​Seventeen of us attended the AGM following the event at Gog Batch in September. The formal  minutes will be circulated soon but in the meantime here is some outline of what went on.
It was great to see Peter Stephenson and Dave Gittus in attendance, both founder members of the club back in 1974 were orienteering in Shropshire before that.
The good news is that WREKIN now has a new look committee and club secretary giving a blend of established and new members to build the club for the future. The first committee meeting is due to be held on November 1st. Our first aims will be to re-establish the role of the committee, begin setting up the fixtures list for the future and identifying our priorities for the next few months. Please let us know if there are topics you would like the committee to consider..One way is to email Wrekin Committee at wrekin-orienteers-committee@googlegroups.com.
Di Jacks and John Broadhead have stood down from the committee after many years of hard work. The club owes a big debt of thanks to both. John who was club secretary has leaves us for pastures new in the near future. Di has earned a rest after serving on the Committee and as Club Chair and many other roles for the club over many years.
 
Adrian Pickles

In what felt like a return to something normal 20 WREKIN members travelled to Kidsgrove Cricket Club for a Potteries Orienteering Club Event. The map was a lovely new one, surveyed and drawn by our own Rod Postlethwaite. Another club stalwart, Clive Richardson was the official controller for the event so WREKIN played a major part in helping this event happen.
The area was long and narrow with steep wooded slopes around a train line and park area. Competitors had to move quickly and make decisions about whether to go through the wood or up and down to the nearest path.
The West Midland League seems to have fallen off our club radar so we are not performing to our full potential. There is still time to improve our league standing but the more of us that are there the better we will do. Next event in the West Midland League is a Harlequins race at Worcester Beacon on November 14th with a couple more events after that. Hope to see you at one or more of these.
 
Adrian Pickles

WREKIN won through to the 2020 national final postponed from last year. The final was organised by South Yorkshire Orienteers at Tankersley and Hesley Woods just outside Sheffield. It was attended by clubs from all over the country, so this was quite a large event. Due to COVID related access issues the event was relocated at short notice from Sutton Park, which would have been much more convenient for WREKIN.
WREKIN managed to field a small, select team which finished 9th out of 14 clubs. The race was held in compact area of woodland growing on an old mining area, a bit like parts of Donnington or Wrockwardine Wood. Courses were technically hard and physically challenging. Almost everyone made navigational errors and maintaining navigational contact with the map was the key skill because relocation when lost was difficult.  The undergrowth and steep slope made progress through the terrain slow and longer alternatives using paths required care due to lots of fallen leaves covering them up.
The 2022 Compass Sport Trophy will begin in February or March next year with a regional knock out round. It is a really good way to come together and meet up as a club. So watch out for more details in the new year.
 
Adrian Pickles

John Bennison Long O 2021
 
Planners and Organisers comments
Thanks to everyone for coming, competing and helping. Thanks for parking tidily.
It was great to have such good weather. Vegetation growth was exceptionally strong this year so after a surprisingly long day out visiting control sites I shortened the long and medium courses.
Courses were planned to give challenging route choice decisions and make definite navigation important. It will be really good to see routes up on Route Gadget so we can assess the route options.
Thanks to the National Trust for access. Thanks to Space Mobiles for finding the location.
See you next year
Adrian Pickles

​Routegadget here

Severn Valley Country Park offers our first Tuesday Evening event since 2019. Check the website for details especially about start times which, because it would be dark,  will be earlier than usual.
Nesscliffe and Gog Batch events have been moved to Saturdays.

• 14 September Severn Valley Country Park. Planner/Organiser Steve Parker
• 25 September Nesscliffe- Planner/Organiser Adrian Pickles
• 16 October Gog Batch(Long Mynd NE) Entry Limit 60 Planner/Organiser Adrian Pickles Followed by a sociable AGM at the Yew Tree in All Stretton

 
Watch the Club Website for more details and how to enter. All of these will be pre-entry using the “let us know and pay the bank method” used so successfully for our events this year.
 
HELP! Obviously we need Organisers and Planners for future events as well. If you would like to take on either, both or on-the-day roles for any of these events please get in touch as soon as possible. 
 
Adrian Pickles

John Bennison Long O Saturday Sept 4th from High Park
Once again we managed to hold the John Bennison Long O on a lovely September day. 41 people entered and enjoyed the autumn weather as they battled with route choices and vegetation.
 
Thanks to everyone who helped in anyway in particular Pete Jones for the map and mementos, Steve Parker and Richard Rogers for SI download and results, Dave Deakin for banking and Clive Richardson for the kit and signage.
 
Full results are on the WREKIN website.
 
Adrian Pickles

A news sheet for WREKIN Orienteers about forthcoming events and other things.
 
John Bennison Long O Saturday Sept 4th from High Park Area Entry limit 120
Entries open- see EVENTS section of the website
 
Although we had to postpone our Nesscliffe and Gog Batch events the good news is that are still going to happen. Both have been moved to Saturdays.
 
•          14 September Severn Valley Country Park. Planner/Organiser Steve Parker
•          25 September Nesscliffe- Planner/Organiser Adrian Pickles
•          16 October Gog Batch(Long Mynd NE) Entry Limit 60 Planner/Organiser Adrian Pickles
 
Watch the Club Website for more details and how to enter. All of these will be pre-entry using the “let us know and pay the bank method” used so successfully for the Concord picnic and events last year.
 
HELP! Obviously we need Organisers and Planners for events.If you would like to take on either, both or on-the-day roles for any of these events please get in touch as soon as possible. Email Adrian.pickles@gmail.com or ring 07846301251

Club Results August 2021
British Sprint Orienteering Individual Championships at Skelmersdale on Sunday August 22nd
 
 
4 WREKIN members competed in this event on a warm and drying day. Skemersdale was a new town back in the 1960s so has some similarities with Telford- high density housing in complicated blocks, big roads and many roundabouts as well as a large shopping centre in the middle.
 
Sprint races are short intense bursts of high-speed navigation in which runners have to be in control of their navigation whilst running as fast as possible for about 15 minutes, getting both things right is the key to success.
 
The British Champs has a first round of races from which people qualify for further A or B finals. After the qualifying races there is a time gap to allow the organisers to get organised and competitors to recuperate before the Finals. This year’s competition centred on a primary school using two overlapping areas of contrasting housing both of which were reminiscent of our own new town.
 
Three of our runners made it through to the A-finals-
Di Jacks and Sarah Bayliss finished 10th and 12th on W50A,
Adrian Pickles was 6th on M60A.
David Pal was 24th on M50B.
 
This event was postponed twice due to the pandemic and it was a major feat to organise it at all. All our WREKIN representatives enjoyed their runs and looked smart in our WREKIN tops.

Congratulations to Mike Callow who finished 1st and brought home the gold medal in the M80 class at the recent British Middle Distance championships, held at Summerhouse Knott in the Lake District.

Mike completed the 2.5km course with 135m of climb and 14 controls in a time of 52.35 beating second placed Trevor Simpson of OD, by a staggering 6 minutes. Well Done Mike.

Also competing in the M80 class was Derek Turner who finished in 7th place.

In the W50 class Sarah Bayliss had a great run finishing 9th, and Di Jacks wasn’t far behind in 12th.
In a large M55 class Tony Callow finished 28th, and competing in the M65 class John Broadhead finished 29th.
​
Well done to everyone who took on the challenging courses on a very hot day.

Its back! time to run off all that Christmas fayre with the reward at the end of .... more chocolate!

Lawrie Jones is has planned this years courses so expect the longer course to be "challenging"

My top tip for Choc O is to make sure you can keep you map dry and most importantly practice grid references (marking the first two numbers of the grid reference onto the area of map you will using saves you having to unfold all the map at every control)

​Important details here

WREKIN News October 2020 
​
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

To get some training on terrain there are now some colour coded courses set up on Haughmond Hill with MapRun and using some of the Permanent Orienteering Course marker posts.  We are trying a new combination whereby you visit some POC marker posts with a few virtual controls in between to vary the route from the normal POC.

Don't be confused, its easy really!
All you do is just start the MapRun app at the start, do the course and get a result at the end, that's it.  There is nothing else to do!


Follow these steps:
1  Visit Wrekin's website, download and print the map to navigate with for the course you want to run.
 

2  Log in to Map Run then go to Haughmond Hill. Only click "Go to Start", when you are about to start and are at the start point

3  Navigate on the paper map, ignore the MapRun map on your phone it does not have the POC controls and is not a proper detailed orienteering map.  Go to all the controls, but not all will give a Ping in the Map Run App.

4 When you finish MapRun gives you a result.


So, some controls are virtual MapRun ones and there is no marker there, but you will get a Ping when you are within the circle.

Some controls are POC marker posts and you will not get a MapRun Ping, you just find the post and move on for those ones.  There is nothing to write down or punch.  But if you have visited all the controls then MapRun will have a series of controls you were timed at and a GPS track showing that you went round the whole course.  

All you do is just start the MapRun app at the start, do the course and get a result at the end, that's it.

We have done it this way so that the MapRun controls are in places where there should be a good GPS signal to help avoid people struggling to get a Ping at some controls under tree cover..

Have fun,
Duncan Bayliss

The Routegadget is now open for business on the website. There were some interesting route choices so see which way the leaders went and share where you went and why it all took so long!
Routegadget here..

All todays results are up here on the website including funky new SportIdent layout, comments and photos of us struggling.. 
www.wrekinorienteers.co.uk/results-201920.html

We have just had confirmation from British Orienteering that compliant events are on:


"After a day of dialogue and consultation, we are pleased to have received an update from Sport England which provides a little more detail on the return of sport and physical activity.

While social gatherings of more than six people will be banned in England from 14 September, the government has confirmed that organised sports and activities that have been through return to play protocols can continue, as can organised outdoor sports and physical activity events.
That's because these sports and activities have stringent plans in place to reduce the risk of COVID-19, and because these venues are classed as COVID-secure given the measures they’ve introduced.
Kind regards 
Peter Hart
Chief Executive
British Orienteering 



So we look forward to welcoming you to the LONG-O on Sunday.


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