THE PUNCH

Chairman’s Chat

I first must apologise for the long delay in sending out this addition for Punch.

Orienteering in East Anglia is always a quiet period due to areas being overgrown and fewer events being held. One or two members are planning trips to the Scottish six days, the White Rose event, during the coming months.

Clubs members have not been inactive closer to home. Plans are well under way too for our next event in Shrubland Park. Local running clubs are being contacted and the event published across the county. June Webb our publicity officer will be happy to help if you can advertise in your vicinity. Please feel free to bring a friend to the event as it is aimed at beginners and runners. The planning of the event is being complicated by moving cattle pens, lots of sheep and nettles. The latter will be avoided in the hope people will come back and enjoy our sport.

In Rendlesham Forest club members have been busy creating a permanent course for the Forestry Commission. However we are currently in consultation with British Orienteering Federation regarding our liability and could ultimately halt the project. More news in the next edition of Punch.

In our ever litigious society, the first person to successfully win case against injury or accident in an orienteering event will eventually end our sport. This will be a sad day.

Congratulations, or is that commiserations to Paul Lowe, for being elected as Vice Chair of the East Anglia Orienteering Association.

Andrew Elliot

BOF News

If you’ve not had the chance to visit the BOF website recently, here’s some of the headlines…

3rd July 2003 The 12 strong team of 16 to 20 year olds head for Polva, Estonia for this year's Junior World Orienteering Championships.

3rd July 2003 English Orienteering Council Junior Selection Policy for Interland 2004 Selection…

16th June 2003 Glyn Roberts, well known Midland orienteer and a member of City of Birmingham Orienteering Club (COBOC), has been awarded an MBE

9th June 2003 The British Elite Orienteering Championships were held over the weekend of the 7th/8th June 2003 near Newby Bridge in the Lake District.

Suffoc AGM

When:  Wed 8th October at 7.30pm
Where: Sproughton Village Hall

After the summer break it’ll be time to think about the Annual General Meeting of our club. If you’ve thought about getting involved in the running of the club this is your chance.

The following jobs are all done by volunteers and I’m sure they’d be happy to be helped or relieved over the next 12 months…

Chairman
Secretary
Treasurer
Membership
Event Organiser
Event Planner
Newsletter Editor
Webmaster

This is your chance to keep our club active and running in 2004.

FUTURE CLUB FIXTURES

2003
2nd November – Tunstall forest

2004
1st February – Knetishall heath
17th March - Rendlesham Forest

Sutton Common and Ickworth Park will also be re-mapped for later use in 2004.

Controllers Course

Four clubs' members attended a course held at Santon Downhan on Saturday 10th May. The course looked at the BOF regulations regarding organising, planning and controlling an event. There were also practical exercises in checking control sites and examining a series of colour coded courses as to whether they fitted the appropriate technical guidelines.

All the 4 members must do now is present their orienteering CVs for EAOA approval and demonstrate they have planned 3 events and organised one. This should be a great benefit to the club as we our continuously having to rely on the good will of other clubs controllers at our events.

Ski Trip 2004

I am trying to get the Webb annual trip to Meribel organised so I can make a formal application for the apartments that we want to rent in good time. The plan is to go for the weeks 10th to 17th and 17th to 24th January, which are the two cheapest weeks, with most of us travelling out on the sleeper coach which is not only relatively cheap but gives 7½ or 14½ days skiing, rather than the usual 6 or 13.

The apartments we use are comfortable and you can ski right to the door, unlike most places in Meribel. For the second week we have a full complement for the apartments, but for the first week we have spaces for either a couple plus one odd male who is prepared to share a room with me, or for two couples if I sleep in the lounge.

If anyone is interested, and would like to know more, please let me know as soon as possible, and I will supply details and estimates of prices.

John Webb 01473 742778

Jan Kjellstrom Festival of Orienteering, held at Easter

Six gallant members made there way to this event. “We make an annual pilgrimage to the JK” had always been curious words to myself. The festival is the largest orienteering event in the country with 3500+ competitors taking part this year, an East Anglian colour coded will have on average of 175.

You knew the event was big, but there never seemed to be more than a 150 people about at any one time.

The planners’ notes in the glossy programme (sent to all entrants) contained the Life and Times of a Beach Root Stock. When it dies it becomes a Pit just in case you wondered. For the enthusiastic orienteer 4 days of Orienteering were possible. The main events were held at Hambledon Woods Henley Upon Thames and Star Posts, Bracknell .

Hambledon was runnable, Beach woods with challenging contours to an East Anglian who usually thinks, “Do I go around the hill or over it”. The longest leg on my course (1km) consisted of navigating from the top of the map to the bottom. In the results, the planner wanted to catch people out who decided to go straight down the map as this involved more climbing.

As well as seeing a Red Kite thermaling up and away and the brightest pair of socks on a young Scottish athlete for years, there was the PA system. This seemed to give a competitive advantage to some athletes. ”If Miss X arrives in the next 3 minutes she will take the lead “. It could be heard half way down the course, so it would certainly been an incentive to speed up.

Star Posts was Thetford Forest with the addition of not too challenging contours. Getting to the start was the main challenge of the day. Never again should anyone complain about long walks to the start. After a bus trip through the b industrial estates of Bracknell we arrived at a Sainsburys car park. A 30 minute walk to the assembly area followed and then another 20 minute walk to the start itself (2 ½+ miles).

A special mention should be given to Shelia Lowe for her determination in finding control 3 on her course at Star Posts. Lesser orienteers would have given up.

Could it become an annual pilgrimage ? Trying areas outside is always interesting and can add a new prospective your enjoyment of the sport. If I needed an excuse to try some where outside East Anglia I certainly would go to this event.

Next Year...
Easter 2004 is in the Lake District,
2005 is in Cannock Chase, the Midlands.

Compass Sport Cup Final Report – Shouldham Warren 1st June

This was a classic example of why there are not many orienteering events held in East Anglia in the summer. The bracken was up to waste height and it was a hot humid day.

If you didn’t get soaked in bracken whilst running after the heavy shower at 10.15 before the start, the hot sun caused you to perspire profusely later in the day .

This was unfortunate for the East Anglian Orienteering Association. The event was already under pressure and some teams decided not to compete. They had requested the date of the event be moved, due to the Monday being a big GCSE day. As the chair stated; every team knew the date before entering the competition and had been put in the crowded BOF fixture list over a year ago.

The courses were twice as challenging with the high bracken (this had been ankle deep in 2002) and controls hung low. This created a number of Bingo controls and Elephant tracks were created by earlier runners. Surprisingly no real complaints were made.

The Trophy competition was won by the South Downs club with Nottingham OC and Thames Valley Orienteers third. The Compass Sport trophy, for smaller clubs, was won by SWESO narrowly beating SOS.