Two of NZ’s elite orienteers, Gene Beveridge and Thomas Reynolds, who have represented NZ at World Orienteering Championships, have co-hosted online orienteering coaching sessions aimed at orienteers moving from intermediate (orange in NZ) to advanced (red in NZ) navigation.

#1: A Navigation Process, recorded on 11/05/2020 (first part of the session not recorded)

#2: Stepping Stones and Handrails, recorded on 18/05/2020

#3: Risk and Route Choices in Orienteering, recorded on 25/05/2020

#4: Typical errors in orienteering (and how to avoid them), recorded on 1/6/2020

The sessions are about 45 minutes long and recordings of them can be found here https://genebeveridge.nz/videos/

We have had to change the date of the AOS event to held on the Waiuku Forest North map. It will now be held on Sunday 23 August instead of 16 August

At the Orienteering New Zealand AGM (held remotely) on 15 April 2020, Georgia Skelton was awarded Mountain Bike Orienteering of the Year.

Georgia was selected to be a member of the NZ team at the Junior Mountain Bike Orienteering World Championship held in Denmark in July, 2019. She was 5th in the sprint race (podium result) and 11th in the middle distance race. Unfortunately she suffered a puncture in the long distance race and had to withdraw. In the massed start race she finished 7th, marginally behind the 6th placed competitor.

She also was selected to represent NZ at the 2019 Junior World Orienteering Championship (foot orienteering) in Denmark.

A great year for Georgia and congratulations on your award.

One of our club members , Llew McGivern, has created some no contact orienteering courses in Lloyd Elsmore Park, Pakuranga, which will be set up for tomorrow and Sunday (2/3 May).

Location: Lady Marie Drive, Pakuranga. Parking is available in the carparks between the hockey club and Rugby club off  Lady Marie Drive.

Start/ finish location: is at the trees opposite the carpark next to the children’s playground in front of the Rugby club.

There are 6 courses ranging from hard to easy, and two sprint courses. The courses can be downloaded as pdf files from the Sancta Maria College Orienteering Facebook page

Please note that courses cross Park roads that may have traffic. Please be alert, and conscious – GIVE WAY to cars and vehicles. The idea here is to have an orienteering run in the safe environment of a local park during lockdown.

There is no manned start or finish. Start and finish at what ever time is convenient. You will need to time yourself. Should any control be missing, please feedback, as they are on public property. The controls are 5cm x 5cm printed Orienteering flags. The controls are only markers so there is nothing to touch or any symbol to write down.

Please feel free to let others know how you went, and what your time is – a bit of fun and running in the park!

NWOC has just advised that the two AOS events to be held in Woodhill Forest this weeknd have been cancelled.