Our Armidale club hosted a massive 782 students for the annual New England Schools Championships at Thalgarrah Environmental Education Centre last week.This is by far the largest single schools event in Australian each year and run smoothly by Northern Tablelands.
Almost 700 were from primary schools and most were from local schools - so it was great to see groups from Guyra to the north, and Ebor and Chandler to the East.
Many of the children have no previous experience, although some would have come to the schools event in previous years. Three courses are offered – a Very Easy Score, Easy line, and Moderate line. The Moderate is for High School students, while the Easy is intended for experienced Primary students and novice High School students. Maurice Anker again ably acted as ringmaster, and everything ran smoothly. Changes to the registration procedure, implemented following a review after last year’s event, worked well, and delays were kept to a minimum. Plenty of volunteers were on hand to brief the kids (we assume all entrants have no previous orienteering experience).
A higher number of groups than usual managed to complete the score event (18 controls in an hour time limit).
A big thank you to Maurice for organising, Alec Watt for the write-up and photos, and all the helpers.
