1996 ONB President's Report
This has been a year with some of our best accomplishments ever
have been achieved along with some backsliding in other areas and
a few genuine disappointments. The outlook is generally good, the
areas for improvement are identified. Highlights include:
- The penultimate (I've always wanted to use that word) event,
the Fredericton Spook-O, attracted 175 participants, including some
from Edmundston and Chatham. This is the largest number from any
event I have ever seen in New Brunswick.
- Although membership has increased marginally, there appear to
be keen newcomers. Membership in Moncton has had the greatest
percentage increase, infinitely higher than before.
- We have had more (deliberately) unorthodox meets this year:
Street-O, Flood-O, twin short-O's, Spook-O. They all were well
received by the participants. More of these sounds good.
- At least one club has already had its annual meeting. Yeah.
- Provincial funding was reduced slightly this year. Funding at
the national level reached zero. I believe the long term health and
stability of orienteering depends on offering something our current
members value and broadening our services to reach those outside
the classical orienteering "market".
- Due to other commitments by Lyman Jones, the chief training
camp organizer, no training camp was offered this year.
- Officials and coaching courses were offered this year. No one
volunteered. Sigh.
- Several of our dedicated young athletes, spent part of the
summer orienteering in Europe. This level of commitment appeared to
bear fruit later in the season in the national and North American
championships.
- I believe our athletes in all ages contributed to the largest
haul of medal metal ever in various regional, national and
international meets.
- Both Wil and Sandi Smith have been pre-selected to the
national team for 1997.
- Our results belie the fact that we have no coaching program.
The results been achieved now are a results of seeds planted years
ago and achieved only the personal efforts of a few athletes and
families. There is no foundation to build upon.
- At the ONB championships we had considerable support from
cadet corps in New Brunswick and P.E.I. This came in the form of
participation as well as organizational help. The cadet presence
is appreciated and I hope we can expand our mutual involvement next
year.
- I was meet director for what should have been our premier meet
of the season, the ONB championships. Unfortunately it became an
object lesson in the relevance of standards and a demonstration
that a considerable effort cannot always compensate for a flawed
system. This was a ranking meet in which the two elite courses had
to be thrown out.
Note in passing that the courses were not thrown out as a result of
a formal complaint. The decision was made after the controls were
retrieved and a control was found to be incorrectly placed on a
parallel feature that was not marked on the map.
- The autumn amble was my favourite meet this year. It was a B
meet with A meet safety checks. There was a control placement that
was in question; a vettor thought it was in a different place than
that shown. Competitors were informed of this so knew what to
expect. It makes all the difference.
- There are significant changes at COF. This is the topic of a
separate COF report.
- This will be my last report as your president. Time for new,
fresher blood.
Happy trails,
Ray St-Laurent
This page is maintained by:
Benjamin Lee.
Last updated: 1996-11-27