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!

As agreed at the AGM 2023, from 1 May 2024 British Orienteering would like to offer an exclusive part-year Membership to new members.

New members are individuals who have not been members of British Orienteering in any of the previous four calendar years.

Part year membership fees 2024

Seniors – £10

Young adults – £7.50

Juniors – £3.00

Families – £25.00 (all members must be new members and not on the database to take up this offer).

No memberships will be merged with existing memberships.

Please note from 1 January 2025, any “new” members will need to renew their membership for 2025.

Find out more about how to join online today. 

The GBR teams for the Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) and the European Youth Orienteering Championships (EYOC) are announced.

The JWOC races are in Plzeň, Czechia from 1 - 6 July and the EYOC races are in Szczecin, Poland from 21 - 24 June.

All named athletes are selected to all disciplines at each competition.

In alphabetical order of surname, the JWOC team is:

Non-travelling reserves: Adam Barrie and Emma Crawford

In alphabetical order of surname, the EYOC team is:

Orienteering Coaches educating new coaches.

Helen Wheelwright (Southampton Orienteering Club), explains:
"Since becoming the Youth Coordinator at Southampton Orienteering Club (SOC) in 2020 I have been trying to find ways to increase the number of Juniors in our club. Luckily, we received a small grant from the South-Central Orienteering Association (SCOA) to help us in this endeavour. Finding and training volunteers to help with coaching was top of the list of things to spend money on.

The Introduction to Coaching was an attractive offer as it allows keen helpers to start thinking about how to help newcomers to the sport without the fairly hefty time commitment of the L2 Coaching course.

The course was advertised on our club’s website and a few keen members signed up. However, it was then mid-March 2021, and I was faced with the prospect of waiting quite some while to be able to put on the course or delivering it on Zoom. Inspired by the great sessions delivered in January in the British Orienteering Virtual Coaching Conference I opted for Zoom.

The reading element of the course was delivered to participants who had two weeks to complete the tasks at their leisure. On the night of our Zoom meeting, we were able to discuss the pre-work and move on to other tasks on my pre-prepared PowerPoints. Although we were not able to try out map walks and star exercises, there was a lot of good discussion as to why we might use these exercises and how we would help newcomers and give them enough information to help them to make a good start in orienteering without swamping them with an endless list of things to remember.

The participants were very involved and the feedback was that they enjoyed themselves and would enjoy the opportunity to try out some of the things they had been discussing online. Thankfully the Covid situation has improved, and we will be able to do this soon at our next local event."

Thank you Helen.  Fantastic work!