Spotlight on our University Orienteering Clubs: Bath University Mountaineering Club (BUMC)

What made you want to start/become involved with your university orienteering club?

A few of our members have been orienteering for a number of years before coming to Bath, so it was an automatic decision for me and a few others to join BUMC in that way. Many club members though have never competitively orienteered before joining! Some join from more experience with the climbing or walking sectors of the club and want to see what orienteering is about, while others come from a running background and use it as a fun and interesting way to get more runs in. It's lovely for everyone to come as they are with different experiences and to all train, improve and compete together!

Typically, how often do you meet as a group? How do you factor things in like travel?

We meet for fortnightly navigation training sessions based from campus, as well as going to a number of events organised by local clubs. We're fortunate to be able to get to several events by public transport, especially those organised by BOK, plus other local urban races. We're targeting SARUM's Salisbury City Race as the first race of our 24/25 season, which we can get a direct train to! Besides orienteering, we're looking this year to do group runs in the off-weeks from orienteering, and the club has frequent group walks as well. There's also our weekly Thursday pub socials, which are a great opportunity to meet and catch up with people from all three sectors of the club!

What advice would you give to freshers/newcomers to the sport?

A few pieces of advice that club members had to share were:

• Orienteering is a very technical sport, so sometimes can feel a little intimidating to start with! The best way to improve is by doing though, so get involved with as much as you can and allow yourself to enjoy the journey and to make plenty of mistakes! There's always experienced club members - who are very friendly :) - around as well to help you out with developing your technique and to debrief your process with you after a run.
• Don't mispunch in a team competition and try not to get lost...
• Races are always the best days out with the club, so try and go to as many of them as you can - especially BUCS and EUOC!

Can you share any of your highlights as a club over the past year?

Last year we had our best result in a major competition in our history, with a magnificent 2nd place at EUOC (English Universities Orienteering Cup) in Sheffield! It was a lovely opportunity to meet orienteers from all over the country too - card games in the scout hut on the Saturday evening with the Loughborough, Leeds and UCL squads was a particular highlight.

What do you value most about being a member of your club?

Orienteering gives such a breath of fresh air in contrast to an intense degree course! I love getting outside to orienteer on the weekends after a long, hard week; and as a niche sport like orienteering is, it makes you appreciate having people to run sessions with even more. Orienteering was a big factor in me choosing to come to Bath and I'm so grateful for the club here!

Are there any key skills you have gained in being a committee member and a volunteer for the club?

I'm very excited for my first year on committee this year! Looking forward to planning events and training sessions, as well as organising EUOC which will no doubt be a big undertaking that will teach me a lot. I'm expecting it to be very rewarding as well though, so definitely would recommend getting involved with this side of the club too!

The British University Orienteering Championships take place each year. Can you tell us more about your experience from this year’s event and why they are a great opportunity for university clubs across the country to come together to compete?

BUCS is always the pinnacle of domestic university sport and orienteering is no different! Cambridge hosted a great event earlier this year which we managed to take a small team to, with some good results on some technical orienteering courses in forest and urban. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone we met there at next year's competition in Sheffield!

What are your aims as a club in the upcoming year?

Following our 2nd place in the competition last year, we have the honour of hosting EUOC in Bath in 2025! We're hopeful that having a high-level weekend of orienteering so accessible to our members will give the orienteering sector of our club a real boost and put Bath University orienteering really on the map!

Image credits: Dik Ng, Dave Currie

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Find out more about Bath University Mountaineering Club (BUMC) via their website or their Instagram.