Kia ora

I hope everyone is well.

The club committee has been moving fast to put in place our COVID plan and confirm our event offerings. It looks like the Omicron wave is well underway already, which will put pressure on our volunteers in our first few events, but gives us higher confidence that COVID will be less of an issue for our events later in the year. Hearing from friends in Australia, they’ve reported a great sigh of relief that sport has largely returned to normal operation. Part of our COVID plan is to have backup volunteers for many jobs at our upcoming events so that we can make substitutions if someone has to go into self-isolation at the last minute. If you can put your name down as a backup volunteer you will be helping out the club at a crucial time. Please reply to the newsletter email if you can help with any job at an upcoming event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kMg-nqJNT4

1. Events Calendar

The AOC SummerNav events are now taking place under the Covid Protection Framework (currently at Red level). See here for details of how the SummerNav events will be run. A number of park orienteering events are still available as orienteering training courses with MapRun6. Maps (pdf versions for you to print out a copy) are uploaded to the AOC website and in MapRun. Details on MapRun are given here.

PDF versions of the maps can be found on the Auckland Club website.

March

Thu 03 AOC SummerNav 5.30pm Auckland Domain
Sat 05 AOC SummerNav 8.00pm Hamlins Hill, Night event
Sun 06 NWOC Training day Slater Road/Woodhill Forest - Free to members – registration required
Sat/Sun 12/13 Katoa Po Relays and rogaine in Taupo. Pre-entry here
Tue 15 AOC SummerNav 5.30pm Western Springs (Stadium Road)
Sat 19 NWOC AOS 2 Wilson Road – new map!
Sun 20 NWOC AOS 3 Lake Kereta – see more details below.
Sat/Sun 26/27 JWOC Trials Palmerston North region

April

Sun 03 AOC AOS 4 Muriwai (Woodhill Forest) or Riverhead - location to be confirmed.
Sun 10 NWOC AOS 5 Riverhead Forest
Easter 15- 18 NZ Orienteering Champs – Nelson region. Enter by 18 February (late entry at extra cost). See website for all details.
Friday – Sprint Nelson College/ Sat – Middle at Canaan Downs South/ Sun Long at Canaan Downs North / Monday – Relay at Moturoa East

AOS = Auckland Orienteering Series – events generally have 9 courses of varying lengths and difficulty

2. Secretary

NWOC is currently looking for a secretary. Currently Annemarie Hogenbirk is stepping in temporarily to perform the jobs, but her passions are really with event technology. The club is looking for someone to:

• be a single point of contact for important communications to and from the Club.
• stay on top of communications in the club email.
• record key committee discussions and decisions at meetings.

Contact Northwestorienteering@gmail.com or gene.beveridge@gmail.com for more information.

3. Upcoming NWOC events & Training day – new members especially welcome

Training day for NWOC members, Sunday 06 March: Club captain, Rob Garden, has arranged permission from landowners for NW to hold a training day in the Slater Road forest and adjacent Woodhill forest – this is superb sand-dune based pine forest. We are especially targeting this training day at our newer members plus those club members who wish to help coach and assist with a map walk. It is free to all paid-up club members. There will be a group map walk to familiarise you with aspects of orienteering maps and techniques. After the map walk there will be various orienteering technique exercises including compass exercises, recognising line features and aiming off.

In addition, there will be flags out for 3 orienteering courses (2 km/ 4km/ 6 km) plus an easier yellow/orange difficulty course.

Please print your own orienteering course map – details will be provided in the week before the training day. There will be no electronic timing.

Bring your own water and snacks/ lunch and a compass if you have one. The club has some compasses which can be borrowed.

There will be a toilet close to the parking in the forest.

Please note that numbers will be limited to under 60 people for this training at the request of the landowners and pre-entry is required.
We welcome experienced club members who can help with the coaching- you will have time to run your own course.

Please register here by 23.59pm Thursday 03 March.
Contact Rob Garden (Mobile 021 597070) if you have any questions.

We are running this training session under the Covid-19 Red level and we require all participants to act according to the Covid Red level guidelines:

• All participants over 12 years 3 months must be double vaccinated and have a Covid Pass
• Please scan the QR code on arrival
• Total numbers capped, less than 60.
• At the start / parking, 2 metre physical distancing is encouraged to help prevent the virus spreading between households.
• At the start / finish / parking, wearing face coverings is strongly encouraged.
• Please do not linger after the event.
• Do not come if you are unwell, isolating or awaiting the results of Covid testing
  
  Sample from the training map terrain

Soon after the training day we have our double header event on 19/20 March – a new map, two AOS events (middle and a long), plus camping at fabulous Lake Kereta. The maps are very close to each other so make a weekend of it. Camping at Lake Kereta will be limited to 100 people and may be subject to Covid restrictions.

Marquita has almost completed re-mapping Wilson Road, which we last used for orienteering around 20 years ago.

Sunday 10 April AOS event close to home at Riverhead Forest, exploring more of this challenging map which was first used in May 2021. Course setter Paul Ireland has been hard at work creating some new tracks. (Note the new Sunday date).

4 and 5 May and 18 May Year 7 & 8 zone days plus the Interzone final at Moire Park. These events cannot take place at Covid red level. We are always looking for more volunteers to help out at these mid-week events which introduce hundreds of Intermediate-age students to orienteering.

Rogaine Series 29 May/ 12 June/ 26 June

The always popular rogaines are a great opportunity for club members to become involved with course setting and we can help pair you up with an experienced mentor. We kick off the rogaine series at Lake Kereta, followed on 12 June by a return to StoneyBrook, which until recently, has been a filming location for the Lord of the Rings Amazon series. We will return to Riverhead for the final rogaine.

If you would like to volunteer to help for any of these events in any capacity, contact Club Captain Rob Garden (email: rgmg@xtra.co.nz).

4. National Sprint League - entry deadline 27 February

The 2022 National Sprint League (NSL) events are a NZ sprint event series including individual and sprint relays.

The Northern Knights team will be made up of predominantly Auckland based athletes who take part in any of the competitions. We'd like to encourage all elite and up-and-coming elite orienteers to join the Northern Knights team! We have funding to subsidise group accommodation and travel for rounds 1, 2 and 4.

If you'd like to part of the team, included in group plans for the 2022 NSL, or even if you would just like to be included on Northern Knights group emails, please contact Kieran and Tommy (managers of the Northern Knights team) at NorthernKnightsONZ@gmail.com

Events:
Round 1/2: Palmerston North/Levin (4-6 March)
Round 3: ONZ Champs (15, 19, 20 April)
 Round 4: New Plymouth (7-8 May)

Entries for the first round of the NSL are now open and close 23:59 on Sunday 27 February. Entry fees will be invoiced directly by ONZ post-event. Entries are limited to 40 men and 40 women.
Info at: https://www.revolutionise.com.au/redkiwi/events/131489/
 

5. Katoa Po Night Relays 12/13 March

This is the weekend for all night owls and also a great option for adventure racers looking for navigation practice in night-time conditions. The relay features teams of 7 or 5 runners with courses suitable for younger runners as well as elite orienteers. In fact, we really need young orienteers for the shorter, easy legs!

Cameron de LÍsle will coordinate teams for NWOC. Contact Cameron for further information - camerondelisle@gmail.com.

Pack a tent and camp at the event.

Read all the details here and enter via EnterO.

The Night Explorer option features teams of 2-4 members and is not a relay. NWOC will pay your relay entry but you need to pay for the Explorer option or for the rogaine on Sunday.

6. Welcome to new club members

Rebecca and Scott Longhurst, Karol Goodman, Zachary Goodman, Trudy Ringrose, Charlie Isaacs – we look forward to meeting you at the training day or at an event soon.