Report by Ric Gamble, Chair of Lagan Valley Orienteers

It was Fermanagh Orienteering Club's turn to host the 2021 Northern Ireland Orienteering Championships, meaning that together with a great western welcome would come the twinkle in the eye of mischief.

With a clearing morning and a dry forecast ahead, 10.30 am on Saturday morning saw the first of the starters line up on the fringe of the boulder-strewn forest on the Cavan Burren.  Those of us who were here two years ago when Fermanagh Orienteers hosted the Irish Championships, passed on warnings to the unsuspecting, to keep things slow, to begin with, in the hope to get out of the forest unbroken in body, mind, and spirit and onto the open hillside.

Most managed this, but not all!

When you get out onto the open hill of the Cavan Burren you will see it is an amazing place.  If you are not lost on the map and look up, the scenery is beautiful.  However, due to the intricacies of the terrain made by the underlying geology, the eye can’t be tempted to stray for too long and does need to stay focused on the map.  In fact, some of the geology is not underlying, the landscape has visible patches of limestone pavement; this, along with innumerable pits and crags makes for some careful running and navigation.  The planning of Ciara Largey made the most of this, meaning the errors were not only confined to the earlier forest legs.  At the finish, I don’t think there was much noise of a clean run.

Twelve excellent courses were planned, with Course 1 being 10.9km with 290m of a climb.  You can check them out at NIOC 2021 Cavan Burren 2021-10-16 (routegadget.co.uk).  There was great competition enjoyed by the three Northern Ireland clubs along with their friends in the South and a few who made the trip across the Irish Sea. Northern Ireland's biggest club, Lagan Valley Orienteers, had fifteen category winners, with both North West Orienteering Club and Fermanagh Orienteers bringing two titles each home.

As well as thanking Ciara for her excellent planning, huge thanks also must go to Val Jones of FINGAL for controlling – with the NI Champs taking place on the South, this truly was a cross-border effort. The professionalism, as always, of the whole event, was organised by Raymond Finlay with a great deal of help from Teresa and many other fantastic volunteers.

Full results are available here. 

Thanks again Fermanagh Orienteers, we always enjoy the fact that the level of challenge meets the level of your welcome!

Following on from the success of the online Coaching Conference this year, we are pleased to announce that the Development Conference will also be online. The intention is to hold the sessions/workshops over a number of weeks early in the new year.

Each session will have a particular focus on how to develop our clubs.

As well as examples of what clubs are doing on the ground, there will be perspectives given from those outside our sport and an opportunity for you to pose questions.

If you are someone who wants to help your club improve its membership offer, increase membership, reach out to new people or improve club structures, then there will be something for you!

The idea behind this Development Conference is to look at how British Orienteering can get alongside your club and members, prompt some key actions for your club to move forward with during 2022, and continue to develop our fantastic sport. We are all in this together!

The Development Conference programme information and how you can book your place will be made available on the British Orienteering website shortly!

Request by Emma Monkman, Access and Environmental Officer at British Orienteering

The government has issued new guidance for the national lockdown in England, which comes into force on Tuesday 5 January.

The guidance states that:

• Outdoor exercise is still permitted but should be limited to once per day.
• You can exercise in a public outdoor place:
  • by yourself.
  • with the people you live with.
  • with your support bubble (if you are legally permitted to form one).
  • in a childcare bubble where providing childcare.
  • or, when on your own, with one person from another household.
• Outdoor exercise should be done locally wherever possible, but you can travel a short distance within your area to do so if necessary (for example, to access an open space). If you need to travel you should stay local – meaning avoiding travelling outside of your village, town or the part of a city where you live – and look to reduce the number of journeys you make overall.
• All outdoor sports clubs, centres, venues and facilities will close, alongside indoor facilities.
• Organised outdoor sport for disabled people is allowed to continue, and we will provide further detail on this once we have information from the Government.

All organised orienteering activities, including events, competitions, leagues and coaching, are therefore suspended with immediate effect (except for orienteering for disabled people, on which we will provide further information in due course).

POCs and VOCS

POCs and VOCs can still be used for individual exercise. Courses should be registered with British Orienteering as activities to provide insurance cover for the club and planner. They must not be used for competitions or leagues.

We would recommend that you add any courses on to the British Orienteering POC portal via your club POC Manager or contact nweir@britishorienteering.org.uk

The full national lockdown: stay at home guidelines are available on the UK government website.

Guidance for orienteering clubs

Up to date support and guidance for UK orienteering clubs is available via our COVID page.