Hello everyone

Isn’t it great to be back orienteering in wonderful Woodhill Forest again! A huge thank you to all those club members who made our first NWOC orienteering event after lockdown such a success – especially Nick Harris and Dave Middleton, the course planner and controller. Club events are a team effort and it was good to have lots of volunteers share the workload. Obviously, everyone had been hanging out to get back into Woodhill’s world class orienteering terrain – we had almost 300 participants, which must be close to a record for an Auckland Orienteering Series event.

Whangarei Orienteering (WHO) held an event NW of Whangarei on 21 June, on surprisingly tricky farmland with pockets of bush. 13 NWOC members made the trip north – it was a very worthwhile opportunity to get back into map-reading in the terrain.

This year we have negotiated with Nga Maunga Whakahii o Kaipara Ngahere to arrange a number of training days in areas of Woodhill Forest, which do not require vehicle access. These still require a forest permit but are a new opportunity for committed orienteers to spend time in the forest - read on below.

You will have noticed that most post-Covid events require pre-entry – please do enter before the deadlines as this helps with event planning, as well as providing contact tracing.

Planning for the NWOC events at Slater Road (16 August), Albany (20 September) and Riverhead (18 October) is well underway and it is great that we have several first-time course planners. Don’t be shy about volunteering to help out at our events, as we are still looking for more on-the-day coordinators to help manage all the roles such as setting up, starts, collecting controls post-event etc.

Mark Sunday 6 September in your calendar – this is the NWOC club champs, held in Woodhill Forest at an event run by Auckland Orienteering Club – there are trophies up for grabs in all age grades.

Nelson Orienteering Club is hosting the Junior and Under 23 camps this year – a great opportunity for summer, so sign up soon. The club offers a small travel grant for participants.
Lock-down seemed to be synonymous with spring cleaning and clearing out the cupboards. Mark Lawson found a piece of history dating from the 1970’s – not sure if he can still fit into this fashion statement. In those days the club was called North Shore Orienteering Club.

See you all in the forest soon

Lisa Mead
NWOC Acting club president and newsletter editor

1. Events
2. Training days
3. Junior Camp
4. Course setting training – back to the classroom
5. News
6. NZOC 2021 champs by NWOC
7. Membership, helpers wanted

Events
 July       Sat 26 Orienteering Bay of Plenty: Great Forest rogaine, Rotorua     http://www.obop.org.nz/great-forest-rogaine-update.html Entries closed 20 July.

August  Sun 02  AOC AOS4 Woodhill Forest – Upper Temu Road
              Sun 16  NWOC AOS5 Slater Road (South Head) forest/farm event.
              Sun 23  CMOC  AOS6 – Waiuku Forest North

September  02 AOC Night streets event
              Sun 06 AOC AOS7 Woodhill Forest (Mushroom Road)
                           This is the NWOC club champs – further details on grades and course combinations to follow
              Tue 08 CMOC – Auckland Secondary Schools Rogaine- Totara Park. Enter as an individual or as a team of 2 runners. Pre-enter by 01 September with details here:
               http://cmoc.co.nz/auckland-secondary-school-rogaine-championship-2020-8-september/
              Wed 9   AOC Night streets event
              Wed 16 AOC Night streets event
              Sun 20  NWOC AOS8 Urban middle distance (Albany)
             Wed 23 AOC Night streets event
              26/27/28 Sep North Island Secondary Schools Champs (CMOC)    Details: http://cmoc.co.nz/niss-2020/

October 8-10 NZ Secondary Schools Champs (Hawkes Bay) Details:  http://www.hborienteering.com/club/index.php?page=nzssc2020
              Sun 18 NWOC AOS9 Riverhead Forest
              23-26  Labour Weekend –The  National Champs have been re-scheduled! Manawatu – entry details to come.
              Thu 29 AOC Summernav

Nov       Sun 01   NWOC Rogaine Riverhead Forest 90 minutes fun event for teams or individuals
              Wed 04  AOC Summernav
              Sat 07    CMOC Auckland Champs- Sprint & Middle
              Sun 08   CMOC  Auckland Champs -Long
              Wed 11  AOC Summernav
              Sun 15    AOC Relays
              Tue 17   AOC Summernav
              Wed 25 AOC Summernav
              Sun 29   NWOC Rogaine – venue to be confirmed.

AOS = Auckland Orienteering Series – events have 9 courses of varying lengths and difficulty.
AKSS = Auckland Secondary Schools  AOC= Auckland O Club, CMOC = Counties Manukau O Club

 A printable calendar of events for the remainder of 2020 can be found here.                                                                                                                                    

Woodhill Forest – orienteering training            
In response to members’ wishes for better training opportunities, we’re pleased to announce we’ve reached an agreement with the Woodhill forest owners for improved access to the forest for training. The latest Woodhill Forest access agreement between the forest owners Nga Maunga Whakahii O Kaipara Ngahere Limited and NWOC/AOC provides for access to the forest for orienteering training on a number of specified days (about 1 per month). The training activity access is:

• For small groups – initially it is envisaged no more than 20 people on any given day.
• Requires a permit. Each training day needs a person in charge to apply for the permit, to notify forest management of the number of people, entry time to forest and when all people have exited the forest.
• Has a fee of $5 per person.
• Is for blocks of forest that don’t require a gate key for forest access.
• Participants must be AOC or NWOC club members.

The objective of gaining the training access to Woodhill is to improve the opportunities for members to be able to train on quality orienteering terrain. This will typically be self-directed training, the participants are likely to have their own structured training plan focused on a significant orienteering goal (eg WOC selection, JWOC selection, Australia Schools challenge section, etc). We appreciate that sadly for 2020 these goals have largely dissolved with COVID 19.

The training days are not targeted at large scale formal orienteering coaching sessions with coaches and prepared coaching activities at different levels of orienteering skill. The training day forest access however could be used by small groups with their own coach (eg a school team, ONZ elite and development squads).

It is important to recognise this is a new initiative and we’re still feeling our way to see how we can best serve members’ needs, so if you have an interest in using this forest access to develop your own orienteering skills, register your interest and we will see what we can do. There may be an opportunity in conjunction with the forest owners to develop this access further if they are happy with how it is operating.
We would like to thank Nga Maunga Whakahii o Kaipara Ngahere Limited for their willingness to trial these new access arrangements.

The next training day is Saturday 08 August 2020, Gene Beveridge on 0210512432 or at gene.beveridge@gmail.com is the coordinator for the day. Please contact Gene now if you are interested.

Junior and Under 23 Camps
The two training camps are a highlight of the orienteering year and will be held in Nelson in 20020. There will be a new selection band of year 9 to 13 students. The Junior Development Committee are currently re-writing the entry criteria which will be out shortly. Once these are circulated, all applicants who meet the entry criteria will be invited to attend the camp as long as their club is confidant that they can work at the expected level.
This means that there will be no limit on attendees who meet the entry criteria. Because numbers are no longer going to be capped at eighty, there will be two possible scenarios for running the camp – a five day camp with up to eighty participants (the current model) or the splitting of the week into two separate camps based on participant age. Details: https://www.orienteering.org.nz/news/onz-compass-point-july-2020/
Sun 6 to Fri 11 December – U23 Camp
Sun 13 to Fri 18 December – Junior Camp

NWOC Training – course planning with Renee
Coming soon – a classroom-based training session focussing on Course Setting, led by Renee Beveridge. Highly recommended for all those who have put their hand up to set courses this year, or who hope to do so in the future. This will probably be held on a weekend day and details will be posted on our website/ facebook.

O-Lynx Training evening – this will be a combined session with AOC club, hopefully in August. Ideal for those who wish to be able to assist with the technical side of the sport and also those who help on Registration at events (learn how to amend details such as Ident card number, course selected etc). You do not need to be a tech expert to attend.

In the News
International travel is off the agenda for now and Kiwis are being encouraged to explore New Zealand instead. When his plans to compete in a high-altitude Ultra race in India were thwarted NWOC member Shaun “Running Beast” Collins decided to go for a local run instead. But not just any run…he devised his own crazy challenge of running around the entire urban perimeter of Auckland non-stop.  Starting from the summit of Mt Eden the route took him to downtown and via a ferry to Devonport, up the coast to Long Bay, through Albany and West Harbour, Titirangi, Mangere, Drury, to the Eastern Beaches, Mt Wellington, Tamaki Drive and back to Mt Eden – an epic 305 kms in 51 hours!  Fantastic support from the family crew of Madeleine, Meg, Zara and Annie Rose and some excellent coverage on TVNZ.

Planned route : https://www.plotaroute.com/mobile/route/909808?units=km
Follow his GPS track: https://share.garmin.com/Runningbeast
For anyone who missed it and is keen to see the TV coverage about this adventure, there are a couple of cool TVNZ Seven Sharp videos:
From the start - https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2745570712378853
And afterwards - https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=311779340124371

National Champs 2021
NWOC is excited to be hosting the National Orienteering Championships over Easter weekend 2-5 April 2021. We are gearing up for a compact, intimate event with limited travel distances between the various race venues. We also hope to have a scenic camping option. A team spearheaded by Annemarie Hogenbirk has started work on the event logistics, we have a great team of course setters and controllers, one confirmed coordinator for the sprint day and we are in the process of seeking funding for mapping a new corner of Woodhill Forest. Over the coming months we will be looking for lots of volunteers – right now we would love to hear from anyone with graphics or design skills (please email nzoc2021@gmail.com ).

The sprint will take place on the North Shore, while the Long (new map), Middle (new map) and Relays will be in the Kaipara/ Woodhill region. Several areas are now under embargo until Easter 2021. Please see the website for details: https://www.nwoc.org.nz/nzoc2021/

Sprint embargoes can be found here: Long Bay, Massey Campus Albany, Rangitoto College.
Long/Middle/Relay embargo here.

Welcome to new members
A warm welcome to Konrad Konlechner, who joined recently and our latest member Karena Hill – hope to meet you in the forest soon!

Membership
Many thanks to all those of you who have already paid your 2020 membership – there is a full calendar of events for the second half of this year.
We encourage everyone to renew their membership as this will entitle you to members’ rates at the AOS series events, free entry to the Auckland club relays and eligibility for the 2020 National Champs which are to be held at Labour Weekend. In addition, we support club members with travel grants – this year the Junior Camp will be held in December in Nelson.
Details of the membership rates and the club bank account can be found here: https://www.nwoc.org.nz/registration/ – no need for existing members to log in or re-register.

This will be the last newsletter for those who choose not to renew membership.

 Stay safe and see you in the forest soon!