British Orienteering COVID-19 Update 06 Jan 2021

British Orienteering have posted further detail on the restrictions that will apply to orienteering during the national lockdown in England.

• 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.

A copy of the full British Orienteering website news posting can be found here.

List of SOGL eventsRecently added: Hurst Meadows, Newtimber

Below is a list of events in the newly set up SOGL (pronounced soggle) league. They are designed to be run using the MapRun software although any GPS recording device can be used and a .gpx file uploaded later. See the accompanying news item for more detail.

Courses will be added at regular intervals and a completion time will stated for each one. The course will remain open after that date but you must complete by that date to score for the league.

Although a map will be downloaded onto your phone or watch these may not be particularly accurate and so you are recommended to download and print off the map using the links below.

List of available MapRuns

Below is a list of runs that are available using the MapRunF app (see previous news item for further details on how to use this). Some use orienteering maps while others use OS maps of open access land. The government is encouraging us to get out and exercise and have deemed it acceptable to drive to access suitable areas for exercise. When participating in any of these runs please follow our recommended safety advice.

List of Trail Runs

Below is a list of Summer Trail Runs that have been set up. Groups of up to six can run together on a Thursday evening (with social distancing), use the Doodle Poll to sign up for a particular time slot. Alternatively do the run whenever you want. Each run will also be set up on MapRun (for those now addicted to their beeping phone) and can be found in the UK/Sussex/TrailRuns folder. A new run should be added every Wednesday.

SO GPS League (SOGL)

SO is introducing a GPS based orienteering league through this winter season. The objectives are to enthuse you to ‘get out there’, keep fit and hone your techniques.

New courses will be released for the league on the MapRun website and announced on the SO website. To count for the SOGL you will need to run the course with your GPS device (smartphone or GPS watch) within the adverstised ‘time window’ for that course. SOGL results will be compiled and publicised regularly using SO members’ results extracted from MapRun.

It is fun and flexible, yet there is still the motivation of competing against other members.

Brighton GPS courses

GPS enabled courses are now live, these are part of the Southern England GPS Orienteering League as well as the Southdowns GPS League.

Final details are available here, scroll down to download courses and control descriptions. The MapRun files can be found in the UK/Sussex/BCR12 folder. For league purposes the courses should be completed by December 31st.

Autumn Club Nights

Club nights return on Tuesday September 29th. As with the Summer Trail Runs these are being run under current SO safety guidelines and British Orienteering's Code of Conduct:

i) Participating in groups of six or less

ii) Pre-registering a start time slot using this Doodle Poll

iii) Printing your own map

The list of forthcoming activities are shown below, each week's activity will be published here a day or so beforehand.