WREKIN News October 2020 
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2020 grinds on and orienteering is beginning to emerge around the country in a variety of forms old and new. It is possible to go orienteering but you have to plan ahead to get an entry, print a map or retrieve an access code. It is a new world for experienced Orienteers and sharing experiences will help us all learn as we go. If you have anything to share please write a small piece for the club website and send it to Richard Pay for publication richardpay@hotmail.co.uk
Thank you for several positive responses to the July job adverts- as you will realise from the Future Events section our ability to hold events changes from day to day. We need to be light on our feet and responsive to sudden changes if we are going to go to or hold events. I will be in touch about opportunities as they arise.

HISTORY SECTION
John Bennison Long-O September 13th
WREKIN held the first WM event since lockdown. Thanks to Heather and Tim Kinienwicz for planning and organising this so successfully. We had more participants than usual, almost 100 competitors including many local fell runners.
 
Summer MapRun Score Series thanks to Richard Rogers and Lawrie Jones for setting this up-
The MapRuns  in the street series were released from June to August and are still open for anyone who wants to visit postboxes around the County.
Each course has been completed by around 20 people

10 July Shrewsbury
17 July Bridgnorth
24 July Church Stretton
31 July Newport
7 August Shifnal
14 August Oakengates

 
MapRunF linear courses
Two areas are set up with linear courses- Carding Mill Valley and Haughmond Hill. These are open for anyone to use. Each is different and there is specific information that is worth knowing before you go. If you want to run them please see the MapRun section on the Club Website for more details.
 
FUTURE EVENTS

• Nesscliffe Club Event 29th November. This will probably take place. Duncan Bayliss and John Broadhead have been planning courses and working to get car parking. We are currently checking final details with Shropshire County Council COVID response team to get a final go-ahead.
• Club Championships 20th December. We have not got an area for this yet.
• CHOC O- this annual festival of fun should happen almost as normal in the rain, wind snow and, usually for me, the dark. Thanks to Lawrie Jones who has offered to organise it.
• Laurie Bradley New Year’s Day Score Event; Krystof Nowicki has been working to get permission to use Haughmond Hill. Whether it happens depends on how Forest England are managing Orienteering access
• West Midland League event in January/February 2021.
• Springtime in Shropshire May 2021- The whole event is under review. On a positive note we have got permission for access to the main parts of Corndon and Stapeley.

 
 
Winter Street MapRunF Series
Over the winter we will hold a Winter Street Series using MapRun. This will be similar to the Summer MapRun Score event series using street maps with most controls on post boxes
 
There should be with 5 or 6 courses released over a 4 month period from December to March
The event time limit will probably be 45 minutes- this allows for colder weather and also enables use of smaller areas. Please let me know if this is, or isn’t, is a sensible time limit.
 
Richard Lewis has volunteered to compile a results league using each persons first run score during the “Event window of competitive opportunity”. There may even be a small prize for the overall winner.
 
Date opens:
Location:
Organiser:

1/12/2020
Priorslee Telford
Lawrie Jones

15/12/2020
Gains Park, Shrewsbury
Adrian Pickles

12/1/2021
Tbc
 
2/2/2021
Tbc
 
23/2/2021
Tbc
 
16/3/2021
Tbc
 
Opportunities for setting up MapRunFun exist it is a satisfying and enjoyable thing to do; you get to know your local area even better.
So, if you would like to fill in one of the Tbc gaps and organise one of these events then please let  Richard Rogers, Lawrie Jones or Adrian Pickles know. You could have an area in mind or need a suggestion for an area.
Richard Rogers- Richard@ricardito.me.uk, Richard Lewis-wroxell@gmail.com, Lawrie Jones Lawriej@gmail.com
 
WMOA news
WMOA are working out how to hold events- WMOA Championships could well happen and a Map Run West Midland League for 2021 is being discussed
 
British Orienteering News
BO hosted a sharing experience webinar on October 20th . I think a recording of this will be available soon and it will be useful to see what is happening around the country.
 
BO EVENT SAFETY ONLINE QUALIFICATION; this is a required qualification for anyone organising or planning orienteering events so the more club members who have it the better. More members with this qualification makes event organisation simpler for the club. BO has launched an ONLINE COURSE which is available currently free for any BO member to complete. If you are ever likely to take on an event organisation role, small or large from the Summer Series to SinS please consider completing this course.
 
Hoping to meet up again sometime safely somewhere
Adrian Pickles
 
Any questions, comments, offers or requests please get in-touch by email or phone adrian.pickles@gmail.com. 07846301251

February 2020 Spring into Orienteering
A news sheet for WREKIN Orienteers about forthcoming events and to advertise a significant organising opportunities.
 
This isn’t everything you need so please check details on a relevant website. There are other events in the West Midlands - check out Thursday nights with Harlequins.
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The club had a successful first month of the year including the finish of Choc O, competitive success at the Laurie Bradley Score Event on New Years Day to staging the West Midland League Race at Wrockwardine Wood, holding the social Club Presentation Dinner at the Corbet  Arms and there were a couple of Winter Street Races as well.

​More.....

Chairman’s Blog February-March 2018.

Snow dear? What will the weather be? No O event? It’s another weekend free…
It has been a long time since the previous article in this series and a lot has happened in that period. The weather has been unkind to other orienteering clubs and so although a lot has happened for WREKIN there are also quite a few things that haven’t happened as well.

On February 18ththe WREKIN event at Lizard Hill was the third West Midland League Event of the year and we had an excellent turn out. 197 competitors enjoyed nice, dry courses ably planned at short notice by Ian Hopkins. Barry McGowan from Harlequins Orienteering Club was the controller. Organiser Clive Richardson marshalled our WREKIN troops and all went well despite the original carpark being ploughed up the day before the event. Thanks and well done to all. On the competitive side of things The Allinson sisters Grace and Harriet were in first two places on white chased by Dave Deakin in third. Laurie Jones won the Green Course with Messrs Clough and 2 Bayliss’ in close contention. Hannah Lewis was first on Orange and big sister Lauren  5thon  Light Green. Adrian Pickles and Jeb Lewis were 3rdand 4thon Blue.

Two of our members Clive Richardson and Richard Lewis were heavily involved in the Welsh Championship weekend as controllers for the two races which were due to be held on ANglesy over the weekend of March 3rd-4th. Unfortunately snow intervened and so we will have to wait until lter in the year to sample the fantastic forest at Newborough Warren- if you didn’t intend to go in March it is definitely worth watching for and entering if it happens again. 

March 11thwas the date for the first Round of CompassSport Cup races. The CompassSport Cup, or CSC for short, is the orienteering equivalent of the FA Cup with all clubs entering and sending teams. Our WREKIN event at Nesscliffe was the round for clubs from the West Midlands, Wales and North and South West regions. About 300 people competed on a calm, not cold and dry day. The event Centre in the Village Hall was excellent providing Indoor registration and results, toilets and changing space. The Car Parking needed to be very well organised and marshalled which it was. In the woods the courses and map were well received. The last minute.com team of Tony Callow (organiser) and Adrian Pickles(planner) assisted by the Controller (Mark Garside from Walton Chasers)worked speedily to make sure the event happened. WREKIN competed well in the CSC but were just beaten by POTOC by 19 points out 1260 and so we will not be going to the national finals. Individual Delia Kingsbury and Molly parker each scored 100 points and all our scorers had 94 points or more..This is an excellent team performance despite the unavailability of some key orienteers who were organising the event.

Snow returned the following weekend and the Midland Championships due to be held at Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire were postponed.

Meanwhile preparations for the Jan Kjellstrom Orienteering Festival (JK 2018) were reaching fever pitch for Di Jacks and Adrian Griffiths. The JK is the biggest event on the British Orienteering calendar, it is held over the Easter weekend. JK 2018 was based around Cannock Chase and over 2500 competitiors entered. Di was Entries Secretary for this event, Adrian G. was in charge of Prize giving and the pair of them co-ordinated the WREKIN Car Parking Team for the third day. Boy they were busy. Adrian Pickles assisted the planner putting out controls, turning on dibber boxes and personning the map exchange. Steve Parker organised equipment for the weekend. In addition the club had a role at the prestart on Day 3 when, after a certain lack of organisational clarity, our club members stood up or sat down and just made things work. Di and Adrian and Steve deserve a special mention but well done to everyone involved in any or all of this. At the time of writing I don’t have results for either individual or relay races, this will be remedied in the next edition of this blog.

Finally and huge note of congratulations is in order to Rod Postlethwaite who has been awarded the prestigious CHICHESTER Trophy for the Best MAP produced in Britain last year. Rod’s map of Wombridge and Cockshutt in Telford was a challenging mixture of urban and woodland terrain which Rod depicted with fantastic clarity. If you didn’t go the race last November you can see the map on the Results page of our website by clicking on the Route Gadget option..

That’s all for now..coming soon the WREKIN Summer Series. Have you volunteered yet?

WREKIN ORIENTEERS.

What kind of club are we?

What kind of club do we want to be?

At the club Presentation Dinner we were asked to consider some questions about the title of this article. The first and fifth questions needed several words to answer to but the others were intended to generate three words in response.


The 5 questions were:

A. When, where, how and why did you start orienteering?
B. Write a headline sentence with 3 KEY topics or words to describe what Wrekin Orienteers should be.
C. 3 things that make WREKIN a good club
D. 3 things that would make WREKIN a better club
E. The shortest way you can explain Orienteering to someone who doesn't know anything about it 
 
  
The responses to B, C, D and E  have been put through a programme called Wordle to produce some graphic representations of what was written.

If you want to add you words please send them to the Club Chairperson who incorporate them in the Wordle images. If you want to send any thoughts on your responses to the questions please do.

Responses to the first Question (A) are also helpful in getting an overview of the club membership and heritage.

So far these are going into an anonymous spreadsheet whilst I work out what to do with it all.
Look out for the Wordle images coming up on the CAPTAINS LOG over the next week or so- they are meant to get us talking and thinking

​Adrian Pickles