Orienteer Like a Course Setter - This Saturday's Winter Meeting Training
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Topic created by bobburg on Fri Jan 29, 2016 at 1:48 amReady to break out of our record-breaking snowfall and join your O-family on Saturday at the Annual Winter Gathering (including a potluck feast for all, whether you are vegan or devout carnivore)?
Erik Eddy and I invite you to join us Saturday afternoon - 2:30 to 4:45 - to whet your appetite, and to learn more about how course setters design courses that engage and delight you...and call out your best.The first half will cover basic guidelines handed down from a mentor to us all, who inspired the quality of current DVOA course setting. The second half will provide examples of how course setters plan their courses, especially how the fieldchecking process leads us to revising and refining our courses to make them as fair and challenging (and as much fun) as possible.Whether you simply want to improve your orienteering skills, are considering designing courses for an event, are a relatively new CS wanting to refine your skills, or a veteran willing to share your experience, please join us for an afternoon that will leave you inspired to try out your new insights at the next chance.P.S. I attended a similar training, led by Eric Weyman, at my second Winter Meeting 15 years ago where I caught the bug....and now course setting is perhaps my favorite O-activity. I hope we can pass that along to you. -
Reply by bobburg on Sun Jan 31, 2016 at 11:57 amThanks so much to everyone who came to the workshop yesterday. Especially after our snow postponement and only a little promotion, Erik and I were anticipating only a handful, but the room filled up nicely. While we were covering so much in a short time, everyone stayed engaged and focused, the questions and exchanges were on target, and the seasoned course setters attending added so much value to the afternoon.If welcomed by you and others, I would be happy to gather a few veteran course setters and schedule a date in the coming months to get into the "Art of Course Setting" in more experiential depth. It would be a great complement to the more technical (i.e. CONDES-based) training that is just as essential.We would need a convenient venue that could provide us indoor space where we would have more time to focus purely on armchairing courses, then fieldchecking them in the woods. That would allow us to pool our ideas in actual terrain, explore why and how we could revise and improve the courses we've just designed.How many would be interested, whether you attended yesterday or not.? Who of our veteran CS's would be willing to lend your expertise? Any suggestions for a venue?Please reply here.And feel free to contact me directly at (856) 258-2859 or bburg@comcast.net.
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Reply by ErikEddy on Mon Feb 1, 2016 at 10:29 amBob- I'd be interested in helping at a venue near Reading. Warwick comes to mind as an excellent venue with the indoor facility and not far to field check good terrain
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Reply by edscott on Mon Feb 1, 2016 at 7:06 pmWould be interesting for the class to pool their ideas, after doing the paper courses and the live field checking, into a single set of courses that we could then use for the Warwick event that is scheduled for April 3rd of this spring.
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Reply by ErikEddy on Tue Feb 2, 2016 at 9:31 amor for the relays at the VP Cup...
