Results are in from yesterday's British Middle Distance Championships!

Access provisional results via this link or for a full breakdown, visit the AIRE website.

Well done to all winners and to everyone who took part this weekend! 

Mapping is the one of the most rewarding and enjoyable roles. Not only does it improve your navigation skills, but it can also provide you with a different and new type of orienteering challenge.  

The British Orienteering E-Learning Mapping Courses, Introduction to updating Forest Mapping and Introduction to Sprint and Urban Mapping , developed with the expertise of David Olivant (Nottinghamshire Orienteering Club) and the educational robustness  of Pauline Olivant (Nottinghamshire Orienteering Club) .

Both courses are based around learners having access to either of the two most widely used mapping programs, Open Orienteering Mapper and OCAD.

We strongly advise that you seek an experienced mapper as a mentor to support you through your journey towards being a competent mapper.

Both courses are based on updating an existing map and rather than creating a new map from a previously unmapped area.

Course objectives

• To provide an introduction and basic understanding of the processes involved in how to update and amend an existing Orienteering map.

The course content is designed to only address the course objective rather than attempting to cover the full scope of Mapping. As we recognise that Mapping is a skill that takes much time and practice to hone.

The course should only take around 45- 60 mins to complete and for the whole of May is only £6.00

To access the course and find out more information about our other E-Learning courses, please visit the E-Learning homepage.

Interested in learning about our other E-Learning courses on offer? Visit the E-Learning homepage and access information on all the other resources we provide.

AIRE and CLARO look forward to seeing you all at the British Middle Championships this coming weekend. 

You have entered in greater numbers than we anticipated, but we have adapted to cater for you all as best we can.  Both Danefield and Kilnsey Moor is a lovely places in the Spring sunshine and we really hope the weather is kind so that you can enjoy it at its best.  The technical woodland of Danefield is in sharp contrast to the fast open areas of Kilnsey.  You should enjoy some great orienteering on both days.  Str8 compasses is sponsoring a lot of prizes for the Northern Championships and the British Middles so run well and good luck.

Start times and final details are published, maps are printed and lots of equipment is ready to move.  No controls are out yet, but we have been busy at Kilnsey as you may be able to see from a picture.  There are a variety of crossing points on Kilnsey Moor – many of you will only encounter this one.  There are no stiles to cross at Danefield you’ll be relieved to know.

We will be able to accommodate you all in the parking areas for both events, but as always, it would help if you car shared as much as possible.  The Danefield field has remained in good condition throughout the winter, but as some rain has been forecast over the coming days we will have some tracking available.  Kilnsey has the delight of hard standing in the quarry.  We can’t promise that you will keep your feet dry, but at least cars should not get stuck in the mud as might have happened at some recent events.  We’re hoping that’s true for Danefield.  Definitely true for Kilnsey!

Anyone wanting to carry a club tent to Danefield, could reduce the distance to carry the tent by 800m by using the drop off point suggested in the event details.  It would need to be a rapid drop-off as there are often no parking bays available. They are all quite uneven, and the road is very narrow.  To get back to the parking field it is best to not attempt a 5 point turn but to drive in an anti-clockwise route with LH turns for 2.5k to get back to the parking field.  This should take no morfme than 5 minutes.

Have a great weekend.

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Full details on the British Middle Championships are available via this link. Visit the CLARO website for more details regarding the Northern Championships. Good luck to everyone taking part!

The ranking algorithm is being updated on the website today. The changes include a change to the ranking algorithm, additional views of results and the rankings to enable users to drill down into the results/rankings and make the system more interactive.

As part of the update, the new algorithm will be run across the results for events since 1 January 2017 which will mean some ranking scores being changed. Hopefully, a few anomalies and exceptional scores awarded to some competitors will be removed during this process.

The changes to the algorithm are to address these anomalies and exceptional results and to tidy up a few related matters. The changes include:

• Outliers (exceptional results) are included in the initial calculations for the course ranking parameters but then the runners whose score would be more than 100 points different from their previous average are ignored for the second final calculation of ranking points.
• The rule that there must be 10 previously ranked runners on a course before it can be ranked is now unnecessary and has been replaced by the rule that if there are fewer than 8 competitors with non-outlier scores on a course the course will be excluded and ranking points not awarded. It is understood that this will make it hard for competitors to judge whether there will be sufficient people on a course to ensure the course receives ranking points.
• The calculation of the ranking parameters for a course is on the averages of the runners scores and not on all the separate scores.
• The various parameters involved in the calculation are now recalculated on the same basis and included in the second pass of the calculation.
• The algorithm calculations no longer run immediately after a set of event results are uploaded; the calculations are run as a ‘day batch’ early each morning. This overcomes a lot of calculation time that was wasted when multiple sets of results for an event were uploaded on the same day – now only the most recent upload of the results for an event will be used to run the calculation.

The changes to the participant experience include:

• More linking between results, people, scores, etc to allow drilling down into the results and scores.
• The data can be embedded into websites but drill down is visible only to members.
• A basic graph of a member’s points over time is available.
• The Rankings age class view enables drill down.
• The club ranking points page will allow drill down.

As always it is possible that there will be some initial problems but hopefully, any problems will be few and far between.