Latest ONSW News
Orienteering NSW will be putting on a free workshop in Sydney next month for anyone interested in developing their skills as a sprint mapper.
The course is from 1-5pm on Sat Feb 27 at Sydney Olympic Park - and no previous mapping experience is required.
See the flyer for full details. We can only host 10 people so get your booking in quick!
With the federal government's new Sporting Schools program underway, we anticipate greater demand for school maps. And the growing popularity of sprint orienteering also means we need more mappers to keep up with requests from clubs for new areas.
Please email lumsden.byers @ gmail.com to book your place in the workshop.
Following the successful courses in Sydney and Armidale late last year, this is a friendly reminder that ONSW will be running another free Community Coaching course on Monday January 25.
It will again be at Sydney Olympic Park. See the flyer for full details.
The courses are for anyone wishing to deliver orienteering to beginners at club events or in schools - whether that's as part of the federal government's Sporting Schools program or for occasional sessions.
It will also introduce coaches to the OK-GO kit and program developed by ONSW.
The courses are free to all participants. Non-orienteers also get free entry to 2 NSW events. Participants at the two previous courses provided overwhelmingly positive feedback.
Please email Jim Mackay (development @ onsw.asn.au) to register. To gain this Level 0 accreditation you must also have done your Working With Children Check (WWCC - ONSW will pay half the cost) and have completed the ASC online General Principles Course.
Ten NSW orienteers have been selected in Australian High Performance squads for 2016.
Duncan Currie, (15, Garingal) and Alastair George (16, Big Foot) are the newcomers, selected in the Targeted Talented Athlete Squad – the first rung of the HP ladder.
Aidan Dawson (20, Garingal), Daniel Hill (19, Garingal, pictured), Toby Wilson (19, Garingal) and Georgia Jones (18, Uringa) are in the Australian Junior Development Squad and will be competing for places in the Australian team for the junior world championships (JWOC) in Switzerland in July.
Nicola Blatchford (21, Newcastle) and Michele Dawson (22, Garingal) are multiple JWOC representatives now finding their feet in the open women’s section, and are in the National Development Squad. Nicola’s father, Russell, is coach of the Targeted Talented Athlete Squad.
Felicity Brown (32, Central Coast) is back in the High Performance Squad after having her first child with partner Julian Dent, (31, Central Coast), who is Australia’s No.1-ranked male and one of just three athletes in the Elite High Performance Squad. The couple are based in Sweden, where orienteering originated, and where this year’s world championships will be held in August.
We congratulate these athletes on their selections and wish them every success for 2016.
Bjorn Blomstedt, one of the true characters of orienteering, has passed away at the age of 90.
Bjorn was a founding member of Kareelah Orienteers (now called Illawarra Kareelah Orienteers) and later founded another club, Scrubrunners, centred around the south western part of Sydney.
Bjorn arrived in Australia from Sweden in 1969 with Monica and daughter Cecilia. He was keen to see some of the Swedish features of orienteering events integrated into Australia’s new sport of orienteering, so was instrumental in organising the first Three-Day event in 1974, with Dave Lotty and Ian Hassall.
He will best be remembered for introducing, and with Monica organising, the Budkavle teams event (1975-88), commonly known as Bjorn's Midnight Madness, based on the Tiomila.
This event was a relay of ten people, starting at midnight and finishing in the early hours of daylight. Each team had a message stick (budkavle) on a leather lace around their neck that was passed on to the next team member at the changeover. Bjorn made those message sticks, one still surviving as an award in SHOO.
