Outdoor Action wins $10,000 Polartec prize

Outdoor Action, one of four finalists in the 2012 Made Possible College Challenge, won by a mere 166 votes out of more than 27,000 cast. Lyon College and Skidmore College also had outdoor programs that were finalists in the competition.

This is the second year that Polartec, an outdoor clothing and equipment company, has sponsored the contest, which is intended to support outdoor programs and clubs at colleges and universities.

All four finalists were chosen based on videos about their outdoor program that were submitted in December. After being selected, the finalists’ videos were uploaded to Polartec’s Facebook page for eight weeks. The winner was then chosen based on which video got the most votes.

After uploading the video, OA began to encourage University students to vote for the video on Facebook, which they were allowed to do once a day. Rick Curtis ’79, director of OA, sent out emails almost daily throughout January to OA leaders reminding them to vote.

OA leaders utilized spam lists, hung a banner along McCosh Walk and even posted the link on PrincetonFML to remind students and supporters to vote.

Curtis said he was “thrilled” to hear about the win.

“We were sort of holding our breath,” he said.

Curtis first heard about this year’s competition in October and forwarded the information to OA leaders in preparation for the December deadline. Michelle Oresky ’12 and Ines Sheppard ’12, both leader trainers, directed the group of OA leaders that worked on the University’s entry.

Oresky and Sheppard created a Programming Committee last fall to create more outdoor trips throughout the year. The Committee, however, lacked adequate funds to expand OA’s offerings. The Polartec challenge represented an opportunity for the new Programming Committee to fund these trips.

“One of the things the leaders have talked about a lot in the last three or four years is wanting to do more trip activities ... but OA doesn’t have enough money to do these activities,” Curtis said.

The OA video involved many stills and short videos taken from past outdoor action trips. The video’s background song was written by Oresky and sung by Roaring 20. Oresky, Sheppard, Eliza Harkins ’14, Mark Whelan ’14 and Erisa Apantaku ’14 produced the video.

“The Princeton video definitely went through a lot of phases before it got to where it is now,” Harkins said.

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“It was kind of like a relay of skills,” Apantaku said. “One person would work on the video for a while and then another person would work on it.”

Leaders of the project promoted the video restlessly on Facebook, encouraging students to vote for it on Polartec’s page.

“I don’t think I posted anything on Facebook that didn’t at least reference Polartec for the duration of the contest,” Apantaku said.

Max Yano ’14, an Outdoor Action leader, said the strategy was for leaders and trainers to vote every day.

“There were a bunch of us that were liking each others’ posts, which was both reminding each other to vote and also bumps it up in people’s newsfeeds,” he said.

With the $10,000, OA hopes to create more trips and activities during the year, such as canoeing, white-water rafting and caving, according to Sheppard.

“I think OA is a great program, but it mainly focuses on just the one week at the beginning of the year — the Frosh Trip,” Sheppard said. “We all felt that there was so much more potential and so many leaders that are interested in doing different things in the outdoors.”

These trips would not only serve OA leaders but also University students who want to gain outdoor experience, Harkins said. The additional trips would allow those who were unable to attend the pre-orientation trips, like varsity athletes or those with scheduling conflicts, to participate in some kind of outdoor activity during the school year.

“The problem was that for OA we had this one week — Frosh Trip — which most of the class does, but after that there is really nothing for the rest of the year, so we are trying to spread more activities throughout the year,” Yano said.

A portion of the prize will subsidize the cost of these new trips, which will encourage and allow more students to do these activities during the school year. The pre-orientation trips are fully subsidized by the University for students who receive financial aid.

“Having this extra money then basically gives us the opportunity to say ‘OK, we can absorb a certain amount of the cost,’ ” Curtis said. “We still need to charge something, but we don’t have to charge the true cost because the true cost would drive a lot of people away.”

OA hopes to initiate some trips this spring that are funded by the grant and eventually use most of the grant money to fund multiple trips during the next academic year.

“It doesn’t stop here,” Apantaku said. “This is the beginning of hopefully the rise of a more involved OA program throughout the year.”