Members

Can you help the club with Publicity?

Call-out for someone, or a couple of people to help our team publicise our SO events and come up with some new ideas on reaching out to people.

Have you got a small amount of time on a regular basis to look forward at our event plan and push messages out about events as well as publicise the sport generally? The club is also interested in the idea of publicising a series of MapRun courses to encourage participation, so this could be an alternative strand. You will be working with a friendly bunch of people who already post items. Familiarity with Instagram, Facebook and possibly Strava a bonus for the publicity help. Familiarity with MapRun a bonus if you're just able to help with that part.

Contact Anna if you think you may have some spare time to help. Any small amount of time you can give would really be appreciated! (Credit: Vectorjuice)

Medals at JK2023 Relays

The JK2023 relays took place at Dale Park in the Lake District. SO fielded ten, three person teams in six different relay categories. SO have a history of placing well in the Men's and Women's Short Relay category so there were several teams in each.

The teams did well with Heather High W18, Ali High W45 and Scarlet Heap W20 gaining silver in the Women's Short and the family team of Stan M21, Will M50 and Tommy Heap M18 gaining a bronze medal in the Men's Short competition.

Success at JK2023 Individual Days

This year's JK took place in the Lake District and a large contingent of Southdowners from aged 9 to over 90 took part. Day 1 was a sprint around Lancaster University and Day's 2 and 3 were individual races in the technically challenging areas of High Dam and Bigland.

Two of our youngest juniors, Lucas and Harriet, had stand out performances winning the M10B and W10B courses over the two individual days. Roger Maher became JK champion in the M85 age category and Mike Gammon got silver in M90.

British Championship Medals

Roger put in a sterling performance at the British Champs to win back his British Champion title, winning the M85 competition by over 12 minutes. Silver medals were won by Mike Gammon in the M90 class and Ruth Rhodes in the W80 class and bronze by Scarlet Heap in the W20 Elite course. Congratulations to them all.

A large team of Southdowners took part in the British Champs at Hambledon in March. We all had some really long courses, but enjoyed the challenge and the atmosphere at the event. Some of our youngest members also ran their first white course unaccompanied at a British Champs and put in an excellent performance.

SO has three South East Night Champions

Congratulations to Anna Chapman (W45-50), Peter Chapman (M55-60) and Roger Maher (M80) who all became South East Night Champions at Wimbledon Common on Nov 19th, 2022.

Others also gained podium positions with Rob Lines (M55-60) getting a silver and Liam Marsh (M20-M40) getting a bronze.

Got the Orienteering bug?Try these other events over the next month

If you are a member of Southdowns Orienteers then you are also eligible to attend any other Orienteering events that are on.

During November many SO members will be running at the events which are run by other clubs in the South East and we would love to see you there.

We also run our Tuesday evening Club Night Activities which is another opportunity to get out to run and navigate in a fun atmosphere.

Read on for more info ...

Summer Adventures

After the Hawth event, we take a break for the Summer season and are back to it in September.

Many of our members will be heading off to different parts of the country to take part in multi-day Orienteering events, including Lake District, Yorkshire and Sweden, amongst others I'm sure.

In addition some of our juniors have been selected for tours and events in Stockholm and Gothenburg ... more on this in the next news article ...

Read more for information about each of these events.

JK Success in Wales over Easter

Well done to everyone who took part in the JK2022 - the annual international Festival of Orienteering - which always take place over the Easter weekend. We competed in very varied terrain from University to iron workings to mine workings to a military training site. Great competition, technical areas, social assembly areas and great weather made for a great weekend. Special congratulations to Mike Gammon M90 who became JK Champion, Emils, Tommy and Nick Jarvis who won the JK Men's Short Relay event and Ruth Rhodes W80 who became JK Sprint Champion. Take a look at the maps and routes here. More photos if you read on ...

Pat Maher takes M85 British Champion title by 20 seconds

Pat Maher took his first British Champion title at the British Long Champs at Golden Valley near Liphook on 26th March. He won it by only 20 seconds - close competition! Mike Gammon made it onto the podium in silver in M90, Heather High also raced to silver in W16A (missing the top spot by only 31s) and Amelia Bartlett running in W20 Elite won bronze in another well fought competition.

SO has five new Southern Champions

Congratulations to Emma Chapman (W10), Scarlet Heap (W18), Chris Hooker (M60), Di Turner (W70) and Roger Maher (M80) who have now become Champions of the South of England. They all took part in the Southern Long Distance Champs at South Ashdown on 12th Dec 2021.

Success at South East Sprint Champs 2021

A number of SO members travelled to Chatham Dockyard for an exciting sprint around the dry dock. The courses included whether to run over a ship or around it, under a submarine or around, through tunnels and even into a huge multi-storey lifeboat warehouse.

SO took home lots of medals!

Junior Home International 2019 Success

Congratulations to Ffion Jones, Stan Heap, Scarlet Heap and Tommy Heap who were selected to compete at the Junior Home Internationals in Northern Ireland this weekend. Great results for Tommy Heap winning the M14 Individuals and Scarlet Heap winning the W16 Relay leg, with solid performances from both Stan and Ffion for their teams.

England SelectionsCONGRATULATIONS!

Huge congratulations to the trio of Heap juniors, Tommy M14, Scarlet W16 and Stan M18 on their selection to the England team. A fantastic achievement!

They will be competing at the Junior Home Internationals in Northern Ireland on October 12th and 13th. The full team can be viewed here.

Ralph Phillips appointed as new Club Chair

Great news - Ralph Phillips has agreed to stand as Club Chair and was voted in at the committee meeting on Friday. Ralph can generally be found in the SI tent at events or can be contacted by email. Club committee meetings take place every month, so if you've got something that needs discussing, please contact Ralph.

New club secretary and social secretary appointed at AGM

Welcome to our new club secretary, Liam Marsh and social secretary, Jane Lambert. They were appointed at the AGM on 1st June and will join the large team who help to keep our club active and vibrant. Please contact them via the contact page if you have any good ideas.