[ARDF] Host Club sought for 2005 USA ARDF champs

[Matthew Robbins]

This is just a few disjointed ideas, quickly thrown together.

I went to last year's R2 Champs website, and got the list of
competitors.  Pasted it into Excel, then sorted by State.  I added Bob
and Dick, and changed the names of the states to more accurately
reflect geographic positions. So "Kentucky" became Cincinnati, and
Ohio was split between Cincy and Cleveland.  I added at least one
competitor I'm aware of, and I tried to split California into Northern
and Southern (by guessing who lived where).  I then sorted by "state"
and got this:

Alabama
Cincinnati
Cincinnati
Cincinnati
Cincinnati
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Colorado
Georgia
Georgia
Georgia
Georgia
Hungary
Hungary
Illinois
Indiana
Indiana
Indiana
Indiana
Indiana
Massachusetts
Montana
Montana
New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico
NoCal
North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina
Oregon
Oregon
SoCal
SoCal
SoCal
SoCal
SoCal
SoCal
SoCal
SoCal
Texas
Texas
Virginia

Deleting the states that haven't hosted a big event (and Hungary) gives:
(oh, I left Oregon in, too.)

Alabama
Cleveland
Colorado
Illinois
Indiana
Indiana
Indiana
Indiana
Indiana
Massachusetts
Montana
Montana
NoCal
North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina
Oregon
Oregon
Texas
Texas
Virginia


Of this list, every duplication is a family (I think) except Indiana.

Unless a club has a lot of money to have a map made, I think it's
reasonable to assume a map needs to be already available.  (Updates,
if needed, are usually much cheaper than a new map.)  So the next step
should be to look at a list of Orienteering Clubs and try to match
that list up with a group of people interested in ARDF.

I'd think that the groups who have club gear like transmitters and
controllers could loan gear to any group who needed it, so that could
further reduce the monetary outlay to put on these championships. 
Hopefully, any necessary gear could be paid for out of the event
income.

Another thought would be to try to piggyback the championships onto a
large orienteering event, like the Convention or possibly the 1000
Days (Wyoming).  Even a standard A-Meet might work.  (I realize that
I'm being presumptuous.  A lot of details would have to be worked
out.)  If the location chosen didn't have any interested ARDF
organizers nearby, and if two maps were to-be-used for the event, a
different course setter could be chosen for each day.  That way, for
example, the 2m course setter(s) could compete on the 80m day.

As a first cut, here's my guess as to the availability of O'Maps to
the list above:

Y Alabama (Don't know club name...)
Y Cleveland (NEOOC)
Y Colorado  (RMOC)
Y Illinois  (Chicago Area OC?)
Y Indiana  (Indiana Crossroads OC?)
Y Massachusetts (Don't know club names...)
Don't know Montana (?)
Y NoCal (BAOC)
Don't know North Carolina (This has to be yes, right?)
Y Oregon (Don't know which cities have maps)
Y Texas (Houston OC? Bastrop SP? Others?)
Y Virginia (QOC.  Others?)

I was expecting that to have some No's in it.  Hmmm.

Another thought would be to look at cities with lots of orienteering
maps (hopefully including some interesting cities to visit for a
week), and see if anyone can be found to go-to-the-trouble of putting
on an event there. I went to an A-Meet near New York City last
November, and St. Louis just updated one of the first really good maps
I ever ran on, Hawn State Park.

Like I said, it was just a bunch of random thoughts.  I know that
since I used the 2003 competitor list, I probably missed some
potential states.  Updating the list would be worthwhile.

Matthew Robbins
Cincinnati, Ohio USA