Latest ONSW News
Uringa orienteers advise with great sadness that their good friend and valued club member, Arthur Durham, passed away in the early hours of Monday after a long illness.
President Linda Sesta penned this tribute: "First introduced to orienteering in 1976 by Frank Assenza, Arthur initially joined Bennelong Occasional Orienteers before joining Uringa in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
He contributed enormously to our club and regularly made himself available to help out at events: with Enter on the Day, registration, taking money, minding the children and shadowing many of the kids on their courses. He did a tremendous job for over a decade as Uringa treasurer and was made a life member in 2011.
While Arthur was an active orienteer for many years, he started to experience ill health in the late 1990s. Unfortunately over the past few years his participation in club activities was very limited due to his worsening health.
Arthur will be remembered fondly by all those who were lucky enough to have him touch their lives."
His funeral will be in Melbourne on Aug 22 (Friday). He will be buried at Rockwood cemetery in Sydney at a later date and the Sydney memorial service will take place sometime in September. Details will be made available on the Uringa blog. If any orienteer would like to contribute a eulogy at the memorial service, could you please contact Nick Wilmott on 9567 6932.
Newcastle somehow managed to turn the heavenly taps off at just the right time to ensure a brilliant (albeit muddy) day to conclude a wonderful NSW schools championship weekend.
With a forecast for torrential rain from 1pm Saturday until 3pm Sunday, it was quite a lovely surprise to see the rain hold off until just after Saturday's presentations (around 4pm) - and to stop just before the first starters headed out on Sunday morning.
Many of the 300 competitors at our penultimate State League weekend who gave the brand new Tank Paddock map the thumbs up were even sporting a little sunburn as the clouds parted to a superb day just off the freeway at Minmi.
Our 2014 champions are:
Primary schools: Mawarra (Sydney South West)
High schools: Knox (CIS - Independent Schools)
Region: CIS
For the schools champs section we had almost 70 participants on Saturday for the sprint double at Boorgual and Glendale schools, and just under 100 on Sunday for the middle distance in the bush.
It was heartwarming to hear overwhelming praise and delight from the many students and families for whom this was their first experience of 'proper orienteering' as the diehards would call it.
Entries are open for Garingal's innovative Goanna 'goat race', which has moved into the winter calendar.
This year the event is at Macquarie Uni Sportsfields on Sunday August 24, with a mass start at 10am for the 3 moderate courses.
Goat races are a wacky form of line orienteering in which:
* there is a mass start (10am)
* following is allowed (this is usually a no-no)
* you may skip a control (yippee!)
* there are forked controls (you go to 'a' or 'b')
* in the boxed section you visit the controls in any order
This novelty event is the brainchild of GO member and ONSW marketing and communications officer Ian Jessup, who wanted to offer something unusual but still an O challenge in its own right.
There are 3 course lengths (GeckO 4.3km, DraGOn 6.2km and GOanna 9.6km), with the standard varying between easy and moderate depending on where you are on the course.
Have a look at last year's Goanna to see what you are confronted with.
Tactics have to be made up on the run - which control will you skip?, which fork will you take?, and in which order will you do 'the box'? The first two Goannas generated a lot of discussion about strategy, and great enthusiasm for the format. A 'fun' run in its own right.
Entries close 6pm Thu Aug 21 via Eventor. Please note the Very Easy and Easy courses are Enter-on-Day and will have a start window of 10-11am as part of the Sydney Junior League.
This is a reminder that ONSW will be conducting a mapping workshop in Sydney on August 29-30.
Alex Tarr, one of Australia's leading mappers, heads an impressive list of presenters. This is the course to attend if you wish to learn how to map an area, and if you wish to take your mapping to the next level.
The workshop will concentrate on work in the field. Emphasis will be on fieldwork with concentration on accuracy, interpretation and legibility. Some knowledge of OCAD will be presumed.
Background reading: Hanny Alston’s excellent dissection of a course in the December 2013 Australian Orienteer - HannysLongRace-AO-Dec2013
Friday night will be at Sports House (6a Figtree Drive, SOP) access from the carpark and Saturday at Mitchell Park.
See the attached flyer for more info.
