By Rex Winterbottom (Regional Event Coordinator — Sierra Nevada)
A wonderful group showed up to celebrate 30 years of magic with the Bay Area Orienteering Club. Many old-timers and fresh faces showed up on a warm day, cooler under the shade of the redwoods up top.
Just going out on Bruce Wolfe's interesting courses was a tour through time—Joaquin Miller Park has been used regularly by the club for 30 years. The park has been host to innumerable regular courses, line-Os, sprints, memory-Os, night events, trainings, clinics, and club social gatherings, and houses the club's first permanent orienteering course. Events have ranged from the 1982 Scandinavian tour group event (where Bruce used a little local knowledge to beat future world champ Jorgen Mortensen), to the 1998 filming of the Backroads TV show on orienteering that still periodically appears on the tube.
Throughout these 30 years, the park (and the club for that matter) has seen many changes. The vegetation and landscaping keep morphing, and the map itself has evolved from the 1978 three-color, 1:12000 hand drawn masterpiece by Joe Scarborough, through a black-and-white "shaded" update in 1982, into a full-color IOF-standard, OCAD-based map today. The map sports a variety of terrain types, and still has some accuracy problems—not uncommon for redwood or steep terrain, and the park has both—but continues to provide good challenges for orienteering.
At today's event, folks couldn't get enough of the courses, and there were multiple helpings of White, Yellow, Orange, and "Retro" (advanced) served, all with pin punches. The Retro course relied on master maps, giving us once again that classic view of multiple butts sticking up while their hunched-over owners carefully copied the course onto their maps. In the future, we hope to use the 1978-and-current hybrid map that we almost used for the Retro course.
Jay Hann gave a splendid orientation to this year's COOL Junior League with navigation clinics, activities, and a super-fun ultra-sprint course with E-punching.
Besides fun orienteering, this social event featured an action-packed program back under the canopy of the redwoods. Potlucking is always a good time and tasty food was shared.
Great exhibits! Mark Blair put up a veritable museum display of controls over the ages, including some of the original homemade ones, one of which made its way to Australia somehow. Judy Koehler provided a stellar memory book including BAOC members who have graced the pages of ONA (Orienteering North America). Nancy Lindeman contributed a blizzard of historical articles, maps, bulletins, and promotional materials. Steve Haas also provided bulletins. Ev and Jean Beuerman draped about 40 T-shirts from older and newer events and A-meets on a huge clothesline. And covering the barbecue pit were two map boards curated by Johanna Merriss.
Our president, Nick Corsano, presented framed certificates to former winners of the BAOC Service Award, which recognizes volunteers who have contributed in diverse ways to our club over a long period of time. This year's honoree is Mark Blair, our longtime equipment director, who has also worn many other hats over the years.
Intrepid men, women, and children modeled various styles of O-suits of the years in the fashion show, maneuvering in and out of the crowd at the picnic tables on a mock orienteering course. I enjoyed the encore group strut at the end. Samples of the new uniforms from Axis gear were modeled, and Ben Legg gave an update on the uniforms and took questions. Besides the models, many others tried the uniforms after the show to see how they fit.
We shared stories and tributes—future spouses Mark Petersen and Janet Halsebo met at an event where Janet eyed Mark trudging waist-deep through a swamp. Some stories involved animals, some friendly, but mostly not. And a few featured interesting encounters with non-orienteers in the parks.
I really enjoyed the day, and am thankful to have had the opportunity to direct the event. Thank you for all the essential help—many people helped in many ways, and your spirit of volunteerism made directing this non-typical event very manageable. I'd particularly like to mention these folks who did a little extra: Steve Gregg, Nancy Lindeman, Jim Fish, and Ev and Jean Beuerman arrived early and helped me out of a jam. Also, Al and Cindy Carbonetti, two newcomers, helped at the beginning as well by putting out direction signs and streamers. At the end of the event, Judy Koehler, Steve Haas, and Mark Blair helped me take everything down and load up my car. Thanks everybody!
Volunteers
The intrepid modeling crew! Greg Ehrensing, Alex Finch, Steve Gregg, Tapio Karras, Judy Koehler, Masha Konkov, Blas Lopez, Karina Masalkovaite, Andrejus Masalkovas, and Johanna Merriss.
Ev and Jean Beuerman: Setup, Registration
Mark Blair: Takedown
Al and Cindy Carbonetti: Setup
Greg Ehrensing: Tent setup for models
Wes Erck: Starts
Toby Ferguson: Photos
Alex Finch: Registration, Starts
Jim Fish: Setup
Steve Gregg: Setup, put out White course controls
Steve Haas: Control pickup (Orange and advanced courses)
Alan Houser: Beginners' Clinics
Judy Koehler: Beginners' Clinics, Takedown
Matthias Kohler: Finishes
Ben Legg: Uniforms
Francois Leonard: Control pickup (White and Yellow courses)
Nancy Lindeman: Setup
Marie-Josee Parayre: Finishes
Bob Strauss: Finishes
Theo Verhoeven: Results, Control pickup (Orange and advanced courses)
Gavin Wyatt-Mair: Finishes