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Topic created by bobburg on Fri Oct 17, 2014 at 11:24 amYes, we are gearing up for our annual NJ Scout/JROTC Championship Hanging flags in just a few hours. Looks like we will have record JROTC attendance -- perhaps 250 cadets running around in the woods, let alone our normal # of scouts. Please come run a course in this beautiful weather, come early or stay late and help us with the morning crush or final pick-up. And enjoy the woods. A word of caution to the wise: As much as courses are designed to avoid the worst of the green, Wash Crsg is full of little stickers. So wear your hardier pants. Below is our home page post.
Washington Crossing State Park – Saturday, October 18
Annual NJ Scout/JROTC Championship
Beautiful weather, turning leaves, and orienteering through wonderful rolling terrain. What more could you ask for?
We will be keeping Start open until 2pm, and ask the orienteering community that, if you can, to run your course during the later hours…after the initial crush is over. And if possible, to lend us a hand with the scouts and cadets in the morning. We can use any amount of time you can offer, especially in greeting and doing brief introductory instruction for the youth groups. And of course, if you come later we would always appreciate help with picking up flags and standards.
See you in the woods.
White 2.18k 45m 13 ctrls
Yellow 2.57k 95m 13 ctrls
Orange 3.93k 90m 12 ctrls
Brown 3.75k 100m 10 ctrls
Green 5.14k 125m 13 ctrls
Red 7.35k 185m 19 ctrls
Blue 9.33k 240m 22 ctrls
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Reply by kathyu on Sun Oct 19, 2014 at 9:40 amIt was a beautiful day indeed, and the sight of so many nice kids having a blast orienteering was inspiring. How to keep them coming back? The future of the sport is on those busses! Great job, Bob, and thanks to my fellow volunteers for the good company.
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Reply by edscott on Mon Oct 20, 2014 at 10:46 amYes, a well planned event. Just need to remind the Scouts and ROTC leaders that WXing no longer has trash cans or dumpsters so they need to take it home. My trash and recycling guy will think I had a huge party this weekend.Got to see a lot of the map between my course, some geocaching, and control pick-up. Yes, some areas are greener than they were, but for me there was always a way to avoid the messy spots.
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Reply by Hesketh on Mon Oct 20, 2014 at 10:57 am
Hello,
I wanted to give my thoughts on how great an event this was! A lot of work went into it and I was very pleased to contribute in a small way. I was recruited to replace Doug Sevon who is now orienteering up in Massachusetts. When called by Bob to help I was unsure of what I was being asked to do, but I guess everyone has that feeling the first time they do something! Doug Sevon was a real help in giving me instructions on how to setup this event on the computer and even used his prowess in MS excel macros to score each of the units competing in this year’s event that is given below.
Bob Burg and Gerry Smith did a great job organizing this event. Both Bob and Gerry have done a lot of work behind the scenes in getting scouts and JROTC excited about orienteering. I don't know all that they have done but to see the growth in this event is amazing.
One of the people that Bob and Gerry have established a connection with is LCDR Bert DeJong from Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Mount Holly NJ. Bert was instrumental in organizing the JROTC units. As a result this event has grown from 2 JROTC units to 14 this year! Bert DeJong motivated this large number of JROTC participants to come out by calling this event the AREA 4 Orienteering Championship. Then he motivated all the units to attend and purchased large trophies for the JROTC participants! JROTC units came from over 3 hours away from Chambersburg PA and Albany NY!
One of the largest JROTC units from a high school was MAST with 108 participants and 27 teams! MAST stands for Marine Academy of Science & Technology which is a co-ed four-year high school located in Sandy Hook, New Jersey. MAST placed 2nd overall in the team competition with 175 points but were beaten by the JROTC unit from Colts Neck, NJ with 400 points! In third place was the Western NY JROTC unit that travelled from Albany NY! I remarked to Mark Frank that remineded me of the university clubs that we participated in when we were in college.
Gerry Smith has for a number of years handled all of the registrations for this event. This event feels like an “A” event with all of the advanced registration that takes place! To do this he has an MS Access database of the entrants for this event. In this year’s event we had 214 teams competing and most of the JROTC teams were teams of 4 people! There were 14 Boy Scout troops, 2 Cub Scout troops and 4 Girl Scout troops.
Of course we all know that Bob Burg designed the courses, revised the Washington Crossing map, and set out all of the controls! This was a lot of work.
I was also amazed by all the help that our DVOA members contributed on the day of the event! DVOA is a great club that has members very willing to help put on these labor intensive events!
Team Results:
NJ Scout and JROTC Orienteering Championship 2014
Washington Crossing State Park
Saturday, October 18thTroop or Unit
Overall Unit Score
(High Number = High Ranking)BS Troop
30
115.2
BS Troop
73
73.5
BS Troop
48
70.0
BS Troop
9
54.9
BS Troop
262
51.7
BS Troop
44
40.0
BS Troop
70
36.1
BS Troop
145
32.6
BS Troop
870
29.2
BS Troop
17
25.0
BS Troop
7044
20.3
BS Troop
100
13.5
BS Troop
28
8.4
BS Troop
13
2.1
Cub Scouts
14
63.3
Cub Scouts
262
51.7
Girl Scouts
21078
60.0
Girl Scouts
71389
45.0
Girl Scouts
71833
45.0
Girl Scouts
22219
15.0
JROTC
Colts Neck
400.1
JROTC
MAST
174.6
JROTC
Western NY
38.7
JROTC
Sterling
30.4
JROTC
Rancocas
30.3
JROTC
Linden
24.8
JROTC
Middletown
21.0
JROTC
Boyertown
21.0
JROTC
George Washington
19.7
JROTC
North Plainfield
18.3
JROTC
Graphics
17.9
JROTC
Atlantic
17.8
JROTC
PCTI
12.8
JROTC
Chambersburg
12.7
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Reply by Sandy on Mon Oct 20, 2014 at 7:38 pmWhat a great report!
One of the ways QOC has increased the attendance at their local events is to have several JROTC units attend on a regular basis. The area championship in that region is now a big, big deal and several units are regularly attending local events to prepare for the championship event.
Perhaps we could identify a handful of events that we could promote to JROTC units in the weeks leading up to this event as a way to get ready for the championship and see if that translates into increased attendance at those events. -
Reply by ErikEddy on Tue Oct 21, 2014 at 9:35 amthis is great!
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Reply by hughmac4 on Tue Oct 21, 2014 at 2:28 pmRoutegadget up!
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Reply by Vadim on Wed Oct 22, 2014 at 6:24 pmRob,
Can you send me a pdf file of team results to be posted on the web?
Vadim. -
Reply by bobburg on Wed Oct 29, 2014 at 3:20 amI have been on long days and short sleep for months. So I apologize for not posting before now. (Happily, I have my life back, now.)
Thank you Robert Hesketh, first for posting that wonderfully detailed account of the Oct 18th Washington Crossing Annual Scout/JROTC Championship. And secondly and especially, for stepping in to take over Doug's role of the past few years. I so appreciate not having to worry about the logistics for this event being herded into our computers and packets being prepared for the event, then managing the registration process day of. I personally and frequently thanked my stars in the past few weeks that you were taking such good care delivering that so essential piece. And I'm delighted that the whole experience has not scared you away from event directing in the future. I will definitely return the favor.
Jerry Smith, from his central PA retirement relocation, continues to provide his invaluable expertise and support in fielding all the registration information and passing it along to Robert via dropbox technology I know nothing about, but which seems to work easily and well. Then he shows up to hang controls on Friday, and helps out all day during the event, bringing his 10+ years of experience as event director at WashCrsg to fill in wherever he sees help is needed, and make things very easy for me. Thank you so much for your continued participation and obvious dedication to the kids and this event.
So many people showed up to help in all sorts of ways, I hope I can remember (and mention) you all. Please, if I don't mention your name, send me a scolding message, but take great satisfaction about how well the whole day went. We got so many plaudits from the troops, packs, and units that showed up (even those who were leery about what confusion they might find) about how well the whole event was run. I heard nothing but great things because of all of you.
Vadim, you were such a godsend, handling the computer and partnering with Robert at Registration for most of the day before Kathey Urban took over e-system duties to finish the day.
Rick Slater, for years the event director before Jerry, and years more since then as course setter, took over the invaluable job of running Start all day, not the easiest task considering the numbers who attended. Especially Kevin and his wife (I'm so sorry I can't find/remember your name, but I still see your face and your help) who cheerfully welcomed and organized kids cueing up at Start. And many others, multi-tasking, helped out there. Group leaders were especially impressed about how well Registration and Start were handled.
Doug White stuffed all the maps into mapbags while Jerry and I hung controls on Friday, then showed up early Saturday to help set up, served as co-parking marshal, and then so much more. Tim Walsh also served as Co-Parking Marshal, not the easiest job organizing the vehicle overflow including all the JROTC buses, though I saw him down at Start as well. Mark Frank, also an early Saturday arrival, stood most of the morning atop a picnic table giving veteran instruction to all the scouts and cadets, while Bob Burton, standing on the ground nearby, also gave instruction to the kids. And I'm not sure about everything that Pat Burton did, but in addition to Start, I'm sure we kept her busy all day. Roger Hartley largely worked Start, but I'm sure he helped in other ways. (Sorry, I couldn't keep track of everything - we had 600+ show up. Plus I have this nagging feeling that I'm just not remembering some people who served very instrumental roles during the day. Forgive me, please.)
Then with pick-up, Ed and Julie (and Julie again) and Rick and Robert....and who else? gathered up all the controls in time for me to get to my 50th H.S. Reunion not too late. (Yes, it was a busy busy weekend.)
The secret of being an Event Director seems to be to get a bunch of really great people to come and run the event flawlessly for you.
Thank all of you so much. You made this a hugely successful event.
