News
Archive of News and Information stored under the News category.
Juniors learn about contours at Washington Common
At Washington Common on 22nd January, we held our third training session of the season for our younger juniors and some new adults. We had a great turnout and had four large groups taking part. Our main focus for this session was understanding the brown features on the map. Washington Common is a good venue for this as there are lots of steeper features.
We started by looking at contours on the map and comparing them to a 3D model to help picture the ground. Can you see how the model relates to the map below? You may need to rotate it slightly!
SO take over a third of class winner titles in the South East Long Champs
The South East Long Champs took place at the same event as the Southern Champs at South Ashdown on 12th Dec 2021. The proximity of the event meant that lots of SO members were able to attend and we walked away with 13 South East Long Distance Champions. Great to see some new medal winners in the list!
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.
Junior training gets off to a good start
At Blacklands on 11th December, we held our second training session of the season for our younger juniors. Our main focus for this session was practising turning corners whilst keeping the map pointing in the right direction.
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!
Autumn Club nights
Club nights return on Tuesday September 21st. Although all activities will be held outdoors please maintain social distancing and do not come if you are showing symptoms of Covid or have tested positive / having to isolate.
We will meet as a group at 6:30pm each Tuesday although we hope to make many of the activities available online to attempt at your leisure.
Please sign up using the Doodle Poll and indicate (when appropriate) whether or not you would like a map provided (cost £1) or are happy to print off your own.
New Summer SOGLs - 3 courses to try
As a substitute for our normal summer series of park sprint events, this year we have set up a new series of MapRun enabled short courses (ca 2.5km) in public areas. These can be run at speed or simply for navigation training.
There are three now available to try. Give it a go - it's just like a real event. Read on to find out more...
2021 Trail Runs
Thursday evening trail runs continue to be offered through the Summer. These are social training events where you can run on your own or as a group. We continue to offer a range of start times to allow you to run when and with whom you want. A Doodle poll has been set up to allow you to sign up for a particular time slot. It is hoped that all runs will also be MapRun enabled. Runs will be added a few days before the Thursday each week - see below for list.
Junior Team performs well at YBT 2021
A team of 9 juniors travelled to The Cotswolds to take part in the annual Yvette Baker Junior Finals. The competition is decided based on the scores of the first 9 competitors in your team, so we were hoping for a clean round from everyone. Our juniors didn't let us down and everyone scored to put us into 8th place out of the 12 best clubs in the country. A great effort from everyone!
Spring SOGLs
Below is a list of events set up for the Spring 2021 SOGL (pronounced soggle) league. This series of events was set up whilst we couldn't meet to orienteer. 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. All runs were completed by May 17th, but they will still be available to run after this. MapRun data can be downloaded from UK/Sussex/SOGL folder.
List of available MapRuns
Below is a list of runs that are available using the MapRun 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.
New Committee Members
Following the SO AGM, we have some new committee members and some change in roles. Ralph Phillips steps back into the role of Chairman, supported by Tim Hulley as Deputy Chair. Ed Forman takes the role of Treasurer, Ray Kingdom takes the role of Membership Secretary and Joe Barrett takes the role of SI coordinator. In addition Michael Merritt becomes our Honorary Reporting Account. Our thanks go to ...
2020 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.