In recent years I have been badly addicted to watching the Games of Thrones TV series. As each season ends I have a sense of loss and dismay. How can I possibly wait 42 weeks until the next season begins?  I experience the same feeling whenever we come to the end of the forest orienteering season. AOS11 in Woodhill was the last Auckland event for the year – oh dismay! How can we possibly wait until 2017 to get back into forest orienteering?

Fortunately, we can get a map-fix at the Auckland Summer Nav series. This is a great way to keep your running legs going, and to stay in touch with the O community over summer.  For beginners Summer Nav is an invaluable chance to practice your mental O technique in fairly friendly terrain (and if you don’t know what I mean by that feel free to ask me; maybe come to the end-of-year BBQ and we can talk!). 

I felt hopelessly unfit at AOS11. I came away determined to regain my fitness for Oceania and Auckland World Masters Games in April 2017.  First step was to join AOTC for a 3km time trial at Lovelock Track at Mt Roskill.  The track has been refurbished and is a fantastic free training facility. My 3km time was average but a good benchmark to train against.  It was inspiring to see the young-guns really flying around, but also to see Suzanne Stolberger and Michael Schrott there too, smashing out their own 3km. I thought it was cool to see us three older age-groupers welcomed by the young elites who drive AOTC (Auckland Orienteering Training Collective) and encouraged to work hard on our fitness.

Entries have surged for both Oceania Orienteering Champs and Auckland World Masters Games. Between August – October entries tripled. As of Thursday we’re at 750+ and 800+ respectively, with six months to go.  These are fantastic numbers and we’re feeling really positive about where they’re headed. Volunteer numbers are healthier too which is very encouraging, and Andrew De’Lisle is doing great work at organizing people into teams and roles. I’m proud to say that North West is leading the volunteer numbers! However, as a percentage of our membership, I think we can do better.  

Rob Garden, Mike Beveridge and I are working with Auckland and Counties on the 2017 event calendar. We’ll be looking to have a few events prior to Oceania so that locals can retune their technique after the summer break.  We’ll update you when we can. In the meantime, I hope to see you at Kingsley & Judy’s for prize-giving and our end-of-year BBQ!

Nick Harris
President

1. NW Prizegiving and End of Year BBQ…and the AGM

THE event of the year is coming up on Sunday 27 November 2016!

In the North West prize-giving we celebrate the achievements of our members throughout the year. We present trophies for club championship winners from AOS11, and trophies for our special awards categories.  We also share a meal and enjoy a catch-up. It’s a rare chance to get together as a club without needing to run off into the bushes, so please do join us. It’s a fun evening in a fantastic location – we encourage all members to come along.

Once again, we’re grateful to Kingsley & Judy Ng-Wai-Shing for hosting this function.
Details in attached invitation - please remember to RSVP!
Special instruction for the evening - please do not feed Rascal (the dog) no matter how much he pleads!

AGM

The North West Orienteering Club Annual General Meeting will be held at 5:00pm Sunday 27 November 2016, at 33 Totara Rd, Whenuapai. This is immediately prior to the end-of-year BBQ & prizegiving.

All members are welcome, but attendance is optional. If you do attend it doesn’t mean you’ll forced to join the exec committee against your will!  We always aim to have the AGM done & dusted before everyone arrives for dinner.

Please submit agenda items and/or nominations for exec committee to club Secretary, Jenny Cade, by 5:00pm Wednesday 23 November 2016:
email: northwestorienteering@gmail.com

2. Club Member Profile – Mike Beveridge

This month we are profiling Mike Beveridge. Mike lives and breathes Orienteering. This year he has been heavily involved in mapping projects, updating older maps and generating new maps for Oceania/World Masters Games. His other main orienteering passion is his work with Schools’ Orienteering. I think we can give Mike most of the credit for the huge uptake over recent years in Junior orienteering – his School sprint series has gone from strength to strength and brings many newcomers to the sport. Mike, we certainly all appreciate all your time and dedication!

Number of years orienteering:

Too many to remember. Started in late 1984 at the ripe old age 35.

How introduced to Orienteering:

I saw a brief documentary on TV a few weeks before my first event, but didn’t really think much of it. Then saw it advertised in the Sport pages of the Saturday Herald as a club event being held at Moire Park Massey. The rest is history. I wish I’d found out about the sport years earlier.

Key orienteering achievements:

Nothing hugely startling. I started as an M35B which is those days was a very strong grade with 12 to 15 competitors and the orange courses much tougher than what they are today. Course lengths 5-6 kms in length so there was no real desire to jump up to M35A where the courses were way harder and much longer. Won several 35B Auckland Champs and picked up the National title in the same grade on the old Temu Rd map in 1986. The same map now being used for the WMOC.

Went up to M40A grade a year later winning Auckland Champs at Kiwitahi on an atrociously wet day. The farm was under water and mud halfway up to your knees in places. I was training for a marathon at the time which probably helped me get through. Beating Dave Middleton put the icing on the cake. Hardly ever been achieved since unless, he miss punches or DNF’s. Also won the Aussie M40 Aussie relay title in 1989 on the Hovell Tour at Heburn Diggings in Victoria with Dave and Rob Ambler, afterwards known as the A team as we beat the NZ team in the process. Then Deb, children and a business came along soon after and my fitness waned somewhat and mapping started to take over.

Chris O’Brien and I set the first Great Day O in 1990, I think, which not only challenged us but almost destroyed the participants. It started on the shores of Otakanini on the west coast at 8 am and finished in the dark at Wairewa. Apart from Otakanini Topu none of the maps, Mt Auckland, Woodcocks, Waterfalls and Waiwera are used anymore. All were really steep and physical. Those were the days!!!

I always enjoyed course planning and set two NW Nationals, Kaipara Knolls in the early 90’s and The Beez Kneez at Weiti in the late 90’s. I was happy to take or leave controlling, but did it, and had the great pleasure of co-planning with Marquita for the WMOC finals in 2000 and also Oceania in 2005 where we set and controlled two days at Waioneke. She’s the true professional and someone all younger aspiring course planners and controllers should work with.

Current Orienteering Projects:

Mapping for WMOC and Oceania relays. The WMOC mapping has been challenging working with two other mappers and each of us with slightly different styles. Then rechecking each other’s work, trying to maintain a similarity across both maps that runners will understand. It’s also made for extremely accurate maps once planners and controllers have had their say.

Mapping:

First map I was ever involved in was the Long Bay farm map in about 1987. We didn’t have any photogrammetry so myself and an ex club member Wayne Campton surveyed the whole area using a theodolite and a height staff. It must have taken us nearly a year to complete. It would be interesting to look at the contours of the old map compared with the current lidar contours we can get from the council and see how accurate we were. Anyway, we did orienteer on it for a number of years so it couldn’t have been too bad. Sadly there’s not much left of it now - it’s nearly all housing - but that’s progress in a big city.

The transition in mapping in the 90’s when Ocad and computers took over from 5 separate sheets of drafting film, special pens and light tables was a real challenge and took some getting used too but I’d never go back. I’m still learning as I go and have only scratched the surface of what there is to know as it’s evolving all the time, I must say for the betterment of the end product.

The maps I’ve been involved in have been numerous but the best I’ve worked on would have to be Waioneke, Middle Earth, Whites Line and Otakanini Topu, the forest maps are always the most challenging because of their intricacy. The biggest map I’ve been involved with would have to be Turkey Ridge/Otakanini Topu it’s massive. Sadly we can’t use as much of Turkey Ridge as we used to - and I’ll always remember field working Stag’s Roar in 9/11 when the twin towers came down. It’s one of those ‘where were you?’ moments. People have often asked me about the name of the Stag’s Roar map. It came about when I started mapping the area in April 2001. It was during the roar when the Stag’s were looking for mates.  You could hear them all the time and it was sensible to keep out of their way.

Favourite maps and why:

 Naseby because it’s so intricate and if you lose it, you’re gone. I’ve only competed there once so have unfinished business to complete. I also love running on the Aussie rock maps and marvel at the mapping skill of people like Eric Andrews and Alex Tarr and how they deal with the areas. I don’t think I’d know where to start. Biggest rocks first I suppose, then work down in size until you’ve used up all the rock symbol options then leave the rest off.

Maps I’ve never orienteered on but aspire to:

They would have to be Scandinavian maps. My kids have but I haven’t so on our next overseas trip, when they’re over there, I will attempt a few just to say I’ve had the experience.

Orienteering heroes:

 I don’t really have any but have been inspired by what Gene and Renee have both achieved in their lives to date.

Junior and Schools Orienteering:

 My real passion, next to mapping and my family. The past 8 years has been a great experience seeing the development of our juniors and the skill levels they’re achieving.

We’ve had a JWOC champion, in Matt Ogden, and many who have been to JWOC have come through the same system. Long may it last. Hopefully the base has been set firmly in place with the sprint series so others can continue with the work, as I would like to focus my attention on getting them away from the campus competitions and more into the forest events, so they can achieve higher goals of making regional teams to compete both here and in Australia and eventually JWOC.

I’ve also enjoyed my role as Diocesan coach and the success the girls have achieved to date, and I’m sure there will be more to come.

Day job:

I’d been a horticulturist and nurseryman most of my life but my focus now is clearly orienteering-based.

Favourite foods:

I love Indian curries and spicy food. With desserts, the steam puddings and apple sponges my mum used to make were to die for, but Deb makes a mean Tiramisu.

Interests:

The great friendships you develop through the sport with both young and old.

3. World Masters Games/Oceania Update

From NW club member,  Andrew de L’Isle, who has taken on the job of co-ordinating the orienteering volunteers for the Oceania Championships and the World Masters Games:
The World Masters Games is probably the largest international orienteering event held in this country. To date there are over 750 entries for the World Masters Games (aiming to have at least 1000 entries)and Oceania’s championships has already reached its targeted number of entries with over 700 entries. These events are a massive undertaking for all three Auckland based orienteering clubs with 10 events, between 14th April and 30 April 2017. Already Northwest has put up the most volunteers - in true Northwest style... thank you all for giving up your time to make the events happen.
My job is to find enough people to fill all the jobs before during and after every event (a wee bit like fitting a square peg into a round hole). We have a good many of the jobs filled, but I still have a challenge  to find people to fill jobs that cannot be done by people competing in the World Masters Games events, a number of those jobs carry right over both the Oceania’s and WMG events. As a lot of the club members who regularly every year get on and make sure our club events happen, are competing in the WMG events, I am unable to call on them for these jobs. This means that I need club members 16 and over who are not competing in the World Masters Games events to step up and volunteer to help (there are tasks for all levels of orienteering experience, including newbies).

Roles that I am currently trying to fill which can’t be filled by competitors are:

Event arena, maintenance support role: These people need to be really good handy persons to carry out any required maintenance or repairs during the day at the event centre (dealing with any problems or issues that may arise with the event centre infrastructure). No need for much orienteering experience just have to be handy with tools (and number 8 wire technology). (2 people at each event but may be a job shared between several people)
Team Leader Parking and Transport, to be in charge of a small team of non-orienteers, parking cars and where shuttle buses are used between parking and event centre co-ordinating that activity. Orienteering experience not necessary (one person but may be shared over several events).
For the World Masters Games sprint events we will need a large number of volunteers to be out on the course keeping an eye on the controls. We will use non-orienteers to sit and watch the controls but we will also require 7 to 10 orienteers to lead teams of these volunteers. A good role for club members 16 and over who are available to help on the two WMG sprint days and want to be out on the course seeing the action.
Elite orienteers (i.e. with WOC and or JWOC type experience) required for the World Masters Games events to assist the setter and controller, by pre running the courses and checking control locations. May be needed to help place out the controls on for the sprint events.
Logistic team members: Part of an elite team who will go out before event and set up the event centre and pack it all up into a large truck after each event.
  
Give me a call or text on 027 294 7991 or delisle@clear.net.nz  if you are interested in any of these roles or if you have any questions on how you can help out at the events.

4. Australian Championships and Australian Schools Challenge

Thanks to Max Griffiths for the following write up on these events:

Held on the sunny Sunshine Coast (and the weather definitely delivered with only an hour of rain on 1 day in the entire 12 day trip), the Australian Orienteering Champs and the Southern Cross Junior Challenge saw seven of North West’s up and coming junior orienteers recently competing. 

This is the most NW has had in the team for many years and shows North West’s strength in the junior grades with the promise of good things to come! For many of the team, especially the juniors, this is the first taste of international orienteering and we all gained invaluable experience running on diverse terrain outside of New Zealand (see below for maps and analysis).

New Zealand has won the Southern Cross Junior Challenge (New Zealand competing against the Australian State School Teams) every year since it started and this was again proven this year. The team won every grade in the Sprint and 3 out of the 4 grades in both the long and relay events. Only 3 points from a perfect score in the overall competition and one of the most convincing wins NZ has had, being well clear of every other state team. This was a great experience for all of us with a fantastic week of competition and the opportunity to mix socially with the Australian School Orienteers.

Sixteen North West members in all were competing in the Australian Champs held either end of the schools’ competition, including three additional North West juniors who were named in the Regional Representative NZ Invitational Team – Tegan Knightbridge, Heidi Stolberger and Liam Stolberger. It’s always great to see a contingent from the club make it over to overseas events like these and be able to compare ourselves to our Australian counterparts on terrain that is something a little different to flat open pineforest.

The terrain for the final weekend, containing the Middle and Long distance events was the most interesting and fun terrain I’ve ever run on (now to be fair, I haven’t run outside of NZ or Australia, but people who have, still agreed!).  All of my maps and routes from Australian Champs can be found at http://www.numberoneaucklanddoma.com/maps/index.php?user=Max however here is an analysis of the M20E long distance and in particular, one of the longer legs.

For me, finishing the long distance was a mental and physical challenge for 90 minutes, although to my surprise it was my mental side that was more drained at the end. The style of terrain meant that attempting to run too fast was a) a huge physical drain because of the tough terrain and b) a huge risk due to the technicality of terrain and the lack of many obvious features to relocate off. The need for constant discipline in map-contact made this a race I really enjoyed. The terrain itself was a mixture of green bush with small patches of pine forest, bare rock, lots of rock detail and mostly vague contours. I made a hash of the first couple of controls as can be seen from my route so from then on I used tracks as handrails and stepping stones as much as possible, not only to make navigation easier, but also to enable faster running speed.

Looking ahead I knew the loop from 8-13 was going to be the make or break of the course in terms of navigational mistakes, as a big enough slip up here would likely result in a large amount of time lost in relocation out to major features (tracks or large bare rock). Because of this I was careful to plan right into the control circle and slow down as soon as I felt something feel even vaguely different from what I was expecting. Looking at leg 9 below:

My initial thought was the blue dashed line shown, however I ended up on my route shown for a number of reasons:

1.     I would have had to lose a lot of height down to the track below 9 and then climb up into the control, increasing the likelihood of a mistake (climbing into controls I avoid, exhaustion = lack of map contact)

2.     The route I ended up taking was straighter than my initial thought which initially I was hesitant about in seeing the mess of green and grey on the line just before 9 however upon a little closer look I noticed:

3.     There was a ‘highway’ of bare rock (grey on map) all the way from just after the track all the way to just before 9 which, if you have not run on a map with bare rock before, is very easy to follow and you can easily open up the speed on the smooth terrain.

In my opinion, the combination of these 3 points outweighed the safer attack in from the track. Once decided on this route, I took a vague bearing to the track midway (not being too pedantic about slight variation) exiting out of 8 to the reentrant just north of the line. From the track I picked out the spur and the edge of bare rock and from there it was a matter of following progress on the bare rock, which was confirmed when passing the cliffs on the south edge of the bare rock about 150m before the control. Despite this attack point I still managed to overshoot the control by about 100m, not quite reading the mess of rock detail inside the circle carefully enough (at 1:15,000). A quick relocation and into the control losing about 1:30 in the end.

A 3 minute highlights video  from the carnival can be found here (Example of the type of bare rock at 2:40).

This race, and the rest of the carnival was great fun and already getting me, and many others pumped for more overseas orienteering to come.   
Max Griffiths

Results 

Congratulations to the following NW members who had podium places in Australia:

Australian Championships

Australian Sprint Championships
W14 2nd Jessica Sewell

Australian Long Distance Championships
M21E 1st Matt Ogden
W14A 2nd Jessica Sewell
W45A 2nd Marquita Gelderman

Australian Middle Distance Championships
M21E 2nd Matt Ogden
M65A 1st Rob Garden
W16A 1st Sofie Safkova, 2nd Georgina Dibble
W45A 2nd Marquita Gelderman

Public Sprint Event (following Schools sprint)
Junior Boys 1st Liam Stolberger

Schools Events

Senior Boys Sprint 3rd Callum Hill
Junior Boys Sprint 3rd Sebastian Safka
Junior Girls Sprint 3rd Jessica Sewell
Individual Championship 1st Sofie Safkova

And congratulations to the  NW members who ran in NZ Schools' relay teams – Senior Boys (Max Griffiths and Callum Hill) placed 3rd, Junior Boys (Sebastian Safka) placed 1st, Junior Girls (Sofie Safkova and Jessica Sewell) placed 1st.

Well done to you all for convincingly winning and bringing home the Southern Cross Challenge trophy!

5. Coaching Corner

Thanks to Gene Beveridge for this piece.

Weighing up the opportunities and risks is a key part of being a successful navigator in orienteering and investing the time to planning as early as possible has significant benefits. Let’s take a look at a leg 11 on Red 1 at AOS 11 a few weeks ago. This is a tough leg with areas of poor runability that can be avoided but no route choice is clearly the best at first glance so we need to think about this one systematically. Take a look at this leg for yourself and list all of the risks (anything that could slow you down or make navigation more difficult) and then the opportunities (anything that could speed you up or make navigation easier)

 Some significant risks are:

·      The exit from 19 is mostly surrounded by poor runnability.

·      The areas of dark green in the middle of the leg will be very slow to cross and make navigation very difficult.

·      The areas of green stripe close to 20 will also be slow to cross.

·      The areas of rough open close to the beach are also hilly and will be slow to cross.

·      There is a lot of contour detail in the white forest with nothing particularly distinctive.

·      The entry into 20 isn’t marked by anything distinctive.

The most significant opportunities are:

·      The road to the north east provides very good runnability

·      The small path through the white forest provides good runnability

·      The open flat sand along the beach provides good runnability

·      The white strip to the southeast of the 19 provides a reliable exit towards the small path

·      The open sand blowout southwest of 19 provides a reliable way to the beach

·      The open sand blowout west of 20 provides a reliable entry into 20

It is now up to you to way up these facts and chose the fastest way. Here is my choice.

So when is the best time to crunch through this process in a race? I would recommend planning as early in the course as possible. If you do not need to navigate finely on the current leg, then invest your efforts into future challenges. Running on the road from 15 to 16 is a great time to assess the opportunities and risk of a more challenging leg like 19 and 20.

6. A link to share promoting our sport

Many of you may have seen this doing the rounds on facebook recently - but for those who may have missed it, it’s a great explanation of why so many of us enjoy this sport!

www.windsweptwriting.com/10-reasons-orienteering-best-sport-ever/ 

7. Upcoming events

1.     Rogaine Event

(run by the Moncktons to fundraise to help Whangaparaoa Scouts get to this year’s Scout Jamboree.

Shakespear Regional Park 6 November (next weekend!)

http://www.wgpscouts.org.nz/news.html

2.    The Big Trig 2016

4/8hr rogaine near Wellington, Sat 26 Nov.

Online entries are now open.

http://bigtrig.ohv.org.nz/

3.     MTBO November 12th/13th

The North Island MTBO Champs, run by the North West Orienteering Club. Venue is the "Marquita's Garden" map at Slater Road near Helensville. Day 1 starts with a sprint distance race (approx 25-30mins winning time) and in the afternoon, a middle distance race (50-60 mins winning time). Day 2 is a 90 minute rogaine, mass start. The area has not been used for MTBO since 2014 and the track fairies have been busy making it look a little different to the last time you may have ridden on it. We already have 40 entrants which is actually pretty good for MTBO in NZ, it would be great to have more! The first 25 entrants went into the draw to win a HH Mapboard (retailing for $75) with two up for grabs. The winners are.......Alan Moore  and Jessica Sewell. Congratulations, your mapboards will be available for collection on the morning of the first race. If anyone else needs a mapboard or compass, Michael Wood from The Mapsport Shop will be attending or order online at www.mapsport.co.nz

These events are pre-entry with allocated start times. See http://nimtbo.aoa.org.nz/ for entry details. We will take entries on the day dependent on available maps. If you prefer to ride with a friend, or to be a bit less serious, choose one of the Recreational classes - Rec 1 will ride the same course as M50/W40 and Rec 2 will be on the same course as M70/W60.

4.     MTBO November 18th-20th

The NZ Champs will be hosted by Orienteering Bay of Plenty in Rotorua and Tokoroa. Don't be put off by the fact it is the NZ Champs - there are still courses and classes suitable for everyone no matter how casual. See http://www.obop.org.nz/nz-mtbo-champs.html for details. One particularly exciting aspect to this event is it will be using the SI-Air punching system - you only need to ride within 50cm of the controls for the punch to register, no more stopping and fumbling to try and clip the control. There are already more than 80 entrants so it should be a great weekend.