As a sport, we must work together to resume orienteering responsibly and within the relevant Government guidance.

The Board of Directors have committed to following the respective advice of each government, and therefore there are likely to be periods when types of orienteering activities permitted, vary between different parts of the UK, depending on the Government guidelines and regulations.

British Orienteering has developed a dedicated webpage here. 

On this webpage the guidance for each of the nations will be updated accordingly as further announcements by local or national Governments are made.

Latest Guidance:

All guidance is subject to any further restrictions that may be imposed by local or national Governments.

Mark Pruzina member of Lagan Valley Orienteers comments: 

“Here in Northern Ireland, Lagan Valley Orienteers held our first proper timed event since March yesterday on 1 August at Meelmore in the Mournes. We were able to offer 80 pre-entry places with 10 starts per 15 minutes in compliance with British Orienteering guidance.

We used SIAir and SRR Radio Controls which worked well with live Start, Finish and one Radio Control data coming back to me at Registration 1km away. This meant that the entire race was contact free from Start to Finish, with minimal contact and good social distancing at Registration/Download.

Social distancing was great throughout and everything was actually relatively unhurried and relaxed due to the spacing of the 80 people across the 2 hours. When I uploaded the results to British Orienteering website last night I think we might be the first proper timed event in the UK since March!

Everyone had a great time. The joy of getting out into an actual competitive, timed event was amazing.

We are hoping for a second event using the same protocols and processes in a couple of weeks’ time if we can finalise permissions.”

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Juls Hanvey, Northern Ireland Sporting Clubs Coordinator who attended the event, says:  "I heard three different people say “Our sport was made for social distancing!” – so true!"

Here are another few quotes from Facebook users, they include:

No doubt many of you have seen this announcement from the International Orienteering Federation (IOF) on Friday (31 July 2020).

This has meant the cancellation of JWOC 2020 and the replacement of Portugal with Turkey in 2021. Also, EYOC is going ahead, but will be rebranded as EJOC (European Junior Orienteering Championships) and include M/W20's. The precise details of the event have yet to be finalised and the latest notification on the EYOC website states that there will be an update by Saturday 8th August.

So, on this basis, we will continue to look to hold selection races over the August weekend of 28th-30th, as previously notified, for M/W16's-M/W20's and the selection policy for EJOC will be reframed in light of the Hungarian organiser's guidance, in due course. These races will still be used for next season's Talent Squad selection purposes as well.

However, it must be stated that, even though the IOF have given the green light to EYOC/EJOC, there obviously remains significant levels of concern over whether this competition will still go ahead, given the fluctuating nature of Covid19 in both the UK and Europe. We will continue to plan to send a team, but everyone needs to be aware that the situation remains precarious and we will continue to monitor developments in the coming weeks. There will probably be some specific Covid-secure guidelines from the organising body in Hungary, which we will need to react to, and the latest UK government guidance will also need to be adhered to.

On the topic of selection races, I was hoping today to give you more specific details of their location, but the continuing fluctuating situation regarding release of lockdown in the UK, some issues around the securing of access permissions, and compliance with the return to orienteering policy, means that I'm not able to do this with guaranteed certainty at the moment. Discussions are ongoing and, as I realise the urgency of giving everyone as much lead in time as possible, I am working hard to ensure that you have this information by the end of this week. I apologise for the delay and I thank you for your patience in these difficult times!
 

Paul Murgatroyd
Head Coach for Talent
British Orienteering

Over the next week, British Orienteering are pleased to announce the winners of the both the Mapping and Volunteer Awards for 2019.

Today we start with the winner for The Chichester Trophy in mapping.

The map awards for maps used in 2019 are decided on submissions provided by clubs and mappers. The judges were Ray Barnes, Brian Bullen and Susan Marsden with the scoring is based on specification, cartography and presentation.

The Chichester Trophy is presented for the best map by an amateur mapper.

The three judges agreed that the winning map is:

Arncliffe & Kilnsey North by Tony Thornley (Airienteers).

On hearing about his award Tony said: 

"I am delighted to have been awarded the Chichester Trophy for my map for last year’s British Champs. The trophy is very special; it is the binnacle compass from the yacht Gipsy Moth V. Sir Francis presented it to British Orienteering when he was president in 1971, shortly before he died. Along with the British Orienteering Championships M21E ‘King of the Forest’ trophy it is probably the most iconic and special of all British Orienteering awards.

As well as making the first single-handed circumnavigation of the world, Sir Francis was a navigator and map maker so the Chichester Trophy represents a cartographic tradition. My orienteering mapping goes back almost 50 years, through pen and ink, via scribing, to computer cartography. I very much hope that others will continue to carry this tradition forwards over the next 50 years.

A big thank you to many friends who have helped me develop my mapping skills, and to those who made last year’s British Orienteering CHampionships a success, and to my wife Jo for tolerating endless orienteering projects. I hope we can get back to making and using maps soon."