50 years since first orienteering event in NSW
- Last Updated: Sunday, 14 November 2021 21:28
Sunday (November 14) marked 50 years since the first orienteering event in NSW.
Eleven hardy competitors (seven of them from New Zealand) made the trek to Mount Hay in the Blue Mountains for an outing that even today would test Bear Grylls' thirst for adventure.
The inaugural event was a 6.6km line course with 330m of climb, on a black-and-white government map with little more than contours and a couple of roads and tracks. The scale was 1:31,680, with 15m contours. Ouch!
ONSW life member Dave Lotty (pictured, right) is one of the originals and was in action again today at the River and Bay Series event at Earlwood, on an urban map the polar opposite of what he was confronted with five decades ago.
Mount Hay led to the formation of our first club, Bennelong, in December 1971 and what is now called Orienteering NSW in 1972. You can read the story of how the very first event came about here - with the map in full.
A massive thank you to Dave for the enthralling history lesson!
ONSW Board member Louise Brooks
- Last Updated: Thursday, 11 November 2021 12:56
Meet your Board member.
This is the seventh in a weekly series where we introduce you to the people entrusted to run our sport in NSW.
Name: Louise Brooks (SHOO). Joined the Board: 2021
Louise is our newest director, from the Southern Highlands club.
Her initial tasks are liaising with Outdoors NSW & ACT, with whom ONSW is affiliated and who advocate to government on behalf of many outdoor activity providers, and with National Parks.
Louise first started orienteering during the 2012-2013 Sydney Summer series on the Majors Bay map. She has steadily increased her skills and rates the highlight of her orienteering as this year’s State League weekend in the sand dunes at Broulee on the NSW south coast where she says she finally felt some confidence in the bush.
Louise has volunteered at various events, starting with an ONSW promotional event at Hornsby Heights.
She is also a member of Woodstock Runners, a community running club in Sydney’s inner west, is a Level 1 running coach and co-ordinates the coaching roster there.
As a Registered Nurse for more than 30 years, Louise brings a whole range of skills and experiences to the Board.
She joined the Board to learn more about how things work in orienteering.
Away from maps and navigation, she loves all sport and supports Tottenham Hotspur in the English Premier League.
Eight NSW orienteers in OA HP squads
- Last Updated: Tuesday, 09 November 2021 15:00
Congratulations to the eight NSW orienteers chosen for Orienteering Australia's high performance squads for 2022.
Alastair George (Big Foot), our state's No.1 orienteer, has been selected in the top-level High Performance squad after consistent results in his first year competing in the senior ranks.
Duncan Currie and UK-based Michele Dawson (Garingal) along with Toby Wilson and South Australian recruit Emily Sorensen (Big Foot) are in the second-tier National Development squad.
Big Foot trio Tracy Bluett, Paula Shingler and Jock Davis are the ND leadership team and bring decades of elite experience to the role.
OA is trialling a different HP set-up in 2022, with just the two senior squads.
ONSW Board member Robert Spry
- Last Updated: Tuesday, 09 November 2021 13:01
Meet your Board member.
This is the sixth in a weekly series where we introduce you to the people entrusted to run our sport in NSW.
Governance Director Robert Spry (Southern Highlands). Joined the Board 2008.
In many sports, the only way you’d get to compete in 18 countries is by being an elite.
Orienteering – and long-standing Board member Robert Spry in particular – is a great example of the opposite. Robert has never had designs on being in the top echelon of our sport, despite being continuously involved since his first event at Manly Dam in 1973.
His competitive highlights are being North American Champion in M35B in 1980, and nine first placings (including Easter and the Oceania Long) in M55AS in 2011.
Yet he has been able to experience wildly different terrains – from the heath of Scotland to the slopes of the Matterhorn in Switzerland – because that is what orienteering offers everyone.
Robert has travelled extensively through Asia for work as a civil engineer specialising in all aspects of water. He researched and co-authored the Malaysian Stormwater Design Manual. His work on flood studies included early applications of GIS, digital mapping and LIDAR which has now totally transformed the production of orienteering maps.
He is a Level 2 Controller and has set or organised many events from club level to international. He was organiser for the Oceania Sprint at Wagga Wagga in 2019, which he reckons was the first orienteering event in Australia with more than 1,000 entries.
Robert has also been on the Board of Orienteering Australia and represented OA 3 times at IOF Congresses.
In ONSW he has been Secretary, Treasurer and recently revised the constitution.
Being on the Board was a natural progression from being involved at a club level, and he felt that his skills could be effective. Plus, it was something to do after he retired.
Robert has been on the Board of the Youth Hostels Association (YHA) for a number of years, and his experience in management and governance partly derives from that involvement.
It’s been a long journey since his time in the Scouts led him to Manly Dam. He liked the short course so much that he immediately did the medium course that same day. He signed up on the spot with Bennelong Orienteers, as they were then known, and the rest as they say is history.
