Social

Success at JK International Festival of Orienteering

Congratulations to all those who took part in JK over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. Our very own Roger won all his races and got the JK Performance Shield as well as gold medals for the sprint and the two day event in M85L. Darrell High achieved a silver medal in M55L, Heather High a bronze medal in W18E and Ruth Rhodes a bronze medal in W80L over the two-day event.

Summer Trail Runs 2024

Spring club nights returned on Thursday April 11th. Courses have been risk assessed according to this document.

We will meet as a group at 6:30pm each Thursday although we hope to make the activities available online to attempt at your leisure. Courses will be saved in the Trail Runs folder on MapRun (UK/Sussex/Trail Runs).

Please sign up using the Strawpoll and indicate (when appropriate) whether you would like a map provided (cost £1) or are happy to print off your own.

SO Juniors compete at YBT Final

Southdowns Orienteers Junior Squad travelled to Yorkshire to compete in the Yvette Baker Trophy Final on 9th July 23.

This is the annual Junior Inter Club competition where the best clubs from each region across England and Wales compete. Our Junior Squad earnt their place for the South East back in March.

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.

Simon Greenwood RIP

Sadly, Simon Greenwood passed away at the beginning of December. Simon was a very active and well-known orienteer who most of us will have seen regularly at local and major events.

Besides being an enthusiastic competitor, Simon contributed enormously to the sport. He was vice chairman and president of Saxons, our neighbouring club; chairman of SEOA for over 20 years; and planned many major events.

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.

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!

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 ...

March Club Coaching

Will Heap, one of our Club Coaches ran a fantastic coaching session in the sunshine at Cowdray Forest near Crawley. Participants included children from the age of 11 upwards and adults of all ages who take part in orange to black courses. Everyone had a great day and learnt so much from the different exercises.

We started off with a gentle warm up, led by Scarlet and then split off into three groups.

Spring Club Nights

Club nights returned on Tuesday January 11th. 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.

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.

Juniors learn about contours at Washington Common

At Washington Common on 22^nd 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!

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 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.

Newcomers welcome

Looking for a new challenge? Southdowns Orienteers welcomes people of all ages to turn up and give it a go. You can walk or run, take part as a group or on your own.

Check out our newcomers pages, contact page, come along to an event or attend one of our monthly coaching sessions.