Minutes: 2008 BAOC Annual General Meeting
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Sunol Regional Wilderness, Sunol, California
The meeting was called to order by President Nick Corsano at 1:30 pm.
Present were Esther Heller, Nick Corsano, Jay Hann, Trinka Gillis, Bob Strauss, Bjorn Widerstrom, Evan Custer, Alex Finch, Mark Blair, Nancy Lindeman, Jean Beuerman, Ev Beuerman, Peter Graube, Kelly Wells, Joe Maffei, Jeff Lanam, Dan Greene, Alan Houser, Shirley Pierce, Steve Gregg, Rex Winterbottom, Rosemary Johnson, Oleg Shakhnovsky, Galina Shakhnovsky, Julia Zantz, Irina Zantz, Aaron Zantz, Toby Ferguson, Kent Hetherwick, Brad Wetmore, Randy Franklin, Theo Verhoeven, Luc Poppe, Jim Fish, Bill Straka, Greg Ehrensing, Scott Aster, Deron van Hoff, Marsha Jacobs, and Tapio Karras.
1. Approval of 2007 AGM Minutes
- A motion was moved and seconded that the minutes of the 2007 Annual General Meeting be approved. Motion passed.
2. Election of Officers
- A motion was moved and seconded that the nominated slate of officers be approved. (President Nick Corsano, Event Coordinator Alex Finch, Treasurer Steve Beuerman, Secretary Trinka Gillis.) Motion passed.
- Nick Corsano thanked the outgoing Event Coordinator, Brad Wetmore, for his work during the past two years, particularly keeping the schedule full and bringing in many new volunteers.
3. Revision of Bylaws
- It was moved and seconded to approve the Bylaws as revised and posted on the BAOC website. Motion passed.
4. President's Report
- Nick Corsano reported:
- The COOL (California Outdoor Orienteering League) has finished its first season. Most COOL participants were children of club members, but they proved the viability of the method, and will start their second season in November.
- Ben Legg is working on new club uniforms. He needs people to help, for example, to bring the fitting kit to events so club members can determine their correct size to order.
- Malcolm Wyatt-Mair went to the Junior World Orienteering Championships last year.
- The club has held two large-scale training events in the past year: at Joaquin Miller Park in July 2007, and an event in Redding organized entirely by Ben Legg.
- The club is working on new maps of Knowland Park, in the Oakland hills, and of Pacheco Park, near Casa de Fruta. Pacheco Park will be first used at an A-meet in 2009.
- BAOC has two A-meets planned this year: Tahoe in June and Joe Grant in November. The November event will include the US Trail-O Champs. Next year, we will have an A-meet at Boggs Mountain/Spring Lake which will include the US Team Trials.
5. Treasurer's Report
- Steve Beuerman was not present, so Nick Corsano gave a brief accounting of the club's finances.
6. BAOC 30th Anniversary
- BAOC was founded in 1978 by Joe Scarborough, at an event at Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland. 2008 is the club's 30th anniversary. In honor of the event, we shared cake and sparkling cider.
7. Small group discussion: "Envisioning BAOC at 35"
- We broke into small groups, based on area code.
- 408 Area Code
- This group would like to see a variety of events—such as Bike-O, Canoe-O…
- Suggested that the winner of the Club Service Award should have free entry to the following year's events.
- 510/925 Area Code
- Problem: increasing the scale of events versus managing events at their current scale.
- Need to manage relations with parks and park users so that orienteers are welcomed.
- More kinds of events- such as canoe or bike-o, as park overuse pressure builds.
- Sustain and develop volunteers. A lot of people attend events often but don't help out.
- Mentoring system to train future course setters and event directors. Publicize it.
- Show volunteer appreciation- such as reduced entry costs.
- Map new small areas, and promote them to nearby schools.
- 650/415 Area Code
- Hold an interscholastic competition and getting more kids involved in orienteering.
- More women and slower runners need to be involved in the club- training events, sprint events… Suggestions on how to improve events for slower runners: format a chase so that slow runners don't have to wait a long time to start (random start order, reverse start order, etc.); hold less-competitive events, such as rogaines; emphasize fun aspects rather than competitive aspects of the sport; help runners who are trying to improve (step-up clinics, short training courses done in teams of two, shadowing…)
- The club needs more helpers/volunteers.
- An in-field course-setting training day would help prepare people to be course setters.
- We need to smooth out the methods for handling equipment between events.
Meeting adjourned at 2:28 pm.
Trinka Gillis
BAOC Secretary