allow contacting people, this advantage is outweighed by the need to maintain the list and deal with privacy issues. The bulletin has the names of contact people for information and the Web page gives the hotline number.
8. 1999 SCHEDULE - Scott Aster
One major change has been made to the schedule, as Royal Gorge has required that the Ski-O meet be moved from April 10th to April 11th, which unfortunately conflicts with Sunol. Wilder Ranch has been scheduled for July 11th and we are trying to schedule a summer event at Huddart. Niscene Marks is off the schedule, although if a meet director can be found, an event could be held there on August 8th. If the Tamarancho map is completed, Scott will direct a meet there on November 14th.
9. US CHAMPS AND SIERRA 2000 UPDATE - Evan Custer
Rooms have been reserved at the Forest Inn Suites at Stateline (South Lake Tahoe), about 15 miles from the event site. Packet pickup will be held in the lobby of the hotel. Camping is available at Nevada Beach campground. All A-meets through June will have flyers in their packets and an ad will be placed in the July issue of ONA. The map has been updated with corrections made last fall. Bob Cooley and Steve Smith are course setters, Scott Donald is course consultant, Ron Gross and GCO will be in charge of starts, and Evan will be contacting others concerning other crew chiefs. The permit and insurance certificate are in progress. A model event will be held Friday afternoon at Spooner Lake.
For the Sierra 2000, a contract has been signed with Northstar for the rooms and they have given permission to map and hold the event on their property. A flyer will be ready for the US conference at the end of June.
10. KIDS PATCH PROGRAM AND LITTLE TROLL PROGRAM - Vicki Woolworth
Vicki expressed her interest in getting kids involved in orienteering. She asked whether the Little Troll program still existed. (This is a 4-level program. For each level, kids complete a card by receiving a sticker for each of five events, making them eligible for a patch.) Ev and Jean said that kids do do it. We discussed ways to promote the program, including putting information about it on our Web page (possibly as part of a "Kids' Corner"), discussing it at beginners' clinics, having patches or ribbons available for kids who complete each level, having a BAOC coloring book. Evan also mentioned that Start-O in an integral part of orienteering, and should be discussed at beginners' clinics. Vicki will write an update for use at beginners' clinics, put information on the Web page, and consider appropriate patches or ribbons.
11. DIRECTORS' REPORTS
Bulletin (Stacy Goss): The March bulletin is finished and was distributed.
Equipment (Mark Blair): Mark is buying a new set of punchless/plaqueless controls for use with stands. During this year, some old controls will be replaced with new ones. An informal poll indicated that the controls with a blue stripe were preferred over the conventional orange/white controls, so the blue-striped type will be purchased.
Juniors (Nick Corsano): George and Sarah Minarik did an orienteering workshop at Stanford for high school students that was enthusiastically received. There have been many inquiries from schools and there is a need for volunteers to help with activities during the week. For example, there will be an activity for San Francisco high school Phys Ed teachers. The revised California physical education curriculum presents orienteering as an optional component. Gary reported that he had attended the Junior ROTC event at Tyler, TX during the previous weekend, where the energy and quality of orienteering was very high. This event will be USOF-sanctioned next year and open to high school teams. What can we do to promote this our club? We may want to prepare a certificate with the club logo to pass out to JROTC competitors at our meets.
Registration (Ev and Jean Beuerman): The new registration form is working well. There have been no comments on the fee increase.
Social (via George Minarik): George reported that there would be a picnic around the finish chute at Indian Valley on March 7. He had no news about an activity at the Stanford event.
Membership (Steve Beuerman): There are about 271 memberships, a slight decrease over previous years.
Publicity (Nancy Lindeman): A reporter from Men's Fitness magazine was present at Las Trampas and will be at Indian Valley to prepare an article for the magazine on orienteering. There will soon be a PR-net in USOF to exchange ideas about publicity. A discussion was held about the proposal made by a school in San Francisco which has asked us to donate orienteering to them as a fund raiser for their school. The school would cover the cost of the maps, and it might be a good opportunity to attract families with children. It was agreed to try this as an experiment. Nancy proposed having a JROTC day, including Northern California champs, to encourage participation. As it is late in the school year, this would probably be put on the schedule for next year. A similar event might be held for high school teams. Evan and Nick will consider this further, as the change in the phys ed curriculum makes this a good opportunity.
Outreach (Aileen Abernathy): Abby has coordinated with two groups, Adventurous Women's Sports and Extreme Adventures Sports, which would like their participants to receive instruction and then attend an event. The events are planned for Indian Valley, Golden Gate Park, and Sunol. Marsha, Penny and Abby will participate as instructors. Talks at REI last fall in the East Bay (Bruce Wolfe), San Carlos (Marsha), and Saratoga (Abby) were successful. We continue to have some response to the Bay Area Backroads segment.
Training (Steve Gregg): Christian Frøyd, visiting from Norway, will conduct a training exercise of Saturday, March 13th, including instruction followed by an exercise in Briones. A similar training exercise may be held after an event. Steve plans to organize Wednesday night training sessions in the East Bay and expects that similar sessions will be held in the South Bay.
Quality (Ian Tidswell): Nothing to report.
USOF Liaison (Gary Kraght): Nothing to report except that there are no present candidates for USOF president.
12. NEXT BOD MEETING - Evan Custer
The next meeting will be Tuesday, June 15, 1999, at the Alta Bates Imaging Center. The meeting adjourned at 9:10 pm.