Welcome to the first chat of 2025.  It has been a busy winter since the last one in November, with the Wessex team in action all over the place as our main Winter season unfolds.

Events are the lifeblood of the club, and Wessex have a good reputation for putting on interesting and challenging courses.  This takes a lot of work by many club members to make them a success, and much of this happens behind the scenes. Thank you for your continued support.

We have had new planners recently with Martin, Oliver & Robbie.  Please talk to them if you fancy planning…. We are always looking for new members to have a go.  They would all say (I think!) that experienced club members helped them every step of the way, so there is nothing to fear.

In addition, I’ve included a couple of reports from club members that I hope you find interesting.  If you want to write about an event or some aspect of orienteering, then just let me know.  However, to be honest I will approach members too!!

STOP PRESS

Congratulations to Lyra and Esk on their selection for the England team going to Interland (Steenwijk, Netherlands) in March 2025.

Wessex Events

On 10^th November 2024 we had our SW League event at Holmsley and Bisterne Close, successfully planned by Lyra and Jolyon, and organised by Roger. Just over 160 entries to a much loved area of the New Forest.

On Saturday 14^th December 2024 was Yule Poole, which was a Regional night event.  It was designed to fill the gap left by the Brighton City Race.  Sadly the number of entries, at 58, was down on what we hoped for, even with the promise of hand-made mince pie prizes, but everyone enjoyed it, running on Gavin’s excellent updated map.  Scott did a cool video of the event start which you can look at on youtube by following this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WSB2VefaCM

On Saturday 4^th January 2025 the rearranged Night event at Studland was held.  45 hardy souls turned out in the grim conditions. Robbie & Martin were virgin planners and did a great job.  See their report later in the chat. Roger did a sterling job of the organisation on a wet, windy and cold night.

On Saturday 11^th January 2025 team Wessex delivered a double whammy at Coldharbour with a local day event followed by a night league event. Great events capably planned by Roger for the day event and Jon, the reportedly tough night event, based out of the Silent Woman pub.

On Saturday 25^th January 2025 Wessex put on a local event at Blackwater.  This was the second reintroduction of “informal” events, with limited courses, allowing new planners to have a go.  Oliver was the man with the plan (with Julie as his right hand woman), and everyone enjoyed the very wet terrain.  Someone commented that an informal event takes as much organising as a normal event though!

On 2^nd February 2025 was our Dorset Delight at a newly mapped Affpuddle and Sares Wood.  WSX and WIM shared the mapping costs for the area. Jolyon planned the courses which challenged pretty much everyone, with the many climbs, and few paths. After struggling to find suitable parking, Julie decided to use hard standing parking kindly offered by Babcock, which seemed a wise decision having seen all the pictures of recent quagmires.  The shuttle bus system worked well, but meant we had to add £2 per entry to cover costs.

Stockholm August 2024 Report – by Lyra

After a summer of Scandinavia racing, I was looking forward to some quality training with lots of friends from across the country. Having arrived in Stockholm a couple days before the camp to do some relaxing and sightseeing, I was very much excited to arrive at the club hut and start what was to be a gruelling but fun 10 or so days. The terrain was incredible, and the races allowed us to put it all to the test and compete on some proper orienteering terrain. It has to be said that I think that camp was the most tired I have ever been due to the sheer volume of public transport and panic on losing my wallet! Not only did we orienteer, but we had the opportunity to do a lot of swimming and jumping off diving boards, as well as taking part in a body pump session the night before our first race (some of us had very severe DOMS). On our rest day we ventured out to the theme park which was quite terrifying to be truthful, so I left to get some Italian food in Stockholm! The terrain varied in difficulty and runnability, with the highlight being able to pre run the 25manna courses in arguably the best terrain of the camp! Thankfully the weather was glorious and no training was rearranged.  As always on these camps, it was being able to spend time with friends you rarely see that made it even more memorable. It was the most tiring but fun camp I have ever done and I have made lots of memories to last a lifetime. This camp wouldn’t have been possible without the support from the coaches and funding so thank you!

First Time Planning at Studland Night Event – by Martin

Despite having orienteered (on and off) for the last 30+ years, I had never planned a course or indeed understood what would be involved in doing so.  So when Robbie and I were asked to plan the Studland night event, we eagerly agreed.

We started with the feedback from James and Roger’s night event in February 2024, which was mixed but mostly positive.  The quicker runners finished in less than an hour, so we probably needed a longer course. The slower runners found it tougher, so we probably needed to make some controls easier to find.   And with 20 points for each control, competitors arguably didn’t need to think about route choice as much as they might if a couple of higher value controls had been strategically placed to tempt runners to venture further afield or out of their comfort zone.  So we decided to try and avoid a loop (if geography permitted!) and introduce different value controls to make competitors think about route choice.

Roaming the dunes and heathland during the late summer looking for potential control locations and checking that the map was still up to date was time consuming, but necessary given that many changes had been made in a short period of time.  One week we were using a solitary gate in the middle of the beach as a control site, the next it had been unexpectedly removed!!

Choosing the control locations and then assigning different points to each was time consuming and profitable for the ferry company, but fiendishly enjoyable!!  Robbie was in his element playing with Condes and the OCAD software (as an Apple Mac user, I was rather helpless in this respect!) and he enjoyed creating and tinkering with the map.  As controller, Roger provided very helpful feedback and suggestions on our draft map throughout the creative process, and Tim kindly updated the map – who knew a single-looking tree could be a copse!!  Despite the fact that we had never done this before, we never felt that we were fending for ourselves, which was very reassuring – and thanks to the wonder of Strava, we were able to tag control sites and then double check that we had got them in the correct location, which was invaluable and gave us complete confidence that each control was in the correct location.

Despite the change of dates and the lousy weather, I think we achieved our objectives with the event.  Our only major disappointment was not finishing putting the controls out by 4.30pm, which was our aim.  So would we do it again?  Absolutely yes…. but maybe individually next time!!!

What’s Coming Up

Wessex Region Night League (WRNL)

We are 10 events into this, with Wessex just having the Bournemouth Chines event remaining on Monday 17 Feb.  Entries are now open on race signup on a brand new map, planned by Julie.

Purbeck Hill Challenge

The first jointly run (WSX and WIM) Purbeck Hill Challenge is on Saturday 15^th February 2025.  It is something new for us, and is a hybrid of orienteering and hill navigation.  Interest has been good, with solo and pairs entering on 6 different courses (short, medium and long with technically easy and advanced navigation.

Whether you walk or run, come and enjoy a day out in the Purbecks. Check out Scott’s video of the terrain (in case you need reminding of what a beautiful place we live and run in) https://youtu.be/sDSM0jYur8g

Summer Series

Jolyon is working on the 2025 Summer Series with Wimborne.  Format will be the same as last year with one real and one MapRun event per month from April to September.  Details will be available shortly.

See you soon!