Board Meeting Minutes from December 2, 2015

Arctic Orienteering Club
Board Meeting: Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Meeting called to order at 7:25pm, at Billmans.
Members present: Trond Jensen, Regan Sarwas, Anne Billman, Dan Billman, Ian Moore, Eric Follett, Joyce Goodell, Lexi Hill, Chris Tomsen, Art Harmon and Cory Smith.

Review of October board meeting minutes, minutes approved.

Revision of 2016 schedule was presented. The schedule will not be included in the Runners Calendar. A couple changes were made. Chris suggested he and Ed Strabel team up for ideal in the Mat-Su area. Ian: a suggestion was made to have the annual meet earlier in the year to: 1) sustain the excitement of the season, and more people are around mid season.

The discussion that followed: Call it a “party”. Squeeze a 15 minute meeting during gathering. Add a couple more activities. Schedule it as a “Score-O” so everyone finishes at the same time. Good venues for this are Goose Lake; Storck Park; and Ruth Arcand. Dan suggested having a sub group party committee to plan the event. Lexi volunteered to head committee with Joyce, Anne and Jill F. to complete the committee. The requirements for annual meetings include By-laws; meeting be in the third quarter and election of officers. (we will include these req’s). A date for this event is tentatively 6-22-2016, for a “Solstice O”.

Ian reported Mapping: Discussion included map maintenance, the large amount of maps we have to manage, and the time involved for mapping. For making decisions on mapping we need a work group, developed from either within the club or outsource. Ian created (with Lidar) maps of several areal. He sees it as a good tool for defining contours and wilderness, but will need work for details. Structures, light poles, etc. need to be added manually.

For base maps, Lidar software is awesome for creating O maps with some vegetation. Undergrowth, marshes and manmade don’t show up so it needs to be added. This would be OK for areas that we don’t have yet, and we can add data. There is also software that can be added to make it more useful. Conclusion: Ians’ opinion is that between Lidar and Karttapullautin (http://www.routegadget.net/karttapullautin/) they’re good tools. He suggests we set up a trial meet possibly in the Eagle River area.

More mapping notes: Lidar creates the image and contours and if we use OCAD we need to draw the vegetation. There are several helpful tools available – Open Orienteering Mapper (free mapping) that reads OCAD, and purple pen.

Steps to make map: Lidar makes base map. Size it. Download – Open Orienteering Mapper. Then field checking, then drawing parking lots, fences, trails, etc. Ian will work on the process for making maps.

Updating current maps: Ian will work on Storck Park and Kincaid. Eric would like to help at Kincaid with his GPS hat. For the Big-O, Regan will help in the area around the stadium as many things there have changed and need to be mapped. Any people interested in mapping and improving certain areas contact Ian.

Sharing our Trail Data with outside interests when our map information is asked for: Discussion included what do we actually want to share? Possibly just map contours and trails; not vegetation; wipe out indistinct trails. In this area, we may have a potential to gain fees, as this data is valuable. Sharing our maps with the Muni could possibly benefit our club. We could use this as a way to negotiate future trail user fees for our club. How about something like a 10 year waiver for OAC trail fees through the Municipality.

OUSA recharter fees. The fees have had an increase of approximately $790 a year. This could possibly be less if we don’t own the Big-O and the High School-O since they are ADS events. We will check with Mike on this. A motion was made and approved to pay the OUSA recharter fee of $2000 up to $2500 was made and approved. This is an increase of 100% in fees. Our club could apply for a hardship. AOC cannot take advantage and benefit from OUSA’s activities because of our location. Dan and Trond will apply for the hardship.

The Board approves a check for $1661 for Muni Park user fees. Ann motions, Regan seconded.

Shelly put on an “O” meet at Kincaid for the Dimond and West ski team. 100 kids participated, and all enjoyed it. Map costs came to $31.30. Lexi moved we pay Dan for the maps. An agreement was made that in the future, please send board E-mail for prior approval for expenses to putting on individual events if you want to get reimbursed. Regan seconded. Approved for AOC to pay for maps.

Income: Dan will find the paperwork to re-apply for the Healthy Future Grant. Trond will handle the Conoco Phillips grant paperwork.

Misc:

  • OUSA AED offer: It was decided not to participate in the purchase of an AED for the club.
  • AK Safe trails: It was decided not to support the safe trails initiative
  • Art has an incomplete but useful Excel spreadsheet database of the AOC members. We will use it for help with finding meet directors. Regan will put this data on the protected area of our website.

Next Meeting scheduled for Wednesday 2-3-16. Discussion on Mapping, Schedule

Meeting adjourned at 9:29pm

Minutes respectfully submitted by Joyce Goodell, Secretary

Minutes also available as DOC.