OK.

I'm irked.

Today, in the Topeka paper, on the front page of section B is the headline ORIENTEERING with a 3/4 page story and pictures.

One can see the web version at http://cjonline.com/stories/061500/spo_orienteering.shtml

I find two things about this frustrating. One is the lack of providing a local resource to follow up with. And I intend to talk with the paper about my longstanding complaint that stories are written about after the fact, rather than before hand. Thus people find out about the things they missed, not the things they can participate in.

The other is the timing. Even if Gene, or Mike or I had been noted (and how nice to have a local bit about how two Kansas team of only eight members did so well at the national relay champs, or that we have a number of US champs locally) what could we have told a prospective participant? See us in August?

Maybe this needs to get to Gale, but National Orienteering Day, if it is to mean anything, needs to be better planned. Both in terms of timing and in terms of getting people out to participate. After all, wasn't that the goal? To have more people participate?

-- Fritz (fpmenninger@hotmail.com), June 15, 2000

Answers

I emailed this letter to the editor.

I was disappointed to read the article on National Orienteering Day in today's paper for at least two reasons.

One is the lack of reference to local availability. There is a small, but vibrant club (Orienteer Kansas) in the northeast Kansas area and another club (Possum Trot Orienteering) in the Kansas City area. Neither were referenced. This April, Orienteer Kansas, fielded two teams in the US Relay Championships, with one team finishing second, and the other 12th. In addition, Orienteer Kansas can easily claim its share of US Champions over the years, despite the small number of active participants in the club. It is too bad that local color was not added to the article.

Another is the timing of the article. Part of this is due to the timing of National Orienteering Day. Here in Kansas, due to how thick and unpleasant the woods become in the summer, orienteering is best enjoyed in the spring (before the vegetation begins to leaf) or in the fall (when it dies back). Unfortunately, neither our club, nor Possum Trot offers much in the way of events until September.

I hope that in the future, you will consider how to provide a modicum of information for the reader who is interested in knowing more about what is written.

If our are interested in knowing more about the local clubs you can visit the web pages at

for OK: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Field/7306/ (the most active link being the question and answer forum)

For Possum Trot: http://members.aol.com/PTOClub/home.html

Yours, Frederick Menninger 425 Iowa Holton, KS 66436

-- Fritz (fpmenninger@hotmail.com), June 15, 2000.

I must admit I have a hard time getting all upset about the appearance of this article. In contrast to some I've seen, there was little in it that gives orienteering a bad name. That being said, there was nothing in it that gives orienteering a good name either! To someone completely on the outside reading the article, orienteering must sound pretty lame. The inaccuracies were there, but not that numerous. It was, of course, just off the press wires and not a local article. I guess this type of article serves to to fill the paper with things without having to involve a professional writer from the Topeka paper. For a writer from Topeka to figure out what orienteering takes place locally and edit the article would take some time... an hour at least. Even so it wouldn't be very easy to walk in from the outside and find out what orienteering is going on.

I think National Orienteering Day was sponsored by Brunton. I guess they wanted everyone everywhere to hold it on the same day. Practical? Not really.

We could try to publicize the local orienteering scene, but we would, of course, have to get ready for beginning orienteers to show up. To retain anyone as a member we'd probably have to have a plan. Of course that's where Fritz comes in...!

I nominate Fritz as OK's new PR or publicity manager!

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 15, 2000.

I nominate Fritz as OK's new PR or publicity manager! Fritz could be a good PR director. He was responsible for getting both the Lawrence Journal World and a Topeka TV station to cover the US Short Champs when they were at Clinton State Park.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 15, 2000.

I was?

-- Fritz (fpmenninger@hotmail.com), June 16, 2000.

Within two days of the article appearing, I got emails from three people asking to subscribe to the OREAD. None of them said where they got info about the OREAD. But, it seems possible that they read the Topeka paper's story and found the OREAD web page.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 20, 2000.