Date/Time: January 26, 2025 - 2:30pm
Location : Andy & Kevin Willer's home
The meeting was called to order at 2:15 PM by Bob Putnam.
The minutes were recorded by Mike Dempsey
Attendees: Ray Bruneau, Loney Carson, Mike Dempsey, Ron Eaglan, Kimberly Glass, Joanie Haas, Mike Ingram
Blaik Mathews, Will Pernasch, Bob & Janet Putnam, Jerry Sirmans, Andrea & Kevin Willer
Online: Gord Hunter
A quorum of FLO members and Directors were present.
Introductions: No introductions were made since everyone knew each other.
Treasurer's Report - Andrea Willer
The treasurer reported that FLO received income of $16,061 and had expenses of $17,402 during 2024.
That leaves us with a balance of $9,708.
One reason expenses exceeded income was the donation of $3000 to support JROTC members in national events.
The complete Treasurers Report is available upon request.
Email Andrea if you would like a copy of the report.
Membership - Mike Dempsey
As of December 15 we had a total of 29 members consisting of 24 individuals and 5 couples/families.
11 of these are Life memberships. This is a slight drop from last years' 33 members.
A total of 9 members are also members of OUSA (6 individual, 3 family).
OUSA Charter Renewal - Mike Dempsey
Based on the OUSA method for counting we have 34 'members'.
The $20 re-charter fee plus a total of 1781 starts [at $2 each] brings our OUSA charter
renewal fees to $3582. These fees were remitted by the treasurer in early January 2025.
Old Business:
JROTC discussions
It was proposed to increase the JROTC fees from $11 to $15. This will be further discussed at a future
meeting to specifically address this item.
A discussion of the host schools responsibilities was discussed and will be formulated in a document.
Blaik will create an app to generatethe base start sheets used by JROTC.
Costs have been rising rapidly so it was decided to check into whether the host schools may be able to
get a discount on the permit and pavillion rental, or to obtain cheaper insurance than that provided by OUSA.
We also need to look into the possibility of the host schools organising the event with minimal support
from FLO. FLO would design the courses and act as event director but schools would set controls and run the event.
This past year the female courses were designed to be about 20% shorter than the males. The team results use
the top 3 times. With this 20% delta females often now contribute to the team winners.
Participants will no longer be allowed to preview their maps before starting.
The possibility of allowing civillians to attend the JROTC training camp was raised.
The possibility of creating an advanced training camp was also discussed. This would replace the 5 day GA advanced
training [GOAT] camp which ended when its organiser retired. Gaither would be willing to help organise this.
We need to reach out to the JROTC schools for vollunteers to help vet/set courses.
Technology
We currently have more SI stations and readers than we need. FLX donated 15 stations last year. (These need batteries)
We are down to 75 rental sticks. Proposal to order 9 more sticks was passed unanimously.
We are currently using our new Surface Pro 6, along with Blaik's own Surface Pro 6, for both mapping and events.
A suggestion was made to look into buying a commercial grade hot spot. This would be expensive and requires power.
We currently have 60 good flags and sticks. In addition we have another 21 that are 'OK'.
Mapping
All 6 permanent courses have been fully restored with NFC chip punching and Maprun based QR codes.
We now have almost 100 ROYO courses that use proximity punching - no flags in the woods.
Livelox
The features we requested are now live in Livelox:
Training
Blaik taught 11 'intro' classes at REI and developed slides for an Intermediate class.
This has been taught twice so far. A total of 175-200 students.
The classes include an optional, instructor led, demo course at Mead Gardens.
Blaik is considering offering training on Zoom to reach a wider audience.
New Business:
Permanent Courses
Newly mapped or updated: Silver Springs, Mead Gdns (Training only), Flamming Arrow, UCF Arboretum, LBE,
Princess Place, Tillis Hill, Croom South. (These have mostly been field checked)
Camp Boggy Creek, Dunns Creek and Two Mile Prarie were put forward as possible future venues to be mapped.
It was suggested that Lake Louisa should also be redrawn.
OCAD Sketch
OCAD Sketch is a phone app that allows setters/vetters to use QR codes to download the map and show control
locations as well as their current location. You can also make notes on the map for updates to the map.
Afterwards you can upload these notes to OCAD and a mapper can download these and adjust the map accordingly.
Civilian participation
We discussed whether the addition of civilian rankings would encourage more people to attend more events.
Suggested for Orange, Green and Blue only. Would this discourage people from moving up to a higher level course?
The low number of civilian entrants is an issue here; also how to ID entrants without their own sticks.
Volunteers
We still need to increase the number of volunteers. We have people who indicate that would like to help but
there is noone to coordinate this.
Website Update
Still looking into the merging of the FLO and SOAR websites.
The meeting adjourned at 5 PM.
I hereby certify that these are the correct minutes of the meeting.
Mike Dempsey, Club Secretary
