News
Archive of News and Information stored under the News category.
Toblerone winners at London City Race
Two Southdowners conquered the Barbican and the city of London to podium at the UK's largest city orienteering race. Taking home their chocolate prizes were Sam Leitch (2nd in Men under 21 class) and club captain Neil Crickmore improving on his 4th at the British Sprints to come 3rd in the Men over 55 class.
SO Success at National Championships
SO came away with a clutch of six medals from the British Sprint and Middle Championships. Congratulations to M8o Middle Champion Roger Maher who also won Bronze in the Sprint. Jonny Crickmore also won two medals Silver in Middle and Bronze in Sprint while there were Bronzes for Tommy Heap (Middle) and Ruth Rhodes (Sprint)
Juniors round off a successful season with a podium finish at the Peter Palmer Relays
Early on Sunday morning 19 members of the SO junior squad competed in this year's Peter Palmer Relays which was hosted by SAX. It's always exciting, but for the first time ever the squad was able to field four strong teams and were competitive in the main PPR as well as the daybreak competitions.
Peter Palmer Junior Relays7/8 September
One of the highlights of the junior calendar is the Peter Palmer Relay, this year being held locally at Kidbrooke Park and Hindleap Warren, near East Grinstead. This 6-leg night/day team relay is for juniors M/W12-18, with legs from yellow to green standard. Juniors from all over the UK will be running and overnight accommodation will be based at Michael Hall School in Forest Row.
Get in touch with our junior team manager Alex Lines if you want to be part of the team. More details are on the Saxons OC website. There will be a night training session for all members on Saturday 31 August at South Chailey. Bring a torch!
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.
Orienteering Holiday Season
SO take a break from mainstream events over August and are back with the Autumn series in September. We do still carry on with our Tuesday evening runs which are popular and can be seen on the events page. During the Summer many club members travel further afield to take part in multi-day events such as:
Swiss Orienteering Week - Gstaad
Junior Squad takes 2nd Place at National Finals
The Southdowns Junior Squad travelled to Sandringham today to compete in the Yvette Baker Trophy Final. It was a great result for our 28 competitors who picked up the trophy for second place. Results and photos are now in. More photos 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.
Annual Prize Giving
This year the senior performance shields went to Ali High and Roger Maher for their performance in major competitions over the last 12 months. The girls performance certificates and vouchers were awarded to Scarlet Heap in 1st, Ffion Jones in 2nd and Heather High in 3rd. The boys performance certificates and vouchers went to Tommy Heap in 1st, Stan Heap in 2nd and Ben Chapman in 3rd.
#tweeters wanted to help publicise our club
Are you a regular tweeter who comes along to many of our events? We need your help to raise our profile. We have a small team of people who do a great job of publicising events through the website and social media, but we think we could do better and need some extra help with our twitter feed. Please contact Anna Chapman if you can help us.
Medals at the British Champs in South Yorkshire
Roger Maher M80 does the double and becomes British Champion and JK Champion. Roger is going as strong as ever and combined fast running with careful navigation across the Yorkshire Dales to bring home another victory.
Other notable successes over the weekend were Tommy Heap M14 who gained a bronze medal in the long distance and our two relay teams; Men's Short team (Sam Leitch, Stan Heap, Will Heap) and Junior Ad Hoc team (Tommy Heap, Ben Chapman, Ffion Jones) who gained silver medals.
Summer Trail Runs start April 30th
It's that time of the year when there is enough daylight to enjoy runs around the Sussex countryside on a Tuesday evening without the need for headtorches. This popular series will start with a run from Ditchling Common and will hopefully take in some beautiful bluebell woods. Details of all trail runs will appear in the events section - though sometimes just a few days beforehand. We are always looking for suggestions for new routes (see link below).
Congratulations to Lucy and Matt
On Sunday 28th April life-long Southdowns member Lucy Jepson, daughter of Chris Jepson married Matt Carrington at Colgate Church.
Lucy has been Orienteering since birth and introduced Matt to Orienteering when they met. She has been teaching Matt some techniques but we think he may have a way to go to catch Lucy! Congratulations Lucy and Matt. We look forward to seeing you in a forest soon!
What not to do in a major relay
Find yourself at the front! It's a well known saying that you can't win a major relay on the first lap but you can certainly lose it. The first major international relay of the season took place in Sweden over the weekend of 27/28 April with many GB squad runners competing for their Scandinavian clubs. Jonny Crickmore was running first lap for OK Ravinen's first team and twice took a route to the left when just about every other team went straight. Fortunately they proved good choices and he actually gained a few seconds over the main pack on one of them.