News

Night season gets underway this weekendTraining at Chailey Common, South

The night orienteering season gets underway this Saturday evening with a training session on Chailey Common South. The common is one of SO’s most popular areas with a mix of terrain and contour detail. There are courses of 4.5km and 2.5km in length, and it’s a chance to check out your night-o kit. The session offers the chance to borrow all the kit you need: thumb compass, headtorch, SI card etc. Please let Robert Lines know if you will attend and whether you want to borrow anything. Coaching will of course be available for anyone looking for tips and advice. Training session fee £1 on the night.

Club Conference 2022Opening Session

The slides from the first session are here. Rob talked about the coaching priorities for the year as being safety, a thriving junior squad, and good quality Saturday morning events that would be good preparation for regional and national events. All club members are encouraged to use Routegadget as this can provide planners with great feedback on their planning. Rob showed an example from the Yorkshire and Humberside Night League where he had been the event organiser. The Routegadget video capture shows three legs 14-15-16-17.

SO Success at Southern Championship

The Southern Championships on Hound Tor and Haytor hosted by Devon Orienteering, provided some testing orienteering. Congratulations to champions Mike Gammon M90 and Robin Smith M70 and well done to:

• Ruth Rhodes - Runner Up W80
• Jill Blount - Runner Up W60
• Barry Jones - Runner Up M50
• Steve Blount - Third M60

Maps are here.

Peter Palmer Relay

Congratulations to our junior team who took part in the Peter Palmer night and day relay event in Birmingham over the weekend of 10th and 11th September.

Read on for a brief report and photos.

CompassSport Cup Final

As you may recall SO qualified for the final of the CompassSport Cup which is to be held near Stirling on October 16th. Following an informal straw poll among members at events it soon became clear that we were unlikely to be able to send a full team of 25 members.

Medals Successfor SO at SE Sprint Championships

The SE Sprint Championships at Manor Park & Surrey Research Park provided some great sprint orienteering. Congratulations to:

• Liam Marsh - Bronze M18-M40
• Kate Turner - Bronze W45-W55
• Will Heap - Silver M45-M55
• Steve Blount - Bronze M60-M65
• Ruth Rhodes - Silver W70+

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.

Summer Season price reduction on Park O’s and Free Trial for newcomers

We have just reduced our prices for the Park O series of events to encourage more participation. Adult members £2.50 (£3.50 for non-members). Junior members free (£1 for non-members). Why not invite some friends along who haven’t tried it before for a FREE trial. Either come along on the day or contact our secretary to guarantee a map. Park-O’s are fun events where you can get a feeling for the sport – you can walk or run, go as a group or on your own or challenge your navigation at high speed against some of our top competitive orienteers.

Great day out for SO juniors at the YBT final- Irchester Country Park

Very well done to all our juniors who took part in the YBT final in Northamptonshire at the weekend. Everyone scored points for the club and we came 8th out of the 10 best clubs in the country, which considering we were one runner short and had a relatively young team is great. Results here http://www.leioc.org.uk/wordpress/lei_results/2022/Irchester-YBT22/index_clubresults.html We celebrated everyone’s runs afterwards with the traditional ice creams!

British Sprint Championship Medal for Sue

Sue Crickmore triumphed at Leeds University, with a cracking run to take the bronze medal in the W60 British Sprint Championship Final on Sunday 12th June 2022. Well done Sue.

SO AGM & Prizegiving 2022

The 2022 AGM was successfully held at Worth School on 4th June.

The club trophies and prizes were awarded and new officers elected. We still have two outstanding roles of Social Secretary and POC coordinator.

SO Juniors Qualify for Yvette Baker Trophy Final

Our team of 16 juniors put in a great performance at Worthlodge to qualify for the Yvette Baker Trophy final, the annual junior inter-club competition. Our 9 highest placed runners scored 897 points.

For many of our juniors this was their first time competing for the club and for four of our younger juniors they paired up to complete a yellow course without shadowing for the first time.

Mole Valley and Dartford Orienteering Club were also competing, but they took part in the Yvette Baker Shield event as they have smaller junior teams and the best 5 scores count towards the final result. Mole Valley scored 498 points and DFOK scored 300 points.

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 ...

SO relay teams triumph at British Champs

Congratulations to Andy Parkinson, Di Turner and Robin Smith who took the British Champs title convincingly in the M/W70+ competition. We also followed in SO tradition and performed well in the short relays with silver medals in both the men's short relay (Liam Marsh, Will Heap, Alan Velecky) and women's short relay (Scarlet Heap, Heather High and Anna Chapman).

Eleven teams took part altogether and there was lots of support on the run in for all.

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.