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