The forecast was for cloudy skies and intermittent rain, but Sunday dawned with sunny skies and cool temperatures. It was an ideal day for orienteering, and a lot of people came out to Waterloo Recreation Area.
The format was Score-O with an individual control worth from 10 to 40 points depending on how far away and how difficult a location it was. The goal was to accumulate as many points as possible within the 90-minute time limit. If you were out more than 90 minutes you lost 10 points per minute. With the highest value control worth only 40 points, people were highly motivated to come back on time.
Quite a number of people told me how much they enjoyed the format and why. People especially enjoyed the ability to design their own course. They said that sometimes White was too short and Yellow too long and this day they could do as much as they felt like. Others said that they wanted to try some of the more advanced controls without doing a complete advanced course. Indeed, I was impressed by the number of advanced controls near to the start that were found by relative beginners.
On the other hand, the Score-O format was not announced in advance. This proved a severe disadvantage to people who did not bring their own watches. Some people asked people they met in the woods what time it was and other people stopped back at the start to ask me how much time they had left. All in all, I was impressed with how competitive people were as gauged by how close to the full 90 minutes most people took.
Two people found all 26 controls in less than 75 minutes with Mark Voit beating out Joel Billau for top honors by virtue of finishing about a minute faster.
Special thanks go to Mary Joscelyn who handled the big crowd at the registration table with aplomb and good cheer. Big thanks also go out to the people who helped pick up controls at the end of the day: Joel Billau, Lew Kidder, Alan Oprsal, Robert Messer, and Pam Kittel.
| name | points
| Score-O participants
| Mark Voit | 660
| Joel Billau | 660
| Alan Oprsal | 650
| Al Newman | 640
| Tim Mielock | 560
| Dave Mielock | 550
| Andrey Koptelov | 540
| Tom Lee | 540
| Lew Kidder | 540
| Mike Keating | 520
| Igor Guskov | 520
| Oleg Koptelov | 520
| Finn Knudsen | 510
| Boris Avdeyev | 490
| Mark Spencer & Laurie Spencer | 490
| Megan Donohue | 490
| Thurston Miller | 470
| Chuck Newman | 450
| Kevin Keating | 440
| Art Ostaszewski | 420
| Mike Ryan | 410
| Alex, Jessica, & Tony | 400
| Wyatt & Barbara | 390
| Rob Patterson & Jennifer Smith | 370
| Polina Koptelova | 360
| Ron & Ben Way | 350
| Tom Jameson | 350
| Chuck Kovick & Jill | 350
| Bill Girardin | 340
| David & Brian Huber | 330
| Mark Todd & Mark Lane | 310
| Brian Halliwell | 300
| Great Lakes Adventure Club 1 | 260
| Pam Kittel & Robert Messer | 260
| John Rioux Group | 240
| GLAC2 | 190
| Yossef Zkic | 180
| Jess & Karl | 170
| Dave Wiechmann | 150
| Phil Shrader, Katy, & Carolyn | 140
| Dave Meeker | 140
| Joel Livingston | 70
| Diane Cook | 50
| Trail Blazers | 20
| recreational participants
| Chuck Brenner & Sara Williams
| Herbie & Amanda, Troop 547
| Scott Eveningred & Kelly Bukovina
| David & Frank, Troop 547
| Matt & Jim, Troop 547
| Ken Parks & Susan Burleigh
| Jolly Rogers Group
| Blake Nicholson
| | ||||||||||
Modified September 25, 2007, by Robert Messer.