Discussion: The forest was dense; while...

The forest was dense; while visibility was good, there was plenty of undergrowth thick with green briar.

The footing was rocky and poor in many places.

What's NEOC's thinking about whether the above matter or not, and if they matter, how it might affect the decisions the club makes, such as what areas to map and hold meets, or how to set courses, or how to map?

Or do you sense that most people find the briers and the rocks just part of the fun? Or don't even notice them at all?

NEOC has a tragic problem that the membership are largely in the Boston area, while the best terrains are typically not. The best NEOC maps judged solely by their terrain are places like Baldwin Hill, Mt. Tom, and Connecticut. The maps that get the highest attendance are those that are convenient to the membership, like Breakheart, Blue Hills, Prospect, and Great Brook Farm. Many parks in the Boston area - like Powissett, the Fells, the Blue Hills, and Needham - have places with unrunnable vegetation and trashy, rocky footing.

I think that the bulk of the membership (including me) prefers running in pleasant woods to woods that shred your flesh, but there is also a preference for challenging, diverse terrain. Some parks (perhaps including Powissett) are just too nasty for orienteering, but I think most of our maps can be used for orienteering some of the time. For example, I find that Needham Town Forest is best near the late Fall and early Spring, otherwise the vegetation is too unpleasant.

In the schedule, a compromise must be found between map quality and map convenience - and the schedule should optimize both variables. I think NEOC should only hold events on parks that people have interest visiting, and that the membership should vote with their feet if not through direct feedback. The directors and scheduler should also make an effort to use parks that are more remote but are rewarding - like Baldwin Hill.

On mapping: I think mapping should be driven primarily by A-meets, but not exclusively: maps that are only really good for local meets should still be mapped well. NEOC just finished remapping part of Townsend State Forest, and we will be holding an A-meet there in November 2014. Some have expressed the view that mapping should be only for A-meets, that we shouldn't bother paying a professional to remap a place like Breakheart, Blue Hills, etc. I don't agree; if the map will be used, it should be brought to the highest practical quality.

Addressing your original point, I think there are limits to what people will tolerate with respect to vegetation, rockiness, and other factors. A good example is the current state of Harold Parker; I chose to put it on the schedule in 2011 because I wanted to add more variety to the set of maps NEOC always uses. It turns out that much of the park is thick with saplings, and people don't really like that. I think the conclusion is that we probably should wait a few years before trying it again. The onus is on the course setter (if they choose a park) to design suitable courses given the limitations of their map.

With ~25 local events on the calendar, I think it's ok to hold races at parks with suboptimal vegetation as long as there are people who are interested in going. After all, no park is perfect in every respect. I thought Jeff did a good job choosing parts of the Powissett map to maximize the quality of the orienteering, and while I generally prefer woods with less green briar, I had a good experience. Your results may vary.

What are your thoughts on event diversity and terrain quality?

I have my own views about what terrain I don't care to orienteer in, but I'm only one person. I don't know if there is general sense of what the folks who show up for orienteering like, or don't like.

Terrain -- the question is not just what areas you map, but how you use those areas. My own preference if the area is like Powissett is for a course stays out of all the crap, and maps the crap well enough so that you can choose routes to avoid it. If that means you're on trails most of the time, so much the better.

But I would be curious what people attending thought. And since the vast majority of them are not on AP, you won't find out via AP. Has there ever been any attempt to get post-event feedback, via a questionnaire given to people when they finish, with an attempt to get them filled out and turned in before they leave? Might be interesting.

I know I would be much more likely to come to an event if I knew that an effort was being made to use the nicer woods and stay out of the crap.

In addition to Ian's good points I would add the following. I had been to 3 or 4 previous meets at Powissett and I didn't recall there being so much green briar. It was annoying at times but certainly not enough to make me regret going. I wouldn't mind skipping a few years there, but if it's on the schedule next year I'll probably go.

I talked with Jeff (meet director) at the meet and he said that he had redrawn several of the courses to avoid the worst of the green briar. I think he made the best of the situation. Like me, he may have been surprised at the spread of the thorns in the last year or two.

Roughly half of the people attending the meet were on white or yellow courses so they spent little or no time in the green briar. I think people in this category choose venues more out of convenience/location than quality of terrain.

Getting feedback from participants is a great idea. I have thought about putting out a feedback box with a few short questions, but I've never implemented it at a local meet. I'm going to miss the next two NEOC meets, but I will ask Joanne to put together a feedback card for participants. That and a survey of all club members to get their opinions on club activities would go a long way toward helping directors and schedulers know what people like.

I was a little surprised at the paucity of advanced runners at Powissett this weekend, though who knows how much of that is due to the event location. Thanks a bunch for the feedback, PG; it's always helpful to know what club members and community folks are thinking.

While we're crowdsourcing, suppose you only wanted to ask 3-4 questions of participants (to maximize their chances of answering). What would you ask? I came up with:
1. What was the quality of your experience today? (worst 0 - 10 best)
2. Assess the quality of the terrain: (worst 0 - 10 best)
3. What was the quality of the map? (0-10)
4. How likely are you to come to an event here again? (0-10)
Any other feedback: (free response)

I'd point the freeform question to something like - are there any aspects to today's meet you felt could be improved? That gives people the option for a short answer (i.e. the print quality), or they can go more into depth. We all know orienteers like to complain after their races.

For some maps that are likely to get decent local attendance, but very little from experienced orienteers who know better and have had enough of the place (this might apply to Powissett, at least in my case), it may be worth forgetting about the advanced courses and just setting White, Yellow, and maybe Orange (and/or some long easy course). You still cater to most of the people who are going to show up, and it's less work for the course setter to not have to deal with the tougher controls.

Do we really have any idea of what appeals, and what doesn't, to folks on the easier courses, other than the often strong, and strongly-voiced, opinions of parents who are experienced orienteers.

I don't see much to be learned from Ian's phrasing of the questions. Just getting several numbers won't do you much good. I think Alex's approach is better.

The nice thing is that you can try this at a meet, see what sort of responses you get, and then modify the form for subsequent use.

I would think it would be important to have someone at download who could in a very friendly way give folks the questionnaire and ask them to take a couple of minutes to fill it out. And then when they turn it in, ask if they have any other suggestions.

Might be surprising what you would learn.

I was a little surprised at the paucity of advanced runners at Powissett this weekend, though who knows how much of that is due to the event location

I usually try to go to at least one meet every weekend, even when I'm sick, but past experiences at Powisset made this one easy to pass up -- and it sounds like it's getting worse.

My view is that almost any of NEOC's maps can be used, even for advanced courses, but it puts a real burden on the course setter to design courses that avoid the bad vegetation, and avoid flaky parts of the map. It requires a lot more time: the willingness to test run/walk all the legs and be willing to revise, sometimes multiple times.

I'd be interested to hear people's opinions about their most and least favorite NEOC event locations

Having heard complaints from my mother about junky NEOC forests, I definitely think it's worth asking some direct questions, like 'what course did you run?', 'did you have fun?', and 'would you like to orienteer at this venue again?' My feeling is that very recreational orienteers (like my mom and Bibiche) are quick to drop venues where they didn't have fun. Rather than cutting the map out of rotation, simply offering only easier courses that stay out of the crap would be an easy way to keep people having fun. (You can always offer one advanced course that does go in the crap, just call it Blue so that only the hardcore who know what they're getting into do it.)

It'd definitely be interesting to see what people say about various NEOC venues.

Ian, don't worry, be happy!

...are there any aspects to today's meet you felt could be improved?

I like this idea. And I would further suggest that the questions could be phrased positively. NEOC is clearly getting something right because there is a high attendence at NEOC events.

- why did you choose to attend today's event?
- what aspects of NEOC events do you appreciate?
- what aspects of this event did you appreciate?
- do you have any commnts about orienteering?