·
Chuck Ferguson,
USOF President, opened the meeting at
·
Passed by acclamation
·
Credentials
Committee: Linda Ferguson, Betsy Hawes, Joan Roos
·
There were 19
clubs present and 10 proxies with a total of 682 votes. This was a quorum (needed 153 votes).
·
(Representatives
of two clubs came late and the above figures represent the final tallies as
amended by the Credentials Committee.)
·
Walter Siegenthaler, COK
·
Ardis Dull, COC
·
Passed by acclamation
·
There are no
Federation Referendums.
·
There are no
minutes available at the moment from the previous AGM but we are working on
getting them.
·
A motion was
made to dispense with the reading of the minutes; it passed by acclamation.
·
The reports are attached. The Treasurer and Auditor were not present; Chuck
Ferguson summarized their reports. The
2003 year end amount was about $124000; the 2004 year end amount was about
$180,000. This increase was due partially
to the fact that the insurance premium for 2005 had not yet been paid. At the end of 2004 the Insurance Fund had $60,000, the Operating
Fund $36,000, the Map Loan and Map Grant Funds $32,000 and the O-in-Schools
Fund $22,000. This accounts for roughly
84% of the USOF fund balances. Chuck
Ferguson would like to take a look at where USOF is spending its money. He personally would like to see more money
going to the US Teams and to youth programs and thinks it’s time the budget is
re-examined to see if it is still in line with what USOF wants to do.
·
The budget for
2006 will be voted on at the Board of Directors meeting to be held in
November. The 2005 budget is attached.
·
Regional
Representatives that were recently elected with terms beginning in 2005:
o
Pacific
Region: Syd
Reader BAOC, David Irving SDO (alternate)
o
Northeast: Joanne Sankus NEOC,
Sue Hawkes-Teeter, EMPO (alternate)
o
Heartland: not done yet
·
The following
were the nominations for Board positions:
o
President: Chuck
Ferguson, GAOC/QOC
o
VP Competition:
Clare Durand, LAOC
o
VP Program
Development: Mike Minium, OCIN
o
Secretary: Sandy
Fillebrown, DVOA
o
At-Large:
Stephanie Martineau, MNOC
·
There were no
other nominations from the floor; the candidates were approved by acclamation.
·
Chuck Ferguson
was in
o
The IOF is still
interested in getting orienteering into the Olympics. One criterion for admission into the Olympics
is that orienteering be television friendly.
The micro-O part of the middle distance race at the recent Norwegian
Championships was an attempt to make orienteering exciting for TV. By agreeing to include micro-O at next year’s
WOC,
o
After only 2
years in existence, the Chinese orienteering federation has a million
orienteers. They built a course in a
stadium and had 40,000 people participate.
The state has decreed that orienteering is a scientific sport and so it
is taught in all the schools.
o
o
o
The South Korean
ambassador of tourism was made president of the orienteering federation.
·
An Interscholastics
task force was created in the spring and is chaired by Edgar Paul. They have come up with several recommendations
and reports and are looking for feedback.
Their reports are attached.
·
The BOD added a
sprint championship to the US Championship structure.
·
There has been
major insurance “turbulence” but things are getting sorted out.
·
Frank Kuhn: VP Administration
o
By-laws
committee; nothing to report.
o
Grievance
committee: outstanding year, NO grievances, Nancy Neimann
is a new member. Full report is attached.
o
Fund Raising
committee: Stephanie Martineau is chair –
very successful year. Full report is attached.
o
Convention
committee: there was no convention held
in 2005, working on 2006 and 2007. (CROC
asked to hold the convention in 2005 in conjunction with PNWOF and the US
Championships, but were told the dates were not
acceptable. There were no other clubs
expressing interest in hosting the convention.) Full report is attached.
o
Nominating
committee: still looking for a chair
o
Endowment Fund
committee handles the actual investing of the Endowment Fund, but USOF needs to
market it. Looking for someone to head
up this effort.
o
Endowment Fund
report by Mikell Platt: Full report is attached.
§
The fund has
been in operation about 3 ˝ years with funds distributed roughly 90% in
equities and 10% in money market funds. Since
inception the fund has a 4.7% rate of return; 4% of assets are returned to USOF
yearly. The Endowment Fund committee has
been trying to establish a good record of investment in order to attract donors. If the endowment fund can be grown, it will
provide a long term income stream and stability to USOF.
·
Clare
Durand: VP Competition. Full report is attached.
o
The
o
The senior team is
working hard to improve and is doing a lot of fund raising.
o
The new junior
team leader is Janet Porter. The junior
team is working to establish a regional coaching network.
o
Ski-WOC is now
on a 2-year cycle on the odd years; the ski-O team is particularly looking to
develop younger ski-o participants.
o
Clare and
interested parties are currently working on defining a structure for selecting
future trail-O teams.
o
Cathy Yekenevicz is chair of the anti-doping committee. Full report is attached.
o
Randy Hall is
the new chair of the sanctioning committee; he has established a website that
hosts a planning calendar and the current status of all sanctioning requests (http://mapsurfer.com/sanct/).
o
Significant
progress was made in the last several years by the Rules Committee to update
the rules to reflect current practice; however, with the addition of new
disciplines (sprints, trail-o, etc.) the rules need to be reviewed again.
o
The Ski-O committee
sanctions ski-o events and championships; there are plans for a
o
The Ranking
committee is working on how sprints should be folded into the ranking process. Clare wants to work with ranking committee to
get a web-based ranking system, so that results could be submitted on-line
after each event and so that rolling rankings could be available immediately.
o
In response to
some questions about reaching out to the disabled community, Clare clarified
that the Trail-O Committee reports to VP Program Development but that the
Trail-O team, as an official US Team, is something new and is under VP
Competition. There was some general
discussion about efforts to promote Trail-O.
One concern is that before we can reach out to the disabled community
too much we need to make sure we have the personnel to be able to conduct quality
events. Trail-O needs to happen at the
club level and so more people need to be exposed to Trail-O. At the same time, it might be wise to begin
to reach out and form relationships with the disabled community now.
o
In response to a
question about the sanctioning process for rogaines,
Clare indicated that for a club to call a rogaine the
US Championships, the rogaine
committee has to sanction the event and the USOF board needs to approve the
bid. Clare will contact the American
Bushwhacking Club, a club which is chartered with USOF, to clarify the status
of their upcoming rogaine and their promoting it as the
·
Mike
Minium: VP Program Development
o
The focus of the
Trail-O committee is development of trail-O, and they are working on how to
reach out to those with disabilities.
Full report is attached.
o
The College Development
Committee has been very active in the past year; providing awards for the US Intercollegiate
Championships, providing travel grants to the World University Championships,
and trying to help students who want to start orienteering clubs at their
schools.
o
The Orienteering
in Schools books are selling at a steady pace.
o
Mike has the
USOF display that can be shipped for use by other clubs to use at conventions,
etc. It was suggested that a photo of
the display be made available somehow so clubs could see what it looked like.
o
The brochure
“Orienteering; the sport of a lifetime” are available for sale and there is
room for clubs to put their own contact information. It was pointed out that it has not been
updated for a while and perhaps it should be to include e-punching for example.
·
Gary
Kraght: VP Club services
o
The single most
important service to clubs is providing insurance. We are currently in negotiations with new
brokers.
o
Map Loans and
Map Grants: the map loans are working well; the map grant fund is underutilized
o
The Environmental/Land
Use Access committee needs a chair