Hello everyone

In complete contrast to the Covid19 stagnated earlier part of the year, the last couple of months have been non-stop orienteering, with some club members involved with Development and Junior camps right up to the week before Christmas.  The NWOC season culminated in the club champs, held on demanding courses on Woodhill’s Mushroom Road map, followed by our annual club dinner and prizegiving at Coatesville Settlers Hall.  Judy and Kingsley brought along a succulent ham, Annemarie provided an excellent photographic record of the orienteering year and a highlight for me was the deviously confusing orienteering punching maze devised by Tim and Maddie Longson. It was also a time to celebrate our members’ orienteering successes and to recognise some of those who have contributed throughout the year.

I would especially like to thank the NWOC committee for all their work and support in a rather extraordinary year and also huge thanks to all of you who have helped/ will help at our events, from course planning to picking up controls at the end of a long day; volunteers are key to club events and it is a good way to meet new people and learn new skills. 

2021 is a big year for the club as we look forward to hosting the New Zealand national orienteering champs at Easter. Our event director, Annemarie Hogenbirk, is working hard behind the scenes to ensure that all progress and planning milestones are met; the new Woodhill mapping has been completed and course-planning is underway.  We will be asking all club members to help make NZOC2021 a success – while still being able to compete on home-ground.

Have a wonderful Christmas, stay safe and I hope to see you in the forest in 2021!

Meri Kirihimete

Lisa Mead
NWOC Club president

people all of us have been committed to

1. Events Calendar
2. Event reports
3. Orienteering Skills
4. Club dinner, AGM and course setting competition
5. NWOC Club Champs
6. NWOC events in 2021 - Volunteers required
7. NZOC 2021 champs by NWOC

1. Events Calendar
January
09-17   Southern Orienteering Week (Blenheim/Marlborough/ Canterbury)- a week of orienteering events to replace Oceania 2021. Plan your South Island holiday – entries close 28 December here: https://entero.co.nz/evento.php?eventName=sow-2021

Thu 21  AOC Summernav St Kentigern College from 5.30pm
Wed 27 AOC Summernav Uni. Auckland, Epsom Campus (St Andrews Rd)

February
Wed 03 AOC Summernav Lloyd Elsmore, Pakuranga
Thu 11   AOC Summernav Panmure Basin, Mt Wellington
Wed 17 AOC Summernav Western Springs
Thu 25   AOC Summernav, Craigavon park, Blockhouse Bay
** The Auckland Years 7/8 & Secondary Schools Sprint series will start on the week beginning 15 February 2021 – details to follow.
Check out the club website for details of other events in 2021: https://www.nwoc.org.nz/events/
AOS = Auckland Orienteering Series – events generally have 9 courses of varying lengths and difficulty.
AOC= Auckland O Club, CMOC = Counties Manukau O Club

2. Event Report - Rogaine #2 Te Rau Puriri
The second and final rogaine was held at Te Rau Puriri Regional Park, a beautiful park located near the top of the South Head peninsula, past Parakai with rolling to steep Farmland, native and manuka bush and with a stunning event centre right on the Kaipara Harbour. Course planners, Geoff and Lisa Mead, were highly impressed that Cameron de L’Isle, Daniel Monckton, Simon Jager and Cameron Tier all visited all 30 checkpoints well within the 90 minutes deadline.

North West club member Gene Beveridge has put together a great educational tutorial called Leg By Leg, where he interviews Cameron de L’Isle, the winner on the day to get an insight into how he planned and executed his route. It's a great learning tool and well worth the watch. You can findLeg by Leg #12 here.
Our thanks go to the very helpful rangers at Te Rau Puriri Regional Park, to Annemarie and Jan who did the event timing, Loren and Craig Bruce who coordinated all the helpers and Rob and Marquita who are the long-time driving forces behind the NWOC rogaine series.

A link to Annemarie’s photos from this rogaine can be found on the Rogaine Series website or here.  

 3.Orienteering Skills

Carmen Fookes joined NWOC just three or four years ago and rapidly became enthusiastic about the sport, so much so that she joined other club members at Sweden’s ORingen and the Swiss O Week in 2019. Carmen relocated to Wanaka in late 2019, but we were pleased to welcome her back up North in November.

She recently wrote in the Orienteering NZ blog about starting orienteering as an adult: https://www.orienteering.org.nz/blog/orienteering-at-a-later-age/.  Her top recommendation for orienteering tips is: https://betterorienteering.org/basic-%20techniques/.

The World of O website has a daily (25 of them leading up to Christmas) article focusing on a long challenging leg. You work out which way to go, then look at the analysis based on competitors GPS tracking. How does your solution match up to the top competitors? Here is day 19.

4. Club End of the Year Dinner/Prizegiving & AGM

The Club AGM was held before the dinner and expedited in our usual brisk fashion. Thank you to Coirle Bradding who stepped down after two years looking after the club finances as Treasurer – and welcome to John Barrett who volunteered to take over this important role.

Heidi Stolberger and Trevor Carswell have also offered to join the club committee and we look forward to the fresh ideas and insights that they will bring on board.

Lisa Mead’s president’s report and summary of the NWOC orienteering year can be found here  or https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bi_2zGDzaXLOc9qZHGnewYbheyWMdICz/view?usp=sharing

During the AGM / social get-together on Sunday 6 December, the annual prizegiving was expanded with an extra prize, symbolised by the NWOC teddy bear mascot 'Westie', dressed in North West colours and with a compass aiming North-West. This prize, devised by Annemarie Hogenbirk, is intended to honour a North-West club member who performed a kind deed before, during or after an orienteering event. The recipient of this prize keeps Westie until he or she in turn decides who the next club-member recipient is, without any time limit. Fellow club members are free to make suggestions and the current holder doesn't need to have witnessed the next kind deed personally.

The inaugural recipient for 'Westie' is Owen Means who, during the recent AOS event at Slater Road, realised a young participant was struggling on a yellow course, proposed to change to a white course and then walked the whole course with her, before going back to the Start and running his own race.

he E   ec are busy

5. North West Orienteering Club champs 2020 – 06 December 2020.

The final AOS event for the year at Mushroom Road map in Woodhill Forest provided both physical and technical orienteering in the competition for 2020 NWOC club trophies.

Congratulations to the following:
M12      Tahi Harris
M21A    James Borlase
M21AS  Cameron Tier
M21E    Cameron de L’Isle
M40      Nick Harris
M50      Andrew de L’Isle
M60      Geoff Mead
M70      Dave Middleton
M80      Les Paver
W21E    Heidi Stolberger
W21A   Lise Turner
W21AS Charlotte de L’Isle
W21B    Fiona de L’Isle
W60      Lisa Mead
W70      Mary Moen
The entire de L’Isle family took home club trophies.

Special Trophies
Most Improved Junior Male        Tahi Harris
Most Improved Junior Female    Charlotte Spence
Top Junior Male                             Cameron Bonar
North West Shield for Most Improved Senior Darren Gosse
Stone Trophy for most Outstanding Performance of the Year  Nick Harris (1^st in Sprint/Middle/ Long at NZ Champs)
North West Shield for Valuable Service to the Club  Lisa Mead
Bert Chapman Junior Service Award  Heidi Stolberger
Westie Kindness award (see above)  Owen Means

Special mention also to Cameron de L'Isle for taking out 1^st place in the 2020 National O League in the M21E grade following a string of wins at the Northern Regional Champs in November. Cameron Bonar was 2^nd in the M20 league.

Course setting competition
2020 saw the revival of the NWOC Course Setting Competition and while entries were down, the calibre of the submissions was high.  The map, called The Slump, features detailed farmland in Hawkes Bay and was used for a chasing start event in the 2013 World Orienteering Cup. There are areas of cliffs and boulders, as well as a multitude of tracks, fences, and small areas of pine forest, as well as a few scattered ponds.  The judging panel of Renee and Mike Beveridge awarded kudos as follows:

Best yellow course: Geoff Mead
Best orange course: Andrew de L’Isle
Best red course: Gene Beveridge
Overall winner: Gene Beveridge

6. NWOC events in 2021 – and volunteers list
We plan to kick off the orienteering year with a weekend on our newly completed Riverhead map, featuring a Middle-distance race on Saturday 6 March and a Long event on Sunday 7 March. Map-maker Cameron de L’Isle will plan the courses, and key controllers and coordinators are already onboard.
2-5 April   National Orienteering Champs – see below.
16 May     Auckland Orienteering Series event on Turkey Ridge – on the day helpers wanted
20 June     Rogaine at Barlow Road, Riverhead – we still require an on the day helpers co-ordinator. This is a good opportunity to become involved with the club- you do not need to be a good orienteer!

04 July      Rogaine at Slater Road/ Hedley Dunes. We have course planners but would like a more experienced person to oversee/ control this event. (Date may be subject to change).

29 August   Auckland Orienteering Series event on Hedley Dunes. We need both a course controller and an on the day coordinator. Course planner is Nick Harris.

17 October Auckland Orienteering Series event at Lake Kereta. On the day coordinator required.

Please contact Club Captain, Rob Garden if you cand help out: rgmg@xtra.co.nz
 

7. National Champs 2021

2021 Nationals

NWOC is proud to host the 2021 Orienteering Nationals at Easter, Covid permitting. We are gearing up for four events as part of the New Zealand Orienteering Championship, 2-5 April 2021:

• The Sprint in the Long Bay area on the North Shore, which is under embargo;
• The Long and Middle distance as well as the Relay will take place near Wilson Road on South Head, with the whole area under embargo;
• Both the Long and the Middle have been accepted by the International Orienteering Federation as ‘World Ranking Events’, and give the opportunity for our elite orienteers to gain WRE points;
• If you have just started orienteering or you love the sport but you are not known for your fast finish times, this event is welcoming you: like any orienteering event, Nationals offer courses for every ability level!

Online registration will open in January 2021, but in the meantime sign up for updates so you receive the latest event info: https://www.nwoc.org.nz/nzoc2021/.

New maps
The Long and Middle will take place on brand-new maps, in Woodhill on South Head. However, this is going to be “Woodhill-with-a-difference”: sand dune terrain with a wide variety of vegetation cover; classical Woodhill plantation forest; native manuka bush; swamp; rough open; areas of complex contours, some steep bits, some flat fast bits. Long controller Gene Beveridge rates the terrain as some of the most varied and the best he has come across in New Zealand.

The map for the Middle has been made possible with generous grants from both Foundation North and the New Zealand Community Trust.

Covid19

Organising an event this size when a small virus causes havoc all around the world is no small undertaking. In close consultation with Orienteering New Zealand (ONZ), NWOC has developed ‘Covid-19’-document to ensure the safety of participants and volunteers partaking in this event. This document follows Government and ONZ Covid guidelines on gatherings and social distancing and provides clarity on our cancellation policy, event fee refunds as well as practical guidelines during the event, depending on the Covid Alert Level at that time. A summary of the main decisions and the complete document can be found on the NZOC2021 website shortly.

In the current planning stages, we assume we will be at Covid Alert Level 2.0, in the hope that the event takes place at Covid19 Alert Level 1, with more relaxed rules.

Accommodation

All events, with the exception of the Sprint, will take place near or at Leighton’s Farm, Wilson Road, South Head. For those who are looking forward to a compact event with minimal travelling times to the different venues, and maximum time to interact with fellow orienteers, NWOC invites you to come and camp at Leighton’s Farm for the duration of the event. Camp reservations will open shortly after the opening of the online entries.

Camping will only be possible at Alert Level 1: please make sure you have alternative accommodation lined up if camping at Leighton’s Farm needs to be cancelled due to changes in Alert Levels.

Organisation

As you can imagine, an event this size can only run smoothly when it is supported by as many NWOC members as possible, with many hands making light work on each day! We are counting on all of you to help for a couple of hours here and there.

A big THANK YOU to NWOC-members who already have volunteered their skills and time fortasks.

In the lead-up to the event, we are still specifically looking for volunteers for the following jobs:

• Day coordinators for the Long (Saturday), Middle (Sunday) or the Relay (Monday). Each Day coordinator works closely together with the setter/controller for that specific day, as well as the overall volunteer coordinator and the event coordinator, to make sure the day runs smoothly.
• Somebody who is planning to come camping at Leighton’s Farm during NZOC2021, and volunteers to be the camp manager. Tasks will include solving potential camping-related problems during the Easter weekend.

If one of these tasks appeals to you, and you like to be part in making the 2021 Nationals a great success, please contact Annemarie on NZOC2021@gmail.com. Thanks!

Stay safe and I hope to see you in the forest in 2021!