Seneca Creek

While February ended with a cold snap, the Smokey Glen Farm pavilion was warm with the camaraderie of the orienteering community! We were thrilled to host the 8th Annual QOC Bumble on a special day – LEAP year – and welcome friends from DVOA, SVO, WCOC and UNO (thanks for traveling down, folks!) We also congratulated a totally new contingent of award winners (see below plus event stats). Congrats to them all!

After walking/running and enjoying the mostly open woods of Seneca Creek Park and the interesting aspects of Smokey Glen Farm, we hung out together comparing route/window choices, eating pizza and snacks, catching up on the latest news, and snapping pics with the Bumble himself.

The day ran super smoothly and was a blast because of the many, many volunteers who made it happen. It starts with QOC MD VPs Mike Newman and Tom Nolan who plan and secure the park and venue permits. Then Greg Lennon, Membership Director & Website Coordinator, spends a lot of time editing and posting the event info and sending the reminder email; Kathleen Lennon, Outreach & Publicity Director, posts info on social media; and Craig Shelden sends his awesome volunteer recruitment tool. After weeks designing the courses, David sends everything to Valerie Meyer who prepares and prints the maps and control descriptions, loads the info into the Sport Ident software, and prints the member sign-in sheet. On the day-of, Amy Louden hauls and sets up the epunch equipment and is assisted further by Valerie, Sandy Fillebrown and Laura Linville who run epunch registration. Sam Listwak and Pat McNeilly show up early to put out water and lots of signage and streamers. Sam continues with Beginners Instruction along with Dave Levine. Set up crew includes Rick Blank, Jason Hataye, Lisa and Dyson Dreisigmeyer, and Elena Lumby (who also draws a fancy Bumble landscape!). Lisa, Suzanne Izzo, Daniel Heimgartner, Stephanie Coffin, and Kelly Singer set up and run registration flawlessly while Elena stands by to help folks with questions. Nadim Ahmed turns an injury into an opportunity and take lots of great pictures, and Patti Mace helps with the mass start and clothing drop. Patti continues volunteering and helps organize 39 pizzas for lunch! Jody Landers hosts our winter meeting and is joined by Cecelia Landers, Don Fish, Evgenia Matveeva, Kelly, Elena, and Daniel to clean and pack up our meet equipment and supplies. Jody and Cecelia and Roger Meyer also took time to make and bring hot water for our beverages! Joe Barrett, Erin Brandt, Francis Hogle, Tom Nolan, Tom Wells, and Howie Weinstein head back out for more time in the woods to pick up controls. Florence Tan and Ted Good join the wrap-up fun by helping Amy and the pick-up team get all of the flags and e-punch boxes cleaned up and ready for the next event. We were done and out by 5:15pm. BUT, wait, there are more….Valerie gets the results tallied and posted on the website and Attackpoint, Greg reformats this message to post online, and Kathleen posts pics! Thank you all soooooo much! We are deeply grateful for your help.

WOW – that’s a total of 36 people (including us) to make this event possible. Please keep that in mind the next time a meet director asks for your assistance. Or better yet, reach out to the director and volunteer! Every helping hand makes a HUGE difference, is appreciated more than you know, and is what makes QOC one of the best clubs in the country.

One final thank you to our friends at Smokey Glen Farm – Jim Sweet, Mark Perkins, and Matt Guerra – who so kindly helped ensure our second event at their historic venue was a great success including letting us book before they open for the spring, setting up/taking down all the chairs, tables, trash and recycling cans, and giving us ice! Please keep them in mind for future events for your family, friends or businesses. Working with them was a fabulous experience!

Here’s to our next fun gathering! --Heidi (Bumble coordinator) and David (Head Bumble) Onkst

STATS

First female across the line (regardless of handicap/course):
Tegan Mortimer, Beige, 48:12, QOC

First male across the line (regardless of handicap/course):
Max Janke, Brown, 43:55, QOC - Patriot NJROTC

Fastest Female on Red:
Diana Aleksieva, Red, 98:59, QOC, US National Junior Team

Fastest Male on Blue:
Joe Barrett, Blue, 83:57, QOC, US National Development Team

209 participants with 191 starts
106 people on the Bumble Mass Start

Bumble Bonus Winners:
- Florin Tencariu – 3 minutes (window 1, control #D)
- Jon Torrance – 2.5 minutes (window 2, control #J)
- Justin Green – 1.5 minutes (window 3, control #L)
- Rick Oliver – 2.5 minutes (window 4, control #S)
- JJ Cote – 3 minutes (window 5, control #W)
Sentence: Bumbles Lightly Bounce Through Forests