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After more than 15 years as President, Geoff Peel has stepped down from the position to be replaced by Andrew Power, who brings with him great management experience gained in his career within the electricity industry. Geoff’s retirement from the role was precipitated by the arrival of his first child, “Baxter Clark Peel”, who arrived on 21st March 2012. “Looks like it will be split starts for Margaret and me from now on”, he joked. “At least after all this time we might be able to get a run in the family relays”.
The new President, Andrew first tried orienteering in the late 70’s at Kotara High School. Orienteering is a family affair with both Andrew and partner Chris taking up orienteering more seriously in 2007 along with sons Oscar and Alec. Andrew is also a keen MTBO competitor. Andrew has some great thoughts on initiatives to make the Newcastle club even stronger and is looking forward to working with the club committee and members to make sure this happens. Look out NSW!
Organisers of the event have become aware of a problem encountered with the On-Line entry system by competitors who wished to enter some, but not all of the three events being contested on the weekend of Saturday / Sunday May 12 and 13.
Whilst those entering On-Line were not charged an entry fee for events they did not wish to enter they were still asked to enter an age class for ALL three events. As a consequence, their name does appear in the list of entrants for ALL events, and clearly this has implications for map printing requirements and creation of start lists. A list of entrants for the three ‘Coalfields Classic’ events will appear on the event website shortly. Organisers thank all for their entry in the event and ask if all entrants could do a check of their entry details.
Please contact Russell Blatchford (
The last DuO Adventure race of the year was run on Sunday at Belanglo State Forest, and attracted the biggest field yet. The series has grown in popularity over its three event run, attracting orienteers and mountain bike enthusiasts in equal numbers. This last race saw a large contingent of participants from the ACT.
The courses were challenging but many lessons have been learnt over the series and this was probably the best yet. New courses were added to the championship long and short courses to allow as many people as possible to try out the event. There was a new novice course which saw a number of youngsters having a go, and a mountain bike only course for those who prefer their orienteering on two wheels only.
Championship winners were decided at this race. Mary Fien won the Women's Long Course both on the day and for the series. Although she had a difficult run at The Dairy where she lost to Melanie Simpson, her winning performances at Killingworth and Belanglo secured the top spot with 51 points from Carolyn Haupt's 46 and Hilary Ellis' 44. Anna Hyslop from the ACT was second on the day; this was her first attempt at the DuO so if she decides to run in the full series next year Mary may find the competition next year has hotted up.
Mens Long course winner Malcolm Roberts had a solid set of events through the series to take the top spot, but there were strong contenders bunched close behind. Jason Rutkowski took second; only 1 point separated Greg Barbour in third from Graham Horrocks and David Simpfendorfer in joint fourth. Many of the male competitors in the Long Course struggled with the foot O part of the course which was set around the Piggeries, a map well known to orienteers as one that can pose difficulties for even the most experienced.
Short course winner for the women was Carolyn Matthews with a near perfect score of 73. Toy Martin was a solid second in the series with Cath Chalmers third. A
ndrew Power, new President of Newcastle Orienteering Club, was the winner of the Men's Short Course, snatching the title from organiser Greg Bacon whose 6th place at Belanglo prevented him taking the overall title. Graham Fowler was 3rd,but things might have all been different if Rob Prentice had made the trip to Killingworth, as his two wins at The Dairy and Belanglo would have made him hot favorite for a title had he gathered the full DuO Adventure Race set.
Ewan Shingler won the novice course, accompanied by his father on foot. The other novices struggled with the course but seemed to enjoy their ride out into the forest nonetheless. Eoin Rothery led the MTBO Long course home; Bridget Kelly the Short MTBO.
Full results and final championship standing can be found on the DuO Adventure Race page here. Organiser Greg Bacon's detailed round up of the Belanglo race can be found here
Appin is Southern Highland Occasional Orienteers' most technical map with lots of fine navigation needed to get around Moderate and Hard courses. It is also the hardest map to plan courses on because there is no vehicular access to any part of the map. Planner and organiser John took this in his stride with three trips to set up the event - first to tag all controls, then put out all controls, and then finally to actually run the event.
The Hard courses were steep, long and needed very fine navigation and it got the better of some of the runners, experienced as they were. There was representation from a number of clubs with Western Hills, Illawarrah Kareelah, Uringa and of course SHOO all in attendence. Val Hodsdon conquered the Hard Long, Ted Mulherin the Hard Short and the two Jones girls from Uringa Georgia and Sophie won the Moderate and Easy respectively.
SHOO's next club event is on 2 June at Lake Alexandra, Mittagong.
Thanks to Lyn Malmgron for her help with this report
