https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yVlFTWoMjt0fxUHX7DjrGPqEnjsisHJsB2cJkEyw19I/edit?usp=sharing

RMOC 2025 Annual Meeting

Saturday 9/8/2025

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Attendees

Doug Berling - Pres

Duncan Browne - Treasurer

Alan Powers - Sec

Kathleen, Graham, Cindy, Mariama, Eric, Wendy, Jieyi, Tara, John, Alan, Richard

Agenda

Score-O Results

Opening Remarks - Doug

Pres Report - Doug

Treasurer Report - Duncan

Secretary Report - Alan

2026 Local Meet Schedule 

Open Discussion Forum

Notes

• Score-O
  • Troy 1st
  • The great Duck vs Goose debate!  
  • Map scale 1:4200
• Permitting issues encountered at Vasquez (became training event) and Kelly Dahl
  • Difficulty with short staff and personnel changes
  • Kelly Dahl had ongoing forestry operations
  • Colorado state parks added new rule of $5 per start
• Treasurer
  • Net Income ~$4300
  • Meet entry fees up consistent with higher attendance 
  • Good amount of equipment purchase and maintenance expenses
• Odd has done a ton of very valuable mapping on a fully volunteer basis
  • Working on mapping an area near Grand Junction
  • Club to offer him any needed upgrades of mapping equipment
• Mapping Committee Update:
  • What are the actions of a year of meetings
  • Need champions on certain areas
    • Carlo to champion Kelly Dahl/Observatory/White Ranch (last year)
  • Still looking for champions for any area you’re passionate about
  • JP has done some preliminary mapping near Red Feather lakes (Mt Margaret)
  • Duncan to forward information on free online mapping classes from O-USA
  • Mariama to send out Christmas mapping exercises
  • Duncan suggested a meeting with experienced mappers to show interested potential mappers how to choose an area for good orienteering terrain and start
  • A boyscout is working on an accessible permanent course in Cherry Creek as an Eagle Scout project.  Club is paying from some of the markers for the course.
• Schedule - 
  • Doug would like to pursue a 2026 Labor Day NRE in Laramie
  • To work on Schedule for 2026 
  • AVOID MEMORIAL DAY weekend for schedules
• Officer Terms
  • 2 year terms
  • Duncan (Treasurer) and Senia (VP) reapproved for new terms 
  • Doug and Alan’s terms are up next year

Action Items

• Tara to reach out to Stephen Pepe about a potential registration system overhaul
• Alan to send out reminder to mapping committee on Valholl ranch property
• Continue to work on recruiting people to be trained on the timing system

Notes on Permitting issues from Senia

Vice President Report on Permitting for 2025

When I started doing this 6 years ago, I was given a spreadsheet by the outgoing vice-

president listing the people responsible for issuing our permits for all the major map areas that we use. Now, 6 years later, every single person on that list except one has been replaced, some more than once. The transitions have rarely been smooth with the new people sometimes receiving little in the way of orientation and needing to be brought to speed on our needs and requirements.

The year began with some wins and some losses. We were able to negotiate a permit for Chatfield state park which we couldn’t get last year by scheduling the meet early in April and being flexible about parking. At the same time, I found out that Larry Butterfield at Cherry Creek Park has left and the new person replacing him was not super helpful. It took a lot of back and forth to even get the correct permit form as originally they send me a permit request form tailored to photography. After receiving and submitting the correct form, I did not hear anything for a while and despite many attempts to contact them via email, phone and in person I never heard anything about the permit. As a result of that, in addition to a scheduling conflict, we decided to cancel that meet.

Also, this year most state parks in Colorado where we hold some of our events passed a new rule requiring a new fee of $5 per start for events such as ours in addition to the application fees and the pavilion reservation fees. This will greatly increase our permit costs.

Next, we encountered problems with the USFS permit. Sue Mills who worked at USFS many years and was great retired 2 years ago. She was replaced by Daniel Balderama who helped me with last year’s permit and who seemed helpful and knowledgeable as well, however, I found out he had been swept up in the government restructuring early this year. His supervisor stated she was doing the jobs of 3 people and did her best to assist with our permit. She approved us for 3 of the 5 events we applied for including Buena Vista, Manitou North and Del Gulch. She wasn’t able to get us approved for Vasquez Creek and Kelly Dahl. I was able to reach out directly to the rangers responsible for Vasquez Creek and got a last-minute approval to hold a training event under USFS guidelines. Hopefully having established attendance there next year would be easier to get a full permit. Then I tried reaching out directly to Boulder Ranger District responsible for Kelly Dahl and met with unexpected resistance. Their permit coordinator who said she has worked there for 3 years was completely unfamiliar with our organization despite us holding events there for the past 3 years. After multiple attempts at communication, she stated that they are doing pine beetle treatments in October at Kelly Dahl, that they are grossly understaffed and multiple other reasons and denied issuing us a permit. Therefore, we had to cancel that meet as well. It appears the forest service is facing severe staffing shortages as well as staff turnover which makes them very unwilling to take on tasks like permit approval for organizations like ours.

Going into the next year, applying very early in the year will be crucial for getting not only the state park permits, but also the USFS permit. When Sue Mills was in office, applying for the USFS permit required me to submit the application by February 15 and then wait to hear from her 2-3 weeks before our first event. She handled all the communications with the different ranger districts and just presented me with the final approvals. Next year, I plan to take the additional steps of contacting each ranger district responsible for the areas we plan to hold events early in the year after submitting the permit application to the Pikes Peak District to inform them of our event, present the operational plans and hopefully address any concerns they may have to gain their approval. We may need to be flexible in scheduling the events too to avoid activities such as their pine beetle mitigation at Kelly Dahl. One of the difficulties I encountered with the staffing shortages was that there were no back-up people to contact when the main person I was in touch with took vacation or sick time. Therefore, it will be crucial for next year to get in touch with the rangers and permit coordinators well ahead of the events to guarantee that they attend to our needs in time for our events. Their gross understaffing and turnover worry me about our permit prospects but hopefully with a lot of communication, follow-up and patience we will get to hold our regular events.