Latest ONSW News
Congratulations to Big Foot's Alastair George on being named in the Australian junior relay team for the AUS-NZ Challenge at the Oceania champs later this month.
Alastair, pictured left, has represented Australia at the junior world champs the past two years and has been an outstanding young orienteer for some time now.
Congratulations also to these ONSW members on their selection in the AUS relay teams for Oceania:
Women: Serena Doyle (Uringa, W18), Tracy Marsh (Big Foot, W40), Barbara Hill (Garingal, W50), Jenny Enderby (Newcastle, W50), Cath Chalmers (BF, W50), Paula Shingler (BF, W55), Debbie Davey (Waggaroos, W60), Hilary Wood (Central Coast, W60), Jenny Hawkins (Northern Tablelands, W70)
Men: Damien Enderby (NC, M40), Shane Doyle (UR, M50), Jock Davis (BF, M50), Michael Warlters (UR, M50), Rob Vincent (NC, M60), Eoin Rothery (BF, M60), Steve Flick (Bennelong, M70).
As you can see, the 50-55 age group relay teams are all NSW orienteers.
Also, event organisers have added a 55+AS short relay age class. Now that entries have closed, anyone who has pre-entered and wishes to change to this new class is asked to contact the selectors - Hilary Wood or Jock Davis.
Icy winds couldn't deter more than 250 keen orienteers from attending the NSW schools champs in the Southern Highlands at the weekend.
Feels like temps were below zero as fierce gales buffeted all and sundry, causing blackouts and felling many trees.
Saturday's double-header Sprints were held at Oxley College and Tudor House schools, while Sunday's Middle Distance was on a new bush map at Welby that featured an intricate track network and some rock.
Sunday's results counted for the trophies and in the wash-up these went to Mowbray (public) and Knox Grammar (secondary) who brought a strong contingent.
Both days were State Leagues in conjunction and the big upset we noted was Jo Parr knocking over Big Foot clubmate Paula Shingler in both W55A events. Congrats also to Paul Sweeney (WHO) on a breakthrough win in M45AS.
A big thanks to SHOO and IKO for a great weekend in testing conditions, especially the setters and controllers who were out on course for hours.
Our final State League for 2019 will be the NSW Sprint Champs at Sydney Uni on Sunday November 10. We will hold the annual ONSW award presentations immediately after.
All the results have been linked on our State League page. OY scores have been updated here. Participants are asked to fill in the very brief Course Setter Surveys online here for each event.
Our Orange-based Goldseekers have celebrated 25 years with a social run and party at Lake Canobolas, where it all began.
The club formed in May 1994 following a course on orienteering run by Jean and Basil Baldwin at the local Community College. (They started orienteering in South Australia in the early days after coming from the UK, then Basil - pictured here - got a new position at Orange Ag College.)
Lake Canobolas was the first area to be mapped, followed by Gosling Creek. These were the venues for the first Goldseekers events in September and October 1994. Their first bush map was Rocky Falls in the Mullion Range.
In November 1994, they organised a Spring Classic 2-day event at Lake Canobolas and Rocky Falls. 70 Sydney people and 30 locals came to the first Spring Classic. They were also asked to organise orienteering for the Eight Day Games in November 1994 and have done this each year.
1996 was a big year as the national Easter 3-Day Carnival was held in Orange with around 800 people attending. Macquarie Woods, Ophir Diggings, Lookout Rock (Mullion State Forest) and Khalis Rocks were mapped for this event. Goldseekers provided breakfasts at $3 per head for the 400 campers at Canobolas High School!
The summer evening events were started in 1999 and continue to be very popular attracting up to 100 people to the parks and streets of Orange during daylight saving time.
The club has produced over 30 maps of areas near Orange, forest, parkland, suburbs and schools.
Key achievements by club members include Matt Parton representing Australia in the Junior World Championships. Rob and Bridget Bennett representing NSW in interstate school challenges and Jean and Basil Baldwin representing Australia in senior classes in Australia v New Zealand challenges.
"Goldseekers are an important part of NSW orienteering - not only do they have the biggest membership away from the large metropolitan areas, but they are custodian of some of our best terrain ranging from intricate sandstone outcrops, complex granite, runnable open spur gully and also the gold mining of Hill End," said ONSW president Greg Barbour.
"Great terrain has attracted a number of major carnivals and several Australian championships have been held locally. We'll see this again at Easter next year around Molong and the NSW champs at Eugowra.
"We believe Basil is nearing his own milestone and we congratulate Basil and Jean on the way they have nurtured Goldseekers for a quarter century."
You can read the full birthday article here.
We urgently need helpers to devote a small amount of time at the first event of the Oceania Carnival on Saturday September 28 at CSU Wagga.
The carnival as a whole is being led by OACT, supported by ONSW and OV. In particular the opening event at CSU Wagga is being led by ONSW (so your contribution will benefit ONSW financially).
As such, we require helpers for short periods of time on the day. All the pre-event preparation is under control, but we need:
- Start Marshals (16) to work on the start for up to 45 minutes. You can still run in your entered class. As the start will be silent and very much straightforward, you just need to be there in case of any issues. You don’t have to talk to competitors - just observe.
- Quarantine Marshals (4) to check elites into and out of quarantine. You can still run in your entered class.
- Control collectors (6) and OOB tape collection (6) from 3:30pm – 4:30pm.
Please email the organiser Rob Spry (
And a reminder of final deadlines for Oceania:
* nomination for the Australian teams to run against NZ close on Saturday (Sep 7)
* dinner bookings for the Old Beechworth Gaol close on Tuesday (Sep 10)
* late entries and SI Air stick hire close on Sunday night (Sep 8)
* bookings for the Junior Invitational Tour close on Sat Sep 14
