News

April 2024 News

Published Tue 30 Apr 2024

President’s introduction

Kia ora all. Congrats to everyone who went to NZ Champs and represented our club so well. Sadly, I was not able to be there, but I hope to one day experience some of the unique areas used for those races. Going to these unique locations and environments is something I've always valued in orienteering. Kings Birthday in Golden Bay will be another memorable occasion and I'd encourage everyone to experience it.

Newsletter Contents

Auckland Calendar of Events
Next NWOC event; our Bivouac Outdoor Rogaine Series for 2024
Key events around New Zealand in 2024
- Kings Birthday Carnival
- Tūāraki-Northern Regional Championships - Labour Weekend
Schools Orienteering
- AKSS Events
- AIMS Games 2024
- North Island Secondary Schools Champs report
General Orienteering News
- Controllers Clinic
- Which way would you go?
Member News
- Lisa Mead recognised at Nationals
- Success for Stu Lynch
- World Universities Team
- NZ Champs Results from Nationals
- AKSS Sprint Finals Placegetters
- NISS Placegetters
- New Members

Auckland Calendar of Events

All upcoming events in the wider Auckland area for 2024 are on our NWOC website here
New Zealand wide events are on Orienteering New Zealand’s website here

Events coming up are:

- Sunday 12 May
  - Forest event on the Mission/Temu map, Woodhill Forest.
  - Details coming soon at orienteeringauckland.org.nz/
  - Pre-entry will be via enterO here

Next North West Event is our Bivouac Outdoor Rogaine Series for 2024

Coming up in May and June is our North West Bivouac Outdoor Rogaine Series. Three 90 minute Foot Rogaine Events will be held on:

Sunday 19 May - Stoneybrook
Sunday 26 May - Barlow Road, Riverhead Forest
Sunday 9 June - Grass Track Road, Muriwai end of Woodhill Forest

All event info will be posted on our North West website here

Entries are open now here The first 50 entries for all 3 2024 rogaines go in a draw to win a fabulous new Osprey pack from our wonderful event sponsor Bivouac Outdoor! And we are thrilled to announce Graze as a new sponsor for this year's rogaine series. We'll be giving away delicious Graze products, including some from their new Skinny Dipped Peanuts range, as spot prizes!

And in other news, as you can see below we have some fabulous new imagery to use for marketing the Rogaine Series. A big shout out and thanks to NWOC member Louisa from Redhead Digital for her work in creating this for us.

We'd love your help for the rogaines please as we do for all events hosted by North West. There's a variety of jobs to do; some pre-event activities that might involve admin work from home as well as on-the-day assistance with everything from running the sport ident technology that ensures we have results for events to control collection at the end of an event. All those who help are awarded a voucher for discounted or free entry to another NWOC-organised event. If you're happy to help please contact us at northwestorienteering@gmail.com

Key events around NZ in 2024

Kings Birthday Carnival 2024

Nelson Orienteering Club (NOC) will host King’s Birthday 2024 in Golden Bay. The organisers promise:

High quality orienteering 'off the beaten track' one bay ‘over’ from Nelson in Golden Bay,
A compact orienteering weekend, with the first start on Saturday at 1pm, and course closure on Monday at 12 noon
The Long and the Sprint are on brand-new maps. The Middle will take place on the stunning Canaan Downs South map, terrain described by former NOC president Matt Ogden as “Pure New Zealand orienteering, the spiritual epicentre for the sport"

The Event website is here Bulletin 1 is here

Note - the Kings Birthday Carnival includes the trials for the NZSS team to compete at the Australian Schools Champs during the September School Holidays.

Tūāraki-Northern Regional Championships - Labour Weekend 2024

Counties Manukau will host this year's Tūāraki-Northern Regional Championships over Labour Weekend ie from Saturday 26 October to Monday 28 October. More details to come.

Schools Orienteering

Auckland Secondary School events coming up soon:

Thursday 9 May - AKSS Relay Champs at Ambury Park^#. Event details here
Wednesday 29 May - AKSS Rogaine Champs. Event details here
Tuesday 18 June - AKSS Individual Champs. Event details here

^{# This event is organised by Lactic Turkey with support from North West. We need a few more volunteers and are wondering if any parents of students who have entered are available please? If you can help please contact Lisa Mead on mead10b@gmail.com.}

AIMS Games to include Orienteering

This year, for the first time, orienteering is included in the Zespri AIMS Games - an inter-school competition especially for 11, 12 and 13 year olds that is Australasia’s largest junior sporting event, held annually in Tauranga Moana.

The 2024 Event information booklet on the website is here.

The Events at AIMS are an Individual Sprint and a Team Rogaine. Our North West Rogaine Series for 2024 provides a perfect opportunity to get some rogaine practice in ahead of AIMS.

North Island Secondary Schools Champs 2024

Over Anzac weekend, North West hosted the North Island Secondary Schools Champs for 2024.

400 students from year 7 to year 13 lined up for the Sprint on Thursday afternoon at AUT Akoranga. Course Setter, Renee Beveridge, renown for setting tricky, technical courses, made great use of the complex labyrinth of small classrooms that are part of the campus. Adding in a mandatory taped route from a spectator control demanded competitors kept their focus while being cheered on by parents and teammates.

Mairetahi Forest, on the South Head Peninsula, was a great map for the NISS long event on the Friday. Mairetahi offers a wide variety of terrain from open mature forest on sand dunes to steep and rugged slow run areas while the scenic valley floor has lakes and open areas. A network of tracks and fences were ideal for the yellow and white courses. The senior and intermediate championship courses all had some significant route choices and plenty of hills. Controller Geoff Mead commented, ‘it was exciting seeing competitors run through the event centre on a spectator leg; some of them also coming via the event centre on a long route choice option. And lots of muddy and exhausted competitors at the finish!’

The Relay event on Saturday took the schools contingent to Riverhead Forest. Riverhead is known for its understorey vegetation and the map for the Relay while predominantly plantation pine forest had varying degrees of undergrowth or bushes plus pockets of native bush. Course Setter Andrew Bell had promised the relay would be fast and furious and it was, requiring constant map contact and concentration for individuals to be certain just where they were in the extensive track network. Again, a spectator control through the Event Centre offered parents and teammates an opportunity to cheer loudly!

Hosting an event of this size requires a real team effort and we are grateful to all the North West members and others who were involved over the weekend and contributed to the success of this event.

General Orienteering News

Controllers Clinic

FREE! Join ONZ for a two-day controllers clinic with practical field exercises on local maps over the weekend of Saturday and Sunday 18-19 May (9:00am to approx 3:30pm each day) at New Plymouth Girls High School.
Open to all club members involved in event organisation – the aim to certify qualified controllers.
Alister Metherell, from the Orienteering NZ technical committee, leads the course covering key topics such as the function and tasks of the event controller, course planning, event organisation, map standards, control descriptions, timing, safety, controlling conundrums, as well as effective communication with event organisers, participants, and volunteers.
All clubs nationwide welcome. There is no registration fee, and refreshments are provided. More details here

If interested please email orienteering@orienteeringtaranaki.org.nz

Which way would you go? Have a go at Couch Orienteering!

NWOC member Paul Ireland put together the exercise below to test your route planning skills and remind you of all the factors that are involved in successful orienteering! Please note the controls marked on the map below are NOT in Riverhead forest.

Click here to download a large version of the map below

Member News

From the NZ National Champs held in Rotorua over Easter

We were thrilled to see Lisa Mead win Orienteering New Zealand's Administrator of the Year Award in recognition of Lisa's tireless work supporting numerous aspects of North West including finances, website updates, event communication, internal documents, event setup and registration. Lisa is an absolute pleasure to work with and often picks up additional roles to ensure everything is able to happen. Congratulations Lisa.

Success for Stu Lynch

In March, North West member, Stu Lynch won the 2024 Riverhead Backyard Relaps Ultra event. The aim of the event is to run a 6.7km lap every hour, restarting on the hour, until there is only one person left standing.

After running continuously for more than 32 hours and a total of 288 km or 43 laps of the 6.7km course, Stu was the last man standing!

A week later at the NZ Orienteering National Champs, Stu won the M45A grade in both the Long & Middle. Stu is well known for his adventure racing prowess, being an eight time World Adventure Racing champion with Team Avya. Congratulations Stu.

Cameron Bonar in World Universities Team

North West member Cameron Bonar, studying at the University of Canterbury, has been selected to represent New Zealand at the World University Orienteering Championships in Bulgaria from 1 to 5 August 2024. Congratulations Cameron.

New Zealand Champs results from Easter 2024

57 North West members competed across the 4 days of National Champs with some impressive results:
Sprint
M20A Alex Watson 1st
M50A Nick Harris 2nd
W55A Suzanne Stolberger 2nd
Middle
W21E Renee Beveridge 2nd
M20A Alex Watson 1st
M16A Tahi Harris 1st
M14A Aidan Barrett-Hamilton 3rd
W40AS Lesa Lomas 1st
W40AS Alison Carswell 3rd
M45A Stu Lynch 1st
W50A Marquita Gelderman 1st
W55AS Fiona de L’Isle 2nd
M65A Rob Garden 2nd
M/W10A Lauren Harris 3rd
OpenRec Mark Barrett-Hamilton 3rd
Long
M21A Cameron de L’Isle 1st
M20A Alex Watson 1st
M16A Tahi Harris 1st
M45A Stu Lynch 1st
W50A Marquita Gelderman 1st
W55AS Fiona de L’Isle 1st
M55AS Trevor Carswell 2nd
W65A Lisa Mead 3rd
M65A Geoff Mead 1st
M65A Rob Garden 3rd
M75A Dave Middleton 2nd
M/W10A Lauren Harris 2nd
OpenVeryEasy Daniel Ding 1st

In the InterClub relays,

in the Open Category, our North West team of Liam Stolberger, Renee Beveridge & Cameron Bonar were 3rd.
in the Masters Category, our North West team of Nick Harris, Marquita Gelderman & Rob Murphy were 2nd.