In this issue:

1. Upcoming Events
2. Auckland Championships
3. North West End of Year Function and Prizegiving
4. Welcome to New Members
5. North West on Holiday - Club Trip to Nationals
6. Club Member Profile
7. Coaching Corner
8. Australian Championships
9. Australian MTBO Championships
10. An Interesting Read
11. Just When You Think You Can Never Improve...
12. GAR2017 (Gergos Amazing Race)
13. Upcoming Events Out of Auckland

Upcoming Events

5 November:            Club Sprint Relays at Kristin School

11 November:          GAR2017 (Gergo’s Amazing Race). Further details below.

18/19 November:     Auckland Championships, Onewhero
                                 http://cmoc.co.nz/index.php/auckland-champs-2017/ - entries close Friday 3 November

26 November:           NWOC End of Year Function (details below)

Auckland Championships, 18/19 November

Entries for the Auckland Champs close this Friday, 3rd November i.e. TOMORROW

18^th - Sprint – The Rockery, Onewhero - First start 10am

18th  – Middle – The Rockery, Onewhero - First start 2pm

19th – Long – Goat City, Onewhero - First Start 10am

Online entry is open: ENTER NOW

A list of start times will be posted to the web site the week prior to the event

NWOC End of Year Function - Sunday 26 November

Attached is the invitation for the End of Year Function.

Invitation

Yes, it does involve the AGM and, while we encourage attendance at this from 5pm, it is also fine to skip that part and arrive at 5:30!

This social occasion is for all members and is a great way for new members to get to know others, and for existing members to socialise in a different environment!

Please note, we have had to change the venue from previous years, as our club has grown so much (a good problem to have!!). This year it is at the Coatesville Settlers Hall, and another change is that, since NWOC is not providing a BBQ, we are asking club members to bring a Main Course Dish to share and NWOC will provide the dessert.

Please RSVP using the Google form in the invitation.

We look forward to seeing you all there.

Welcome to New Members

Jan Knoester
Yolande Oakley
Sandra Oldfield
Andrew, Daniel and Greg Balla, Rachel Goddard

Welcome to NorthWest - we look forward to seeing you at events and social occasions.

North West on Holiday - Club Trip to Nationals

What a fantastic weekend away - and not just the orienteering!

A huge thank you to 

• Jenny Cade for finding the amazing accommodation and working out the puzzle of who went where! And organising a fantastic dinner on Saturday night, that arrived as if by magic!
• Ryan Moore and Renee Beveridge for mapping our accomodation venue and setting Star Relay “Egg and Spoon” courses. 
• Julia Moore for being club photographer and creating the following photo montages.
• Rob and Marquita for all their work on the Rogaine Series earlier in the year, the profits from which funded our trip.
• Everyone for great company over the weekend.

Results

Well done to these North Westers who were medal winners in the E, A or AS grades over the weekend:

W21E
Sprint 2nd, Middle 3rd, Long 1st: Renee Beveridge

M21E
Sprint 2nd: Gene Beveridge, 3rd: Matt Ogden (1st and 2nd NZers)
Middle 2nd: Matt Ogden (1st NZer)
Long 1st: Matt Ogden, 3rd Gene Beveridge

National Elite Champions:

W12A
Sprint 2nd, Middle 1st: Manon Bonar

M14A
Sprint 1st, Middle 3rd, Long 2nd: Ryan Moore

W16A
Sprint 1st: Jessica Sewell, 2nd: Sofie Safkova
Middle 1st Sofie Safkova, 3rd Olivia Collins
Long 2nd: Olivia Collins

M16A
Sprint 3rd, Middle 3rd: Sebastian Safka

M18A
Sprint 2nd, Middle 1st, Long 2nd: Daniel Monckton

W20A
Sprint 2nd: Heidi Stolberger
Middle 3rd, Long 3rd: Kayla Fairbairn

M20A
Sprint 2nd, Middle 3rd, Long 2nd: Cameron de L’Isle

W21A
Sprint 2nd: Charlotte de L’Isle

W21 AS
Middle 2nd, Long 2nd: Charlotte de L’Isle

W40AS
Middle 1st: Alison Carswell

M40A
Sprint 1st, Middle 1st, Long 2nd: Nick Harris

W50A
Sprint 1st, Middle 1st, Long 1st: Marquita Gelderman

M50A
Middle 3rd, Long 2nd: Mark Lawson

W55A
Sprint 2nd: Lisa Mead
Long 3rd: Phillippa Poole

M60A
Sprint 3rd, Middle 1st: Geoff Mead

W65A 
Long 1st: Mary Moen

M65A 
Sprint 2nd, Middle 2nd Long 2nd: Rob Garden

M70A
Middle 3rd Long 2nd: Dave Middleton

And in B Grades, well done to the following  who made podium:

Fiona de L’Isle, Debbie Beveridge, Nicky Collins, Sheridan Wilson, Loren Bruce, Brigitta Bonar, Pippa Plummer, Allan Janes, Craig Bruce, Jan Knoester

Relay Competition

Top 10 in Mixed Long 
3rd: Gene Beveridge, Sebastian Safka, Renee Beveridge
6th: Cameron de L’Isle, Liam Stolberger, Sofie Safkova
7th: Matt Ogden, Kayla Fairbairn, Max Griffiths
8th: Jonas Klausen Espedal, Marquita Gelderman, Daniel Monckton

Top 10 in Mixed Short
6th: Ryan Moore, Manon Bonar, Rosie Monckton

Club Member Profile - Geoff Mead

Geoff is one of those members who is always willing and ready to help, and always with a positive outlook and a great sense of humour. His considerable experience and measured approach is valued by all.

Number of years orienteering?
I think my first event was in 1979 at One Tree Hill, so 38 years of orienteering.

How were you introduced to orienteering?
A friend who was into running and orienteering invited me along to the One Tree Hill event event. I got my clip card, clue descriptions and was just about to start - thinking that this was going to really difficult to run round randomly to find the "controls" in the park. I didn't realise that there was a map as well!

Key orienteering achievements to date?
World Rogaine mixed veteran championship title with Lisa in 2000.  Winner of two NZ Mountain Marathon (2 day navigation events carrying all your over night gear) with Tom Barnfield. Also several mixed category mountain marathon tiles with Lisa. Scattering of NZ age group orienteering and rogaine titles. Setting / controlling a number of major orienteering events.

Current orienteering project or goal?
Following a knee replacement operation in 2016 I am really enjoying competing in events again. Goal is to keep finding those controls and striving for that "error free" orienteering run. Orienteering provides a great excuse to travel and visit interesting places, so plenty of plans for future holidays in NZ and overseas.

 Favourite map and why?
Complex Woodhill sand dunes with low visibility forest. I love detailed and challenging maps; Woodhill is my orienteering home. 

Map you have yet to experience but aspire to orienteer on?
Swiss Alpine 5 day event. Looks like a brilliant combination of my orienteering and tramping/mountain hobbies.

Orienteering hero?
NZ - Ross Brighouse - He was a leading NZ orienteer when I first started getting serious about orienteering and is still at the top of his game - with several World Master Titles.  Rest of the world - the Frenchman Thierry Gueorgiou - error free runs to numerous world titles.

Day job?
Used to be a statistician. Now a mix of all my outdoor hobbies, voluntary work and travel. When I am at home and Lisa is working I have become a competent house husband (my view, not so sure what Lisa thinks?), my cooking skills are improving. 

 Other interests?
I think of tramping as my main sport / interest and have visited ("bagged") to date 674 DOC huts - kind of like a NZ wide rogaine. Hut bagging is an excuse to visit new and sometimes obscure parts of the NZ outdoors. Taking up orienteering and building up my map reading skills has had a big cross over to more ambitious and challenging tramping trips. Navigating above the bushline in bad weather / low visibility. I also enjoy cycling / mountain biking.  Over recent years Lisa and I have had many fabulous long hiking and cycle touring holidays in a range of countries. In my "younger" days I used to mountaineer, was a handy road runner and managed to survive the swim legs of triathlons. 

NWOC Coaching Corner – Compass, Compass, Compass

By Matt Ogden

The compass is the only tool that we as orienteers can carry with us to aid our navigation. I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to be proficient with the compass, and how significantly our orienteering can improve by simple ensuring we have good direction. Reflecting on Aussie Champs and Nationals, I can attribute nearly every one of my mistakes to a poor exit direction or drifting off my intended line. In fact, the majority of our fundamental orienteering techniques – exit direction, stepping stones, aiming off etc. – all have direction components and therefore require strong compass skills. 

The question then is, how does one master the compass? There is a bucket load of tricks that various people will have and I encourage you at the next event to ask some of the more experienced orienteers how they use the compass and what their secrets are. A few thoughts from me:

• • Invest the time in the control circle;
• • Continually check your direction, every look at the map have a quick look at the compass; 
• • Find common trends, is there a direction which you tend to drift, and if so how do can you go about correcting it; and
• • Practice makes perfect.

…and then after years of practice, you begin to realise that straight is truly great. 

http://www.numberoneaucklanddoma.com/maps/show_map.php?user=Matt&map=1204

Australian Orienteering Championships

A number of North West members headed across the ditch for a week of orienteering in and around Bathurst, NSW over the last week in September. With fantastic accommodation (Thanks for your organising, Rob and Marquita!) right on Conrod Straight, Mt Panorama, everyone enjoyed driving, biking running and walking around the 6km circuit to be raced  by the V8s the following week. The Orienteering took us to varied locations including the historic gold mining town of Hill End and one map, midweek, that had pine trees as well as gum trees (just to make the Aucklanders feel at home!). Everyone enjoyed the events and there were some great results:

M21E
Sprint 2nd & Middle 2nd: Matt Ogden

M20E
Middle 2nd Cameron de L’Isle

W14A
Sprint 2nd Katie Ryan

M16A
Middle 2nd & Long 1st: Sebastian Safka

W50A
Sprint 2nd, Middle 1st & Long 1st: Marquita Gelderman

W55A 
Sprint 2nd Phillippa Poole

M65A
Middle 3rd & Long 1st: Rob Garden

M70A
Middle 1st & Long 1st: Dave Middleton

Relay

Many NW members  were in teams on the podium, including the all-North West team who took out the 21E grade!

M21E 1st Cameron de L’Isle, Matt Ogden, Cameron Tier

W16A 3rd Sofie Safkova, Jessica Sewell

M16A 1st Liam Stolberger

M65A 1st Dave Middleton, Rob Garden

Mixed 3rd Geoff Mead, Kay Knightbridge

Schools Competition

NZ retained the Southern Cross Challenge Trophy and our three representatives in the NZSS team fared well over the schools competition events:

Jessica Sewell (Junior Girls) 1st in the Relay

Daniel Monckton 4th in the Sprint

Australian MTBO Championships

Congratulations to the following who made the podium at this carnival:

Jessica Sewell, Tegan Knighbridge, Rob Garden, Marquita Gelderman

A Perspective from Two New MTBOers

Renee Beveridge and Tegan Knightbridge are two relative newcomers to this discipline. Click here  for the article (with photos) they wrote after their recent experience in Australia.

An Interesting Read - especially for those new to orienteering

Although this is a UK article, it is a great reminder to ASK for help - especially as an adult. The younger members benefit from lots of training and mentoring, but it can sometimes be hard to progress as an adult. If you feel you are in this position, please have a chat to anyone on the committee as we are looking at how to better support newcomers.

http://www.windsweptwriting.com/start-orienteering-learn-love/

Just When You Think You Can Never Improve...

A few of us were lucky enough to benefit from a recent 1-1 adult coaching model that Renee was trialling. Below are Julia Moore’s impressions after the day. If you think you may like to take part in any future trainings, especially targeted at adults who have come to orienteering later in life, email Jenny Cade on  northwestorienteering@gmail.com Unfortunately we cannot promise to be able to accommodate everyone, as it is dependent on having enough coaches available to keep the ratio low enough to be truly effective.

Same old, same old, doesn't make for change 

By Julia Moore

I was lucky enough to be invited with a few others on a September Saturday to join in some training organised by Renee. It was for some us members that were not in the junior category but had been hanging around for a while. Some had been stuck on a plateau for some time, stalling on progress despite continuing to do 'all of the right things'.
Renee set 3 exercises, the first was looking at detail, the second was to simplify and the third was to use our “knowledge”. It was like a weekend extreme cut down of London taxi drivers “knowledge' that takes years. We had two exercises, over two hours and then put it all in practice. Renee had high aspirations for all of us.

Being paired with one coach to one or two trainees in each group did the trick. All we had to do, was just turn up with our compass, legs, brain, and most importantly an openness to learn.

I was paired with Mike Beveridge as my coach, and for me it felt like being under the surveillance of a behavioural scientist. Mike was watching what I noticed (or didn't) and it involved a lot of self-reappraisal on what I am actually seeing. We started labelling things, describing your current situation etc. Most people think this doesn't help at all, but actually it gets emotions out of the way and uses a different part of the brain, just the factual one. Often my emotions, of what others are doing or my oxygen deprived running often gets in the way of just noticing what is there. Articulating the landscape distances yourself from your own head and the crazy messes it can make. Describing in detail where we were and what we could see, helped us to just use the map and landscape. It always sounds easy, but Renee's exercise, got the rational part of the brain using the map properly.

What I enjoyed in the next stage with Mike was the 'appraisal' stage. With this exercise Renee was coaching us to assess the way we are going to approach each leg by using simplification. This is where I could see what I would normally do - which is too often run fast without seeing the important stuff that would lead me to a control. Mike pointed out how I must find the places where it is best to run, and where it isn't. Some of you know this as the red/green traffic lights and thinking before running. Think about the best time to look at the map in detail – just away and out of a control. This is because you have already planned attack and exit beforehand – yeh right – must do it!. It was all about looking at things differently and drawing out alternative actions, so you can see what is best for your own situation, using the evidence you have on the map. For me it is about saving some energy and time for when I need it. This should sound like therapy for everyone about now...and what we all need.

At the end of the day, we used our 'knowledge'. This was about talking through each stage of the training and what had actually 'worked' for each control. It was about detailing what was there and finding the best alternative. Only one of my actions worked better than Mike's, on the whole Mike had a new way of looking at things, based on (yes, of course!) purely what was on the map. It is not what I actually 'felt' like I wanted to do, it was about really connecting those marks on paper to the landscape and getting into a cartographers mindset.

Afterwards and completely unrelated, Jenny shared an observation about how her daughter Lauren is studying in a group. They are all teaching, sharing knowledge, spending lots of time talking about their study with each other and filling in gaps for each other. It made me think that training for me, may just be pairing up more often to discuss, scrutinise, and be specific about the decisions made. So if I am heading your way with a map you will now know I need help to recognise what decisions I have just made and what I actually did - they are two very different things. And I think this is better to do this straight after any event as I forget. In the past, I have felt like I am stupid, or not knowing what to do, and therefore I do not use the map properly. I have not gone over what I have done in races detail to see if anything worked in a particular way or focussed on a particular ordeal to see if there was a way to perform better. I used de-briefing for big events or at work and for adventure races – and now I know I must apply it here to get any better.

So the take out? That social 'geek map' time has become a bit more important. Get out your map and I'll show you mine – I might have to get a lot more technical about it.

GAR2017 (Gergo’s Amazing Race)

GAR2017 (Gergo's Amazing Race). The inaugural event was held in 2016, in celebration of the life of Gergo who was a very important member of Auckland Orienteering Club, who was tragically killed in a mountaineering accident. Gergo was a great adventurer so this event is one with a difference, full of fun, mental challenge and adventure. It is for teams of 3 to 5 people and you need to register at www.orienteeringauckland.org.nz/events/GAR2017 by 8/11/2017. You don't need to be an experienced orienteer, you can walk or run (and even stop off for a coffee along the way) but you will need your thinking caps on to plan your strategy and solve the puzzles - suitable for all ages as you can do as much or as little as you wish. There will be a briefing at Panmure Community Hall at 10am, with a start at 11am and you must be back at the event centre by no later than 4pm. As those who took part last year can attest to, this event is NOT TO BE MISSED - a real mental challenge but loads of fun - go to the website given above for full details, get your team together and register now. 

Events Out of Auckland

Wellington Orienteering Championships

Orienteering Hutt Valley with the assistance of Red Kiwi Orienteers and Wellington OC are hosting the WOA Champs on the weekend of 25^th -26^th November.

Entries are now open. Information about the event can be found at www.mapsport.co.nz/woachamps

Big Trig Rogaine, Hutt Valley

Sunday 3 December 2017 

3/6/9 hour options.  Details

“The Big Trig is our annual middle-sized rogaine. Big enough to challenge your endurance and navigation. But not so big as to wreck you for the week after. “