Hello everyone

It has been good to catch up with many of you at some of the multiple events almost every weekend for the past month!  There have been some quality events to make up for the Covid19 drought in the middle of the year – the Tuaraki Auckland and Northern regional champs, the Auckland interclub relays, and last Sunday AOS5 in challenging forest at Slater Road with courses by Johan Kvasnicka and Gene Beveridge.

Still to come is our final NWOC rogaine at Te Rau Puriri regional park on Sunday 29 November.  It will be high tide at 11.00am so bring a picnic and relax by the beach after your run.

You and your family are invited to our annual NWOC End-of-the Year function and prize giving for club members at Coatesville Settlers’ Hall on Sunday 06 December, after the AOS event (NWOC club champs) at Mushroom Road.  There will be a pot-luck main course and the club will provide dessert.

Following the club AGM at 5.00pm, the social activities will start from 5.30pm with another fun micro-maze, a photo impression of 2020 and a prize-giving following the dinner.

We also plan to showcase the results of our course-setting competition. There is still time to get your entries into Renee.
 

Stay safe and I hope to see you out orienteering soon!

Lisa Mead
NWOC Club president

1. NWOC End of the Year function and prizegiving
2. Events Calendar
3. Event reports
4. Rogaine #2
5. Training and podcasts
6. Course setting competition
7. NWOC Club Champs

1. NWOC Club Dinner Sunday 06 December

You and your family are invited to the annual NWOC End of Year Function, for all our members: Sunday 6 December 2020.
Click here for the invitation.

                                  
Social activities: Prize giving, photo impression 2020, a challenging maze, the results of the course setting competition and more...
Please submit AGM agenda items and/or nominations for the Exec committee to our club secretary, by Friday 27 November 2020 northwestorienteering@gmail.com

RSVP by clicking here by  midnight, Friday, 27 November 2020 the

Any questions: please contact us via northwestorienteering@gmail.com

This evening is also an opportunity to volunteer to help with our club events in 2021- from course planning to helping out on the day. Volunteering feels good (there is research to support this) and you will love seeing people of all ages enjoying our sport, learn new skills and make new friends.

2.Events Calendar
November
             Thu 19   AOC Summernav Churchill Park
              Sun 22  Whangarei O Club Mimiwhangata Coastal Park rogaine. This event on a brand new map is
                            sponsored by the Department of Conservation – free entry. Registration from 9.30am, start
                            11.00am – end 12.30pm.
                            Details and entry form: https://www.sporty.co.nz/viewform/150064
              Wed 25 AOC Summernav Auckland Domain Rotunda
              Sun 29   NWOC Rogaine – Te Rau Puriri Regional Park 90 minutes- event for teams or individuals
              Please note NO dogs at Te Rau Puriri as this is a farm park with sheep and friendly cattle.
              Please pre-enter on enterO : https://entero.co.nz/evento.php?eventName=rogaine-2020

December
             Wed 02  AOC Summernav   Hamlins Hill
             Sun 06    AOC AOS event Mushroom Road, Woodhill (NWOC Club champs)
             Sun 06   NWOC AGM and social dinner at Coatesville Settlers Hall from 5.00pm . Please RSVP here.
             Tue 08    AOC Summernav   Unitec Mt Albert Campus
             Tue 15   AOC Summernav    Ambury Regional Park

AOS = Auckland Orienteering Series – events generally have 9 courses of varying lengths and difficulty.
AOC= Auckland O Club, CMOC = Counties Manukau O Club

3. Event Reports
The Northern Regional Champs provided a full weekend of events – a sprint at Wesley College near Pukekohe, a fun middle distance on a mix of scenic farmland and pine forest overlooking the Tasman Sea and a gruelling long distance on the steep Plantation Forest map, made treacherously slippery by heavy overnight rain. Congratulations to Cameron de L'Isle who scored a trifecta in the M21E grade.

Congratulations to all NWOC medallists:

M20A Cameron Bonar 1st Sprint,   Liam Stolberger 2^nd Sprint, 2^nd Long distance
M20 Daniel Monckton 1^st Long distance
M21E  Cameron de L'Isle 1^st Sprint, 1^st middle distance, 1^st Long distance
M21E Cameron Tier 2^nd Middle distance
M21A Cameron Tier 1^st Long distance
M50A Andrew de L'Isle 3^rd Long distance
M60A Geoff Mead 3^rd Sprint , 2nd Middle distance , 2nd Long distance, ,
M70A Dave Middleton 1^st Middle distance, 2nd Long distance,

W21E Renee Beveridge 3^rd Sprint
W21A Lise Turner 1^st Long distance
W50A Suzanne Stolberger 3^rd Sprint     1^st Long distance, 1^st Middle distance
W60A Pip Poole 1^st Sprint, 1^st Middle distance, 2^nd Long distance
W60A Lisa Mead 2^nd Sprint, 2nd Middle distance,1^st Long distance
W70 Mary Moen 1^st Middle distance, 3^rd Long distance

Photo credit - Annemarie Hogenbirk

Auckland Orienteering Club hosted the Auckland Interclub Relays at the Epsom Campus and romped home with the event trophy for 2020. Numbers were down on usual but our selector, Allan Janes, pulled together some speedy NWOC teams in the Open and Masters grades – unfortunately a mispunch invalidated the NWOC team with the fastest open grade time.  Thanks to Rosie Monckton for running 2 legs in the Junior grade and for Bryce Day for stepping in to fill a gap in a team at the last minute.

The relay had an added multi-dimensional twist with a course within a course spread over the 4 layers of the carpark, complete with dummy decoy controls.  A fun day out in perfect weather.

On Sunday we held our much postponed AOS event at Slater Road, with challenging courses planned by Johan Kvasnicka and overseen by Gene Beveridge. There was a great event centre with views over the Kaipara Harbour, while the start, perched on a hill top, looked out over the forest and the Tasman Sea, bathed in sunshine.
The hills and some vague tracks demanded care and attention – Alice Tilley, absolutely nailed the Red 4 course and Gene interviewed her on her tactics. View the podcast, while the event is fresh in your mind. See Training below…..

5. Rogaine Series 2020
The next and final event in the series for this year is on Sunday 29th November at Te Rau Puriri Regional Park. This beautiful park is located near the top of the South Head peninsula, past Parakai and is a stunning area right on the Kaipara Harbour. The event centre is right near the beach and should be good for a post-race swim and picnic. Please leave your canine friends at home for this second rogaine, as this is a farm park.
There is a walk from the event centre/ finish area to the start point in the centre of the map, offering lots of route choice and a great variety of control sites.

If you haven't already entered, you can do so online at www.rogaineseries.co.nz.

Many thanks to Borich Orchards and Bivouac Outdoors for their on-going support with sponsorship and prizes. Make sure to visit them in store or online at www.bivouac.co.nz for any of your outdoor clothing and equipment needs and https://www.boricfoodmarket.co.nz/ for a great selection of fresh foods and fruit.

7.Training
Gene Beveridge’s latest podcast is an analysis of the Red 4 course at Slater Road forest on 15 November. Alice offers insights into how to tackle a red level course -highly recommended viewing, particularly for advanced orienteers.
https://www.orienteering.org.nz/coaching/leg-by-leg-11/

Sprint maps differ from traditional forest maps in a number of ways; in general the scale is magnified to 1:3000 or 1:4000 (versus 1:10000 for many forest maps) and there are map symbols which are unique to built-up or urban environments. It is essential that competitors understand which map features they cannot cross and where they cannot run on a sprint map. Out of bounds areas may be shown by olive green colouring or purple course setting symbols for example. Take a look at the Australian Orienteer magazine   article by Adrian & Robin Uppill on Forbidden orienteering map features (pages 14-16). The article also examples of the new multi-storey mapping symbols for sprint maps.
https://issuu.com/orienteeringaustralia/docs/auso-2020-2

Course setting competition -deadline coming up soon
Fancy having a go at setting an orienteering course? Need a distraction from looming exams? Do we have an opportunity for you!

The NWOC course-setting competition is suitable for any levels of experience, even if you have never set a course before.

Take a break from study, brush up your course-setting skills or learn some new ones by designing three courses – the entries will be displayed and the winner will be announced at our club dinner on 6 December.

The North West Orienteering Club Course Setting Competition 2020.

It’s back again! In 2018, NWOC organised a Course Setting Competition, which hadn’t been done in a long time. Many people joined in and created a range of courses on a map that most hadn’t seen before, let alone experienced.

While normally you wouldn’t want to put in all the effort to set courses and not actually hold the event, it can still be a fun exercise where you can do whatever you want without moving from the couch.

The map you will be setting on this year is called The Slump:  https://cdn.revolutionise.com.au/news/1yaijptrngjmltt2.pdf . It is a detailed farmland map in Hawkes Bay. This map 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 pew ponds scattered around.

Before you start:
Download and install the free course setting software, PURPLE PEN from here.

 It literally takes a few seconds and you are away. Please download this onto a Windows computer. However, if you only have a MAC, there are instructions on the websites home screen about how to download and use it on a MAC.

 Download the Purple Pen event file and the Background map file by clicking on this link: https://cdn.revolutionise.com.au/news/1yaijptrngjmltt2.pdf , which opens to a google drive folder with the necessary files. Put the downloaded Purple Pen event file and Background map files into a folder on your desktop that you can work out of and save your work to. Open the Purple Pen file, and the background map should already be loaded in as the background map. THEN START PLOTTING!!

 If you are a bit unsure about how to work Purple Pen and don’t want to read a massive instructions guideline, click here to watch a Youtube tutorial. There are multiple Youtube tutorials, so if you don’t like this one, just search for another.

Course Setting Competition:
For this competition you must set three courses; a long red course 6-8km, an orange course 4-6km and a yellow course 3-4km. You can put the event centre, start, and finish wherever you want, and you have total freedom to have pivot controls, run-throughs, taped legs, and anything else you can think of.

Then describe each of your courses; why you set them that way, what you think the highlights of each course are, the most difficult legs, and any challenges you had setting these courses.

Judging Criteria:
A subset of the NWOC executive committee will be judging your courses. You will be expected to set each course in accordance to ONZs rules regarding what red, orange, and yellow should be. However, do not be afraid to make bold and challenging decisions.

Different aspects that the panel will be looking at will be: Course shape, route choice, variety in leg length and change in direction, appropriate difficulty, and special factors that would be important if this was to be at an actual event; e.g, Finish being visible to spectators or a spectator leg.

For guidance on difficulty levels, read the ONZ guidelines here.

Submitting your courses:
Once you have exported your courses to a PDF, email them and a blurb for each course to me (Renee) at Rabeo22@hotmail.com. Please submit entries by 25 November.

If you have any questions, flick me an email!

Each course will be showcased at the annual NWOC prize giving and we will award prizes and someone will become our new reigning NWOC 2020 course planner of the year!

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

Trophies are up for grabs in the 2020 NWOC club champs which will be held in conjunction with the final AOS event for the year at Mushroom Road map in Woodhill Forest on 6 December. The table below shows the grade/ course you should compete in to be eligible for a club trophy. Please keep an eye on the NWOC website for further event details in due course.

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