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Ori Gudes, Uringa Orienteering Club

Ori has always been a keen foot and MTBO orienteer although he has a special passion for MTBO:

·    He has competed in many state championships and travels regularly to Newcastle for the BOS series and across the country for the MTBO National League.

·    When Newcastle announced that they would not be running the 2024 NSW MTBO Championship, Ori was crestfallen.

·    It was at this point in time that he took it upon himself to organise the 2024 championships. It is important to understand that without Ori the championships would not have been run at all as nobody was prepared to take on the task.

·    He set about organising the championships.

o   To do so he had many meetings with possible terrain owners including Mt Annan Botanical Gardens, Royal National Park.

o   The meetings to gain approval for the use of Mt Annan were lengthy and complex and quite frankly would have turned most people away. However, Ori persevered and was able to gain formal approval for what was a first ever MTBO event in the gardens.  

o   This of course required arranging making a new map with extensive field work.  

o   Gaining access to the land at Appin was similarly difficult and he drew upon his GIS mapping expertise to confirm that the land in question was Crown Land.  The terrain for the Appin map was particularly challenging to work in being exceptionally rugged.

o   As well as negotiating areas, Ori was able to round up course planners for the Middle and Long (Ori was the setter for the Sprint & controller for the Long) as well as controllers for the other events.

o   Clubs were engaged to provide support for the events as well as securing a number of additional volunteers to assist across the three days.  This was a massive undertaking and he had to face many people turning down his requests for assistance.

o   A major obstacle came later in the planning when the Sydney City Race was scheduled for the Sunday when traditionally the MTBO Long Champs would have been scheduled. Undaunted Ori was able to shuffle area, setters, controllers and volunteers to be able to run the event on Monday, which was very unconventional.  The City Race also had the effect of reducing the available volunteers for Ori’s events.

o   To make the Championships a special event Ori organised prizes for winners from sponsors and even had a coffee cart at the Saturday events- sheer luxury at a MTBO event.  

o   He managed to create a special focus on junior entrants with special prizes awarded including a choice of orienteering equipment.  

o   He organized commentary from world renowned MTBO commentator Arpad at all events. 

o   He also organized podiums to be used for presentations which were later used for the Australian MTBO Championships.

o   Louise Brooks, media and Kathy Drayton, finance, were involved to ensure the event was financially viable and also well publicised. The event attracted a large contingent of riders from New Zealand and a smattering of riders from other countries.

·        The 2024 MTBO Champs had record patronage and an outstanding success.     

Hamish Mackie from Big Foot Orienteers has won the 2024 Course Setter of the year because the feedback consistently identified the courses as matching the classic “Long Distance” profile. 

All courses had some long legs with interesting route choice options requiring careful navigation;

and the challenges kept coming leg after leg. 

There were very few negative comments.

1^st: Hamish Mackie (with Controller Greg Barbour) for SL-4 at Snow Hills; 

2^nd: Anna Dowling and Nick Wilmott (with Controller James Lithgow) for SL-2 at Ophir South; and

3^rd: Jim Lee (with Controller Shane Trotter) for SL-11 at Barraba Lane.

An interclub point-score competition shall be determined from all State League events in NSW each year. 

For each event points shall be allocated for the first 5 NSW finishers in each class.

The points allocated shall be: 5 for 1st, 4 for 2nd, 3 for 3rd, 2 for 4th, 1 for 5th Points shall be totaled for each event and the winning club at the end of the year shall become the NSW Interclub Competition winner. The winning club shall be presented with the "NSW Interclub Competition" trophy.

Northern Tablelands Orienteering Club

This small club provided a massive amount of support to the Australian Orienteering Carnival:  

·        Mapping for 2 years by club members;

·        Putting out fence crossings (20+) for AOC (they probably dismantled them as well) - this was a massive job involving carrying and installing at least 2 bales of hay and 2 lengths of polypipe for EACH fence crossing created; 

·        The club provided full staffing of the 1st aid tent for every day of the carnival - many, many hours of cheerful and professional services to injured orienteers; 

·        Many, many on-the-ground tasks as required by the AOC organisers; and

·        All volunteers to the carnival are aged over 60 and they provided an incredible amount of support and manpower to the carnival and as such should be recognised for this effort.