Orienteering NSW

Coming Events

map	Sun 3 Nov 4:00 pm River and Bay Series #2 - Randwick Over the Rainbow, Randwick

map	Wed 6 Nov 4:30 pm 2024/25 Sydney Summer Series #5 - Lindfield Primula Oval, Lindfield.

map	Wed 6 Nov 5:00 pm Newcastle Summer Street Series #4 - Blackalls Park Blackalls Park

map	Thu 7 Nov 5:00 pm Summer series #1 72 Ross Street

map	Fri 8 Nov 5:30 pm Goldseekers Park #2 - Gosling Creek Gosling Creek

map	Sat 9 Nov 9:30 am SOS 4 Gore Hill Oval, 209 Pacific Highway, St Leonards. Meet by the oval car park and playground.

map	Sat 9 Nov 10:00 am Illawarra Map Running Series - Spring #4 Unanderra Lindsay Maynes Park, cnr Princes Highway & Factory Rd, Unanderra

map	Sun 10 Nov 9:00 am Central Coast Summer Series 1 - Shelly Beach Naomi Honey Reserve, Shelly Beach Rd, Shelly Beach

map	Sun 10 Nov 4:00 pm River and Bay Series #3 - Canterbury The Gallops, Tasker park, Phillips Avenue Canterbury

map	Wed 13 Nov 4:30 pm 2024/25 Sydney Summer Series #6 - Camperdown Memorial Rest Park, Camperdown.

A reminder that entries close tomorrow (Tuesday) for our annual Women's Training Weekend.

It's this weekend (March 12-13) in the Hunter Valley. It is aimed at females of all orienteering standards, but especially newcomers and those looking to make the transition from Easy courses to Moderate - just in time for the bush courses at MetrO League and State League events over the winter months.

Here's feedback from a rookie who attended in 2013: "Now I have got the bug to get going again thanks to your weekend help. And having the opportunity to be 'shadowed' at a real event was particularly useful to practise some of the lessons."

Anyone with any questions about the weekend should contact Barbara Hill. We thank Barbara for assembling a great team of female mentors including Lisa Lampe, Tracy Marsh and Cath Chalmers.

Orienteering NSW welcomes a fresh young face in Toby Wilson onto the board as Coaching Director.

The Garingal 18-year-old is our youngest ever director and, as a strong candidate to be chosen for the Junior World Championships this year, is ideally placed to oversee the coaching scene in NSW and pass on his knowledge.

"We are delighted to have Toby on board. He brings a connection to the emerging elite and a great diversity of view to the Board," said ONSW president Greg Barbour.

"We see this as a key connection to the elite community that will help us provide an environment that fosters high performance. Our focus at present is still on level 0 as we seek to improve our retention of beginners.

"Toby is already making significant contributions to orienteering in both mapping and course setting... if only we had more like him."

Toby, who has just started a degree at UNSW, last year took out the President's Junior Award for his contributions to our sport and is the Garingal club champion.

"My role is to encourage orienteers to become involved in coaching and make sure they have the appropriate resources to do so, and to encourage coaches to use their skills to help others improve their orienteering skills," he said.

"I am hoping to build the strength of coaching within NSW to allow all orienteers at all levels to have regular, high quality coaching that is relevant to their interests, and build NSW into an example of a strong tradition of orienteering coaching."

We wish Toby all the best in this new endeavour.

Orienteering NSW is delighted to announce that it has been awarded grants to develop new permanent courses and a school holiday program.

With permanent courses already in place at Centennial Park (Sydney, pictured left), Blue Gum Hills and Hunter Wetlands (Newcastle), and Dumaresq Dam (Armidale, pictured right), ONSW plans to roll out another three this year. Clubs will soon be asked to nominate potential host venues.

The school holiday pilot programs (one in Sydney and one in a regional town) will draw on the OK-GO kit - developed by ONSW for the federal government's Sporting Schools program - to introduce orienteering to students in a safe, friendly environment over several half-days.

Funding for the programs comes from the Australian Sports Commission through Orienteering Australia, as part of the ASC's 2016 funding towards increasing participation in orienteering.

Crikey - our winners are getting younger and younger!

Ewan Shingler (Big Foot, 13) and Alvin Craig (11, Newcastle) took out the Short Pairs section of the O'Shea 2-Days on the Central Coast at the weekend, winning by 20 minutes over Bennelong father-and-son David and Clyde McGhee. Newcastle couple Margaret and Geoff Peel were third, a further 5 minutes adrift.

The weekend consisted of 3 events in 18 hours: a Saturday afternoon relay at Kincumber Mountain, a night line course at East Gosford, and a team score course at Davistown on Sunday morning.

Garingal siblings and JWOC reps Aidan and Michele Dawson won the Long Pairs by just two minutes over Stephen and Martina Craig (Alvin's parents). Stephen is a former Garingal and Big Foot member back in Australia after many years living in Sweden, where Martina is from. Bennelong clubmates Mel Cox and Gordon Wilson were third, half an hour behind the Craigs. Aidan backed up that effort by taking out the Sydney Sprint at St Ives on Sunday evening. Ice bath, please!

Thank you to course setters Paul and Julia Prudhoe and to organiser David Bowerman from CCO, and to the participants for supporting this long-standing event which was first run in the early 80's. Also a big thank you to Julia Prudhoe for tracking down spearmint leaves for the traditional cake prizes, and to Julia and daughter Alice for making the cakes. Results are here.