Hello everyone

It was so good to be back orienteering in the forest again last Sunday, the first AOS event since beginning of August. NWOC has three more club events planned before the end of November, including our popular rogaines - plus there is the Northern Regional Champs and the Auckland Club Relays next month.

Entries have closed for the New Zealand Champs in Manawatu at Labour Weekend and a contingent from the club will be competing for titles as well as gleaning insight on how to successfully host the NZ champs in Woodhill in 2021. Entries for the Orienteering NZ Junior Camp in Nelson from 13-18 December have re-opened, as there are just a few spare spots. The cost is $450 and you need to get in an application by Friday 16 October – details here .

After some debate, the club committee decided not to hold NW Club Champs this Covid-interrupted year. The Champs are usually contested at an Auckland Orienteering Series event hosted by one of the other Auckland clubs, enabling all NWOC members to compete. Unfortunately, due to the second Covid19 lockdown, any remaining AOS events hosted by either AOC or CMOC have been cancelled or postponed.

We will have our annual AGM and club End-of-the Year dinner at Coatesville Settlers’ Hall on Sunday 06 December. While we will not be having a traditional prize giving, we are planning some fun activities and the chance to get together with orienteering friends. The club will provide dessert and we will be sending out an invitation with more details in the coming weeks.

Please can you bring your 2019 trophies along to the next NWOC club event – we will have a box at registration to collect these.

We also plan to showcase the results of our course-setting competition: see below for more details. Course setting is an integral part of orienteering events and we are keen for more members to have a taste of what is involved, without the pressure of it being an actual event! U

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

Kia kaha,

Lisa Mead
NWOC Club president and newsletter editor

Newsletter content

1. Volunteering
2. AOS-9 Riverhead Forest, 11/10/0
3. Events Calendar
4. AOS-5 Slater Road, 15/11/20
5. Rogaines in November
6. Training and podcasts
7. Grassy Knoll – SI cards
8. Course Setting Competition
9. Club social & AGM, 06/12/20
10. NZOC2021

1. Volunteering

Looking back on the September 2019 newsletter, I think the words of Jenny Cade, who stepped down as club president at the end of that year, are still very relevant: “All of us on the exec are busy people and all of us have been committed to North West for many years. To ensure the continued success of North West we need others to join us in helping to run the club. One idea we have is to expand our Committee and to split the current roles on the committee into smaller roles, thus splitting the workload. We know that today everyone has less time for volunteering; we are all busy, so we ask you all, as members of North West to consider how you could help us. More people doing smaller roles will mean the time commitment is shared.”

We are looking for more volunteers in general, and specifically for a newsletter editor. If you would like to help us out, please do not hesitate to contact me.

In making this request, we want to note the benefits from getting involved in the club. 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.

Lisa Mead,

NWOC Club President

2 AOS-9 Riverhead Forest, 11/10/20

A big thank you to course planners Alex De Beer and Jamie Hrstich and controller Cameron de L’ Isle who challenged us with some very interesting courses in a sometimes technically demanding part of Riverhead Forest last Sunday. The tracks were mostly in good condition for what can be a notoriously muddy venue, although orienteers on the red courses encountered their share of supplejack and jungle!

Thank you also to all the club members who helped out on the day (and Jenny for her creative Facebook posts) – volunteers are key to club events and it is a good way to meet new people and learn new skills.

Instead of the usual (pre-Covid) TV screens for results, Nick Monckton set up a satellite at Riverhead, enabling orienteers to check interim and final results via Gravity Internet at the event.

3. Events Calendar
October

November

December
Sun 06 NWOC AGM and social dinner, Coatesville Settlers Hall from 5.00pm

AOS = Auckland Orienteering Series – events generally have 9 courses of varying lengths and difficulty.
NISS = North Island Secondary Schools

AOC= Auckland O Club,

CMOC = Counties Manukau O Club

4. AOS-5 Slater Road, 15/11/20

"The terrain is a combination of steep hills and patches of complex sand dune features covered in mature pine forest. Areas of leafy undergrowth significantly reduce visibility, while most of the forest retains very high visibility and good runnability. A network of mountain bike tracks completes this exciting area."

Course Setter is Johan Kvasnicka, and controller Gene Beveridge. Additional details can be found here. Please pre-enter this event using EnterO – entries will open very shortly.

This is a NWOC event so do not be shy about offering to help out on the day: please contact Rob Garden (rgmg@xtra.co.nz), the coordinator for the day.

5. Rogaines in November
It has taken a while but the North West Orienteering Club is pleased to announce that we will be running a couple of rogaine events this year, assuming Covid will not rear its head between now and then.

Riverhead will host us on November 1st with the event centre at the forest headquarters on Ararimu Valley Road (Barlow Road entrance), while on November 29th we are excited to introduce a new map at Te Rau Puriri, a lovely Auckland Regional Park on the South Head Peninsula, NW of Helensville (and featured on Country Calendar on 11 October). Please leave your canine friends at home for this second rogaine, as this is a farm park.

Note that you will need to allow about 1 hour 30 minutes driving time to the event centre beside the beach at Te Rau Puriri Regional Park. There is also a 2 km walk to the rogaine start (up to 30 minutes), so come in good time to allow for course planning. Please bring your own water for this event.

Entries are now open with the first 50 entrants going in to the draw to win a backpack from our main sponsor Bivouac Outdoors. See the website www.rogaineseries.co.nz for all the details and to enter.

Many thanks to 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.

Tune up your rogaine tactics and give yourself an edge over the competition with Geoff’s hints and tips on planning a rogaine run. You can find the full article on the NW website (Resources) here.

6. Training and Podcasts

Gene Beveridge has already produced several excellent podcasts and training videos. These leg by leg analyses of actual orienteering courses are really interesting. The latest interview is with Kate Borton, immediately after her Yellow course at Riverhead last Sunday. Gene takes her through her course in detail, discussing techniques and route choice options – highly recommended, especially for beginner orienteers, but also anyone who competed at this event.

NWOC life-member and former Junior World middle distance champion, Matt Ogden, who now lives and trains in Nelson, was in Auckland for the last Woodhill event before Auckland’s second lockdown in August.

He had an emphatic win on the Temu Road Upper map and has shared his course evaluation with us – it is an entertaining read and a good insight into elite orienteering strategy. Read it here.

7. Grassy Knoll - SI-Cards

Orienteers who are new to the sport often ask where they can buy SPORTident timing cards (or e-cards) – now there is an easy solution….Many of you will have seen NWOC member, Gene Beveridge’s Grassy Knoll orienteering and adventure running equipment store at events; Gene writes….
We have taken many inquiries about SPORTident timing cards over the years, and we have now taken on their products, bringing us very close to being your one stop shop for orienteering. The two products we are selling are the SI-Card 8 with capacity for 30 punches for $70 and the SIAC for touch free punching and the capacity for 128 punches for $140. We believe the future is with touch free punching, but not until the price comes down, so we will continue to offer the SI-Card 8 for the foreseeable future.

8. Course setting competition

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. Details will follow very soon.
 

9. Club Social & AGM Sunday 06 December 2020

Don’t miss the social event of the NWOC year!
Join us at Coatesville Settlers Hall for the AGM and annual club dinner and social evening. We will provide strawberries and chocolate brownies for dessert.

We will also announce the winner of our course-setting competition.

Either come at 5.00pm for the AGM or 5.30pm for the social function.

Details to follow in the next newsletter….

10. NZOC2021

NWOC is proud to host the 2021 Orienteering Nationals at Easter, Covid permitting. We are gearing up for four New Zealand Orienteering Championship events: sprint on a school-campus on the North Shore, long distance, middle distance and the relay. Put the dates in your calendar now: 2 – 5 April 2021.
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.

For information on the areas under embargo, please visit the NZOC2021 website.
Registration will open in December, but in the meantime, sign up for updates so you receive the latest event info.

NZOC2021: Camping on site
All events, with the exception of the sprint, will take place at or near 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 also open up in December 2020.

NZOC2021: Our sponsors
We are delighted to have received generous funding from three community support organisations. The Lion Foundation has enabled us to purchase more SPORTident timing equipment to replace some of our original equipment, which was nearly 16 years old. This will facilitate hosting the National Champs next Easter when our course planners will be using many, many control boxes.

Foundation North and the New Zealand Community Trust will jointly cover the cost of creating a brand-new map in Woodhill Forest, which will be used for the Middle distance at NZOC2021.

NZOC2021: Organisation
As you can imagine, an event this size can only run smoothly when it is supported by as many NWOC members as possible: many hands make light work!

In the lead-up to the event, we are specifically looking for a handful members to start helping out ‘behind the scenes’:

• A NWOC member who can handle the financial administration, reconciling the income from participants with the actual entries. This job can be done from home, and does not require any specific financial knowledge nor attending the event.
• A NWOC member who will be camping on-site during NZOC2021, and volunteers to be the camp manager. Tasks will include (email) communication, answering questions in the lead-up, and solving potential camping-related problems during the Easter weekend.
• 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.
• Volunteers for the transport team, who make sure the right equipment (tents, tables, signs, finish chutes, start set-up) is at the right time at the right location. Most of these volunteers only need to be available during part of the event, but we do need one of two volunteers from January onward to help with the planning.

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