We encourage participants to carry a mobile phone

• Home >
• Archive >
• We encourage participants to carry a mobile phone

A learning point from October's coaching conference was how many orienteers were not aware that carrying a mobile phone for use in emergencies is permitted (and has been since at least 2016!).

As a club we definitely encourage participants to carry a phone and also suggest that you might like to do the following:

• Set up the ICE number and emergency details if your phone allows this.
• Add the club mobile number 07526-792817 (on at every event and located with the SI team at download)

Competitors are not permitted to use mobile phones to assist with navigation. They are permitted to be used to call for assistance in the event of an emergency.

In addition:

• Register your mobile phone with the UK 999 text service (it is often possible to get a text message through even when reception is too poor to support a voice call). Text ‘register’ to 999. You will get a reply with instructions to follow. More information is here https://www.emergencysms.net/

• Download the What3Words app to your phone so that you could tell the emergency services your position to within a 3m square. More information is here https://what3words.com/about-us/

Download the ordnance survey app OSLocator which allows you to get your current position as a grid reference or latitude/longitude in order to tell the emergency services https://getoutside.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/guides/oslocate/

Karen Ashworth

SO Club Safety Officer