1996 ONB President's Report

• 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.