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Share  Tweet Sunday 2nd June 2024

2024 AGM NOTICE MEMBER’S OPEN MEETING

British Orienteering’s Board formally invites members to the Annual General Meeting, which will be held at 11:00am on Saturday, 5th October 2024 at The Studio in Birmingham.

Please find a link to the following:

Those attending the AGM virtually via Teams should register attendance by 11:00am on 4th October 2024.

The AGM will be followed by a Members Forum to enable wider participation and consultation.

Member’s Open Meeting - Agenda

The Board would like to place the following items on the agenda:

  • An overview of the “new” British Orienteering website
  • A discussion/workshop on how British Orienteering could incentivise / make things easier for clubs to put on events for newcomers – how could this look.
  • Members, clubs and Associations are also asked to raise any additional strategic items or issues that you would like to be added to the agenda.

    Any such requests should be sent for consideration to Peter Hart, Chief Executive (peter.hart@britishorienteering.org.uk) by the 15th September 2024.

    Whilst it may not be feasible to add all such items to the agenda, those items that are of strategic importance and are common to several requests will be added.

    The meeting will close at 16:00.

    Further details and papers for the AGM and Open Meeting will be circulated as soon as they are drafted.

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    Share  Tweet Friday 31st May 2024

    It's official! Our new website launches next week on 05/06/2024

    We are thrilled to announce that the new British Orienteering website will launch next week on Wednesday 5 June 2024.

    Over the past year we have been working on a redeveloping the old site to incorporate the core pages and features that our members use on a regularly basis, whilst adapting the site to make it more user-friendly to newcomers that are being introduced to our sport. Watch the promotional video below to get a glance at how your new website is going to look. 

    As you will notice there are some slight changes to the navigational menus and we will be releasing another video next week to highlight more details about these changes, as well as a more in depth look at our brand new Club & Membership Toolkit!

    Members

    We have tidied up the members menu slightly but kept much of it the same replacing only the 'Club Zone' with the new 'Club and Membership Toolkit'. So you will still be able to find all the information you use on a regular basis once you have logged in. 

    Watch the promo video

    The new Club & Membership Toolkit

    Our Club & Membership Toolkit is the new home of where we will keep all of our resources and templates to help our Clubs and members to promote their activities, events, and the sport in general. You will be prompted to login at certain points as you navigate your way around the toolkit. 

    Learn more on Club Development, ways to promote your club, and visit our the new Digital Content Hub where members can download and modify templates and assets to use across their own marketing and promotion. You will also find information about inclusion, volunteering and our Annual Awards on this page. 

    Introducing our Digital Content Hub

    We have created a brand new area of the site to replace our print portal, called the Digital Content Hub. 

    Here you will find templates that are ready to download and use across your social media channels or website, or there is the opportunity to modify these to tailor them to your own club. A tutorial video on how to modify the templates will be available to members only from next week via our membership newsletter and a website news story. 

    We are very excited to launch the new website next week on Wednesday 5 June and hope that many of our clubs and members will benefit from the new resources provided. 

    Lookout for more details in our membership newsletter (which is also out next week), the new website itself, or via our social media channels for more tips on navigating your way around the new site. 

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    Share  Tweet Thursday 30th May 2024

    World Cup Round 2: Event programme

    Hot off the back of World Cup Round 1, which took place in Switzerland this past weekend, we look ahead to the upcoming World Cup Round 2 competition which takes place in Genoa from Saturday 1 June to Sunday 2 June. 

    Event programme

    The International orienteering competition of World Cup Round 2 will take place in the the historic city of Genoa. Our athletes can expect the terrain to consist of narrow streets and passages with some steep inclines as they strive to complete the courses in the quickest times. 

    Saturday 1 June: Indivdual Sprint

    Sunday 2 June: Sprint Relay 

    Team GB

    Here is a reminder of the athletes representing Team GB this weekend. Watch all the action live via IOF TV

    We wish them all the very best of luck at the competition!

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    Share  Tweet Wednesday 1st May 2024

    Event Spotlight: The British Middle Championships 2024

    Last weekend the British Middle Championships took place at Danefield, Otley. In this blog, organiser Chris Burden tells us more about the planning process for this year's event. 

    Written by Organiser Chris Burden with contribution from planner David Williams.

    The choice of areas seems to go back a long way; certainly several years before Covid disrupted the events schedule.

    The original area we thought of using for the Middles, was discovered while a few of us were on a mountain bike ride deeper in the Dales.  Danefield was originally only the fallback if the Dales area didn’t prove viable.  As it turned out, Danefield, an old favourite, proved far the better area.  The Dales area was not, as a result pursued, but a new neighbouring area has proved excellent, and will be used for a Dales Weekend Classic Distance event in 2025.

    Danefield is owned by Leeds City Council and access is managed through their Events in Park team who are always very supportive of orienteering.

    David Williams, the planner, identified a possible field for the arena, which we had never used previously; the field just to the south of the one we eventually used.   This allowed him to use the best of the area. He structured the courses Jan–March 2023 at the same time coordinating with Tony Thornley producing the completely revised map off new LIDAR data. By this time a year ago to allow review in competition condition the courses were more or less fully planned and controlled. Having had input during April 2023 from David Bowman assistant planner and Mark Garside (WCH) controller. Subsequently courses and map were given constant minor amendments and updates to take account of the storms, wet conditions and middle distance RWT rule changes.

    The parking field has become a regular for us over the past 15 years, when we hold Regional events at Danefield.  We knew it was well drained.  It has coped admirably with the cars for all previous events.  We’ve checked it regularly throughout this very wet winter, and never had any doubts about it coping, despite having to accommodate three times the number of vehicles we have previously.  It meant quite a long walk to the arena, but we knew it was 100% reliable.

    Last year by March the original assembly field was in prime condition.  This year we did a final check three weeks before the event, just before the map proofs were ready to be printed.  There was a strong chance the field would never drain sufficiently to take vehicles and 900+ pairs of feet.  This was when our brilliant hosts, Sue and Howard Cliff really came into their own.  They suggested we use the paddock and agreed to build us the bridge across the ditch leading to it.  It proved the best of arenas.  The grass didn’t cut up, and it was more compact than the original field which doubtless helped create the splendid atmosphere of the event.

    The change of assembly field resulted in a few slight last-minute adjustments to the map, but did not affect the planning of the courses apart from the run-in.

    We were able to pull the event off just using Aire members, which made recruitment and organising a good deal simpler than is often the case for a Major event.  From what I saw and heard on the day, all the teams did a pretty seamless job. 

    At Danefield we were delighted to hear so many compliments about the courses and the organisation.  The rain held off, although a little more sunshine and a warm wind from the south would have been appreciated. I guess you can’t have everything.

    We were pleased to see that both Rob and Lindsey King’s String Course and Maze were well used.

    Results from the British Middle Championships 2024

    Aire’s next large-scale events are the Sprint and Urban events in Leeds on 6–7 July 2024.

    And the Dales Weekend in the Malham area on 14–15 September 2024.

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