Message from President Gene Beveridge

Kia ora all. Special thanks to Philip Elworthy and Geoff Mead for setting the courses for Forest Cup 2. If your've stuck with us for most of the season, I invite you to reflect on what skills you have practised, and maybe even improved over that time! We've got some final races to challenge yourself with, so best of luck with those.

If you are recieving benefit from the club, please consider joining the committee or working closer with the committee on special projects. There isn't anything we couldn't do with more of to improve what the club offers, so please get in tough by replying to this email. We'd love to hear about your skills and interests.

Newsletter Contents  

• 2023 Event Calendar
• Next NWOC Events
• ONZ Controller's Clinic
• Junior Camp 2023 & Under 23 High Performance Camp
• Member News
  • Trophy Return

2023 Event Calendar

All upcoming events in the wider Auckland area are listed on our NWOC website here
New Zealand wide events are on Orienteering New Zealand’s website here
Check the links above for details of events coming soon.

Forest Cup Final event 17 September  2023

Counting down the days to the NWOC hosted final event in the Forest Cup series : Dave Middleton and Liam Stolberger aim to test your navigational skills in classic Woodhill terrain. Dave writes that they will make the most of complicated contours on a flattish area with some moderate hilly sections.  Some areas have patches of pampas that is passable with caution.
We are delighted that Graze Products are supporting this event and provding some yummy packets of nuts ( think dark chocolate, raspberry dusted and white chocolate almonds and cashew nuts...mmmmm).
Friendly, well-behaved dogs are permitted at this event.

Save money on entry fees and enter before midnight Wednesday. Entry can be found here.

There are courses to suit all abilities and course distances can be found on our Event page.

As always, we are looking for volunteers to help us with  runnning the event - be it setting up tents  beforehand, helping at Registration or on the start, collecting controls and packing up - please contact Lisa on mead10b@gmail.com or mobile 021 1359631. No great experience required - we will show you the ropes and work as a team.

                     Typical terrain on this map.

If you have any club tropies from 2022, please bring them along to this event - there will be a box at Registration.

Eden Park Sprint Wednesday 13 Septmber

New map Eden Park – Counties Manukau O Club is offering a rare opportunity to compete in a sprint-style orienteering event through NZ’s national stadium! Including never access for runners to the changing rooms (where All Blacks, Black Ferns and recently the Football Ferns have prepared for their games), and the opportunity to race a lap around the globally iconic Number 1 Field!
Schools event is from 9.30am to 3pm. For Year 7 to 13 students entries and information about this urban sprint-style event are available from your Zone Co-ordinators (Primary/Intermediate Schools) and College Sport.  Public event from 4.30pm until 6.45pm
Entries have now closed - further details can be found here.

NWOC annual picnic and prizegiving 03 December

 Mark the date on your calendar - we are planning  a great afternoon at Slater Road with  a rogaine style event followed by a picnic and prizegiving.  I still have vivid memories of the 2022 Christmas rogaine on the Mairetahi map with an infamous control  requiring a swim in a rather murky pond! Who knows what Marquita has in store for us this year?
This event will be free for club members and more details will follow.
Please bring any trophies from last year to our upcoming event on 17 September.

ONZ Controllers Clinic 

ONZ's Technical Committee is running a controllers' clinic over the weekend of 14/15 October in Pukekohe.  The course is designed for those wanting to learn about event controlling from club events to A-level. Some prior course planning experience is necessary (even if only at club level); the course is not suitable for complete beginners. We would love some more NWOC members to attend this clinic and learn all about Controlling. If you're interested and want to know more about what's involved, please contact NWOC member Marquita Gelderman on marquita.gelderman@gmail.com. Marquita lead's ONZ's Technical Committee and is facilitating this clinic.   

For any NWOC members who attend, the Club will contribute to expenses of travel and accommodation if required up to $150.  Accommodation receipts and km travelled would need to be submitted for reimbursement. We would encourage members to car pool to the clinic. Please talk to Marquita about this also if you are interested.

Junior Camp 2023 

The 2023 Junior Camp (Year 9-13) is being hosted by the Peninsula and Plains Orienteering Club (PAPO) and is taking place in Woodend Christian Camp in Canterbury between Thursday 14 and Wednesday 20 December.

Entries for this year’s Junior Camp are will be open until the end of September.  With Tim Robertson and Emma Bjssmo as head coaches we are expecting over one hundred participants this year so make sure you sign-up before the end of the month.
The Junior camp is open to year 9 to 13 students running at a high orange or red level course. Fees for the camp are set at $630 per person but may be reduced once we know about the success of grant applications to help cover accommodation and van hire for the camp.
NWOC will offer a small travel subsidy for successful applicants.

Junior Camp Sign up form - Google form here.

Under 23 / High Performance Camp 2023

The Under 23 HP Camp is aimed at athletes in the 17-23 age range who have serious ambition to represent New Zealand on the international stage (e.g. JWOC, WUOC, WOC) over the next few years. It is designed to help prepare athletes physically, technically and psychologically and involves both physical and technical training as well as evening sessions which both review the days training and include discussion of relevant topics.

The 2023 camp will be based at Woodend Christian Camp, from the afternoon of Thursday 7 December until midday Wednesday 13 December. Those interested in attending are invited to submit applications by Friday 13 October 2023. Numbers will be limited to a maximum of 35.

The application for NZ U23 High Performance Training Camp participants, including sign-ups for coaches for the Junior Camp can be accessed here U23 Camp Application Form

Member News

Travel the world with orienteering!
Talented NW member Tahi Harris was fortunate to be selected in the New Zealand team to compete at the ISF under 15 School Champs in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The championship races were a Middle distance, in which Tahi placed 4th and the Sprint  in which Tahi took the gold medal. The sprint was a very closely fought race with Tahi out running the Italian silver medalist between the final control and the finish! 
Rio was such a memorable location - how cool is orienteering that you get to race in crazy places like this? 

And later this month Tahi will be part of the NZ Schools team to compete against their Australian counterparts in the Australian Champs in Perth, Western Australia.

New South Wales & Australian MTB Orienteering champs

The large contingent of mountain bike orienteers who competed in both the NSW and Australian MTB Orienteering Champs (Queensland) this month included several from our club - Rob Garden, Marquita Gelderman, Steve Pyatt, Owen Means and Lesa Lomas.   Marquita and Rob picked up a number of podium places with Marquita taking out the trifecta in the Australian Champs (gold in sprint, middle and long distance races).

Use the GPS on your smartphone to help place controls in the forest  by Geoff Mead

No, you are not allowed to do this when competing in an event (=cheating). These notes are for course planners, controllers and potentially control collectors (after an event).
Philip and I experimented with this approach at the recent Mushroom Rd event and found it very simple and really helpful, nicely complementing the usual map reading.

You have planned an interesting and challenging set of courses for an orienteering event. Now you need to check control sites and place the controls. Tasks that the planner & controller must get correct, using their orienteering skills and map reading expertise. Your smart phone GPS can help, it will confirm you are within say 20m (there will be errors from the accuracy of the GPS signal on your phone, accuracy of the georeferenced orienteering map, etc)  of the control site. However, it will help  in avoiding gross errors in placing controls and speeds up the control placing process (significantly reduces map reading time getting to the control circle area). But you will still need all that orienteering and map reading expertise: Is the mapping of the control site accurate, is the control site appropriate for the level of the course, which knoll / re-entrant etc is the correct map feature when there are multiple features within the control circle? likewise what part / side of the feature to use (east/west, upper, top etc.).

How do you get set up?  OCAD wiki https://ocad.com/blog/2020/10/export-of-geospatial-pdf/

• From OCAD export a geospatial PDF of your "all controls" map. The OCAD orienteering map needs to be georeferenced (most of our recent maps are).  In the OCAD app use the "File" / "Export" feature.
• Email the PDF to yourself and download to your smartphone.
• Load the "Avenza maps" app to your phone (from the Google Play / Apple App store).   https://store.avenza.com/pages/app-features   This free app allows off line (no mobile data required) viewing of the geospatial  PDF map with a GPS dot giving your location. 

You are now in action.