Planners Report

The results from the Munster League event held at Goirtin Wood are posted on the results section of the IOA website.

Below, I will explain some issues that arose on the day from our collective experiences. I am sure that others have been through similar problems. We thank everyone who took part for their patience, understanding and their advice. The vast majority appeared to enjoy the day.

We had two technical issues on the day.

1. the Download station worked intermittently and then gave up the ghost, despite being surrounded by several technophobes. For no apparent reason it worked fine today and I was able to upload the remaining SI cards.
2. Synchronisation: we had problems with the batteries on 4 of our stations so I sent them off on holiday to Sportident. However, I forgot to synchronise them with the rest of the set when they returned. They were one hour different. It means that the completion time is correct but there are some strange splits.

On the mapping side, most of the courses were reasonably successful. There were however several issues that arose.

1. Mapping issues: this was a team mapping exercise between 4 club members. Only one was an experienced mapper. This caused problems when it came to putting the updates on the new OCAD map. One of the critical updates would not open. This meant that one mapper used an older version of the basemap to add their updates. This particularly was a problem around the pit (203). The vegetation changes I added on the opposite side of the road failed to make the final version of the map. One strip of white forest or possibly open ground with scattered trees became open ground. Another similar strip of white forest didnt quite make it on the final version.
2. Control choice:: there was one poor choice of controls used. Control 231, the crag, was put out by myself without checking any features around the tagged site. I readily admit this was an error as the tagged site was surrounded by larger crags both to the east and the west.This caused a lot of wasted time in the area. I was unable to remove it from the results. I had originally intended to use an excellent depression on the other side of the road. I should have stuck to it!
3. Control Misplacement: I noted when collecting controls that control 223 had migrated from the easternmost to the westernmost gully. The OCAD symbol for a gully is rather too thick to be used on 1:15,000 scale maps. They tend to merge into each other. It is also possible they were shown a little too far to the east of the map relative to the open ground to the north. Thanks to Paul for pointing this one out.
4. Control location: Is it valid to put a control in a pit when it is in runnable forest and close to a road? I know that there are rules that state otherwise but it would have been seen from the road and not pose any sort of challenge. It was only used on the more technical courses.
5. Map scale: The person producing the maps had major difficulties with OCAD on his computer and was unable to change the scale on the map. This meant that all courses except the yellow had to contend with the original 1:15,000 scale. This proved difficult with poorer eyesight. As someone who has such a difficulty myself, I empathise with those who were put out by the unfamiliar scale. It is only the elites who complain about not being enough 1:15,000 maps!
   

Andrew Cox
(Planner)

Waterford Secondary Schools

Pictures and link to results on the IOSG blog
Thanks to Jana Cox for her help on Download and to Ian McHardy for bringing in controls.

Waterford Primary School Results

Thanks to all who helped out today, especially Con Murphy, Roger Johnson, Hugh Dobbs, Veronica Purcell, Jana Cox and all the pupils from the Transition Year in Newtown.
Full details of the event are posted in the IOSG blog.

Here are the provisional results:
6th Class Boys
1. Team 13 Dunhill
2. Team 2 Butlerstown

6th class Girls
1. Team 55 Christchurch
2. Team 60 Grangemockler

5th class Boys
1. Team 16 Gaelscoil
2. Team 26 Faithlegg

5th class Girls
1. Team 8 St John of Gods
2. Team 20 Gaelscoil

Tower Hill

An excellent turnout today at the 6th SE League event. Full results can be found on the left under results.
Thanks to Con Murphy for all his hard work in ensuring the success of the event and for the pix.
Thanks also to Laura and Angela Cox on registration and computer upload.

Happy New Year

Seasons Greetings and here is the result of the jury....fixtures for the New Year

17th January: Carrickbyrne, County Wexford
7th February: Tower Hill, Portlaw
24th February: Waterford Primary schools at Newtown school
28th February: Coumshingaun
4th March: Waterford Secondary schools at Tower Hill, Portlaw
14th March: Goirtin/Kilsheelan (Munster League also)
25th March: Munster Secondary and Primary Schools at Colligan East
28th March: Colligan East
9th May: Kennedy Park, County Wexford
16th May: Tramore

In addition there are events run by other clubs which might be of interest:
10th January at Curragh wood, Midleton ((CorkO)
21st February at Clonmore North, near Cahir (Cork O)

Full IOA fixtures here.

I have already begun to approach members to help plan, control and organise the above events. If anyone on our mailing list can help I would be glad to hear from you. Apart from planning and controlling, the many other jobs that need to be done on the day can be done by anybody. I look forward to hearing from you especially anyone able to help midweek with schools events. Thanks.

Event cancellation

Following the completion of a risk assessment of the planned event for Knockanafffrin in the Comeraghs on Sunday, I have decided to cancel the event. It has been difficult to fully plan the event with the current weather conditions. Some of the access roads are currently blocked with water. The ground is very waterlogged and it would be impossible to mark all the new water features on the map!
The weather forecast with high winds on both Saturday and Sunday was not encouraging either. 35-50kph minimum. The sea area forecast reads as follows: Outlook for a further 24 hours until 1200 Sunday 22 November 2009: South to southwest winds veering southwest to west - generally up to gale or strong gale force, and reaching storm force in places. Rain or showers at times.

Orienteering Stance

Thanks to Harry for permission to publish his poem (Shilo is his dog)

We were a happy trio,

me, Mum and leggy Shilo

arm -in -arm -off -lead

listening to

Mahon Falls

booming.

Cold air, wind rushing through me ~

every time we found

orange and white

we lurched forward

to find the

next.

We burst back. Shilo slips,

falls ten feet into the river,

is dragged, heaved,

tossed and turned

by the rushing

rapids.

I live in shocked suspense ‘til I see

him hobbling, disorientated but

trying to get back

to his familiar

orienteering

stance.

One hundred and ninety seven minutes.

How can I describe them?

Top of the world

Exhaustion

Experience

The end

November 2009

Mahon Falls prove tough

Competitors at the Munster League event held at Davmore/Mahon Falls in the Comeraghs found the terrain tricky and heavy going. Some tried courses which were too demanding for them and ended up either taking a long time or missing a control. Full results have been posted to the IOA website.
Thank you to Pat O'Connor who planned the courses and tagged the control sites; Andrew Pim and Norman Storey who put out the controls and brought them in plus organised and ran the start; Elizabeth Storey who did registration; and Nigel Pim who did Upload and Download. Thanks to Laura for some of the pictures. As organiser of the event, I appreciate the contribution of all the club members. Thank you.

Munster Champs Success

A small but elite band travelled to Toureen Wood near Cahir for the Munster Championships. Congratulations to Liisa Honkasaari (W40), Laura Cox (W18) and Andrew Cox (M50) who were all crowned Munster Champions. Ian McHardy (M35) won the Silver medal whilst Sue Pim, Roger Johnson and Angela Cox all won Bronze medals. Well done to all concerned.

Planning courses

Two weeks ago, I found out that I was planning a local event at Kilbunny woods in Portlaw. The preliminary visit threw up some interesting changes to the map. Considerable forest clearance, new tracks formed and old tracks partially blocked. Panic....four hours of noting changes on an old map. More time updating the map on the computer using OCAD (Orienteering Computer Aided Design).

Back out to the forest to check the changes and plan the four colour coded courses. Another three hours in the forest clearing the brambles from usable tracks. On the way back from the forest saw a sign that there was to be a sponsored horse ride in the Portlaw woods on Sunday 25th, the original date for the event. Managed to agree a change to the Bank Holiday Monday.

Put out some of the controls on Friday, feeling reasonably happy that everything is in hand.

Left home on Monday morning at 8.30. Put out the directional roadsigns. Arrived at the barrier, at least it was not locked! Drove out the the furthest point to find a happy forester clear felling an area of forest that contained two controls! Help! Had to do some last minutes rejigging of courses and map changes. Why do Coillte never tell you what they are doing when you pay the user licence fee?

People started to arrive, starting to get a little drizzly...loads of people arrive...starting to rain and get very misty. first Blue course competitor returns...control missing...kite and post still there on the ground, SI unit missing. Nothing I can do, only on Blue course in an area with almost no through traffic...maybe a horse ate it the previous day?

Green and red course competitors return with tales of difficulty finding a boulder near the top of the far ridge. Maybe the additional extraction rides were confusing and should have put a control on the end of the path...I put the control out that morning in the opposite direction, coming down off the hill.

Start to run out of red course maps...manage to recycle a few at the end....never know how many to print! Download problems...computer starts to decide it is not going to recognise the Com Port...cannot download information from SI cards...at the last minute it decides to work...phew!

Despite the long course times, the climb were to blame, most competitors finished their respective courses and there was no complaint of any controls in the wrong place just some grumbles about mapping standards. The weather turned rather damp and misty so early entrants had an advantage.

Full results are up on the IOA website. Current standings after 3 South east league events can also be found here. A big thanks to Angela and Jana Cox for all their hard work on the start, upload and download.

From a learning perspective, this weeks chosen control sites (excuse the quality of the pix, it was getting dark when I was taking them in) are displayed below.that darned boulder!a crag deep in the forestthe selected earthbank or is it a ruined stonewall from when this was agricultural land?Just how misty it became...so much for the spectacular views of the river Suir and the Comergh mountains!

Tower Hill results

Results for Tower Hill are on the IOA website.

Report to follow from Con.

National Trails Day

October 4th is National Trails Day. We will be hosting a SE league event on that day at Tower Hill woods in Portlaw. Starts between 11 and 1 as usual.
For more information about National Trails Day.

Please come out and support the event...there are freebies available for those who come early ...pens,stickers,etc coutesy of Coillte.

South east schools relays

The South east schools relays event took place at Kennedy Arboretum with the kind permission of the OPW on Wednesday 23rd September.
Thanks to all the club members who gave up their time to help run the event: Pat, Veronica, Paul, Norman, Alan, Jana and Hugh. Thanks to the schools and their teachers who took part.
A list of corrected results are below. 160 Primary pupils and 90 Secondary participated. The Primary schools had a standard cross country course.

Senior Boys
1. Niall McEvoy, Ben Cross, Ruadhan Treacy (Newtown) 116.15
Ben Turner, Luke Bailey, Joe Dixon (Newtown) mp

Senior Girls
1. Nicola Power, Laura Cullen, Laura Cox (Ursuline) 129.36
2. Ciara Murray, Evelyn O'Regan, Tara Walsh (Ursuline) 206.56
Megan Lonergan, Jessica Gleeson, Jana Cox (dns) dnf
Sara Galloway, Andrea Hemmingway, Hannah Hermon (Newtown) mp
Junior Boys
1. Geoffrey Graham. Dahnan Spurling, Diarmuid Wingfield (Newtown) 82.05
2. Liam Landy, Neil Dunne, Ben O'Neill (Newtown) 132.05
Simon Quigley, Luke Ryan, Michael Vos (Newtown) mp
John Mullins, Barog Kennedy, Xavier Walsh (Newtown) mp
Junior Girls
1. Catherine McGrory, Mia Falkanthal, Phoebe Moore (Newtown) 135.02
2. Shona Murray, Elizabeth Kinsella-Kent, Evelyn Farrell (Ursuline) 139.50
3. Ciara Murphy, Niamh Maher, Rachel Moore (Ursuline) 172.20
Holly Wells, Gillian Bond, Melanie Fitzgerald (Newtown) mp
Minor Boys
1. Jonathan, Jacob, Robert (Dunhill) 30.00
2. Ted, Ian, Evan, Christian (Newtown) 108.23
James, Devon and Stuart mp
Minor Girls
1. Kayleigh, Ciara, Roberta, Atlanta (Newtown) 72.27
2. Sarah Ann, Grace, Lucy, Eve (Newtown) 74.32
3. Triona, Nikki, Kate, Chris (Newtown) 80.33
4. Rachel, Orla, Laoise, Nicola (Ursuline) 90.25
5. Rachel, Eimear, Rebecca, Doireann (Ursuline) 100.28
6. Doireann, Aoife, Grainne, Rhea (Ursuline) 140.07
7. Amy and Aoife (Ursuline) 140.51
Primary Boys 6th/5th class
1. Daryl and John (Christchurch NS) 32.57
2. Luke and Shane (Faithlegg NS) 34.05
3. Zack and Conor (FNS) 36.57
4. Alex and Danny (FNS) 40.40
5. Jonni and Conor (FNS) 42.17
6. Sam and John (CNS) 53.45
7. Kevin and Nathanial (CNS) 55.21
8. Anthony and Sam (CNS) 59.25
9. Sam and Joe (FNS) 95.10
Eoin, Philip and Nicholas mp


Primary Girls 6th class
1. Mai and Martha (CNS) 35.52
2. Alex, Bevin and Freya (CNS) 37.06
3. August and Katie (CNS) 38.01
4. Rebecca and Emily (FNS) 38.38
5. Sophie and Kirsten (CNS) 39.16
6. Kayleigh and Megan (Mercy) 40.16
7. Megan and Laura (St John of Gods, JOG) 40.48
8. Caoillinn and Lauren (CNS) 40.54
9. Shannon and Chloe (Mercy) 41.25
10. Sarah and Carrie (JOG) 41.29
11. Clodagh and Katie (CNS) 41.30
12. Katie and Lauren (JOG) 42.51
13. Jennifer and Chloe (JOG) 43.34
14. Niamh and Ellen (JOG) 44.37
15. Sinead and Orla (Mercy) 44.53
16. Claire and Alana (CNS) 45.00
17. Sophie and Lauren (Mercy) 45.25
18. Chloe and Jenny (Mercy) 45.48
19. Rachel and Clodagh (JOG) 46.18
20. Erika and Emma (CNS) 52.35
21. Claire and Emma (JOG) 53.37
22. Kelly and Catherine (FNS) 54.36
23. Hannah and Kate (Mercy) 54.48
24. Sarah and Kayla (Mercy) 55.34
25, Shanifa and Paulina (Mercy) 56.47
26. Claire and Leah (Mercy) 59.58
27. Megan and Katie (JOG) 60.56
28. Lauren and Ciara (JOG) 61.18
29. Chantelle and Kayleigh (JOG) 61.57
30. Bridget and Monika (Mercy) 62.18
31. Jan and Jessica (JOG) 64.03
32. Carragh and Orlaith (Mercy) 64.08
33. Ann Marie and Ciara (Mercy) 64.55
34. Jane and Abbie (JOG) 66.07
35. Laura and Kayleigh (JOG) 67.06
36, Lauren and Valeriya (Mercy) 67.32
37. Ellen and Jennifer (Mercy) 67.38
38. Hanna and Jessica (Mercy) 68.51
39. Tina and Mary (Mercy) 69.00
40. Kinga and Lauren (Mercy) 74.19
41. Sarah jane and Megan (Mercy) 76.46
42. Chloe and Jadine (Mercy) 78.28
43. Aoife and Damilola (Mercy) 79.00
44. Alexandra and Mia (JOG) 93.53

Primary girls 5th class
1. Ella and Aisling (FNS) 36.14
2. Molly and Laura (FNS) 37.25
3. Emma and Rebecca (FNS) 38.38
4. Eimear and Jennifer (FNS) 41.17
5. Emma and Orla (JOG) 48.31
6. Alison and Clodagh (JOG) 56.07
7. Catherine, Erinn and Emma (FNS) 59.06
8. Lorna and Isa (JOG) 63.05
9. Alicia and Katie (JOG) 63.49
10. Kate and Emily Jane (JOG) 64.18
11. Aoibh and Niamh (JOG) 112.10
12. Maeve and Katie (JOG) 117.27
13. Abbie, Abbie and Rachel (JOG) 132.00
Kate and Michelle, Leah and Aoife, Rachel and Clodagh, Louise and Eleanor, Rachel and Kaya, Nicola and Ellie, Natalie and Rebecca all mp

Sun,sea and surf

Well the sun arrived...it being Sunday but as is usual when it is sunny there is often very little wind and therefore little surf.
From an orienteering point of view it was something of a catch 22 situation..if we had been right at the seafront, we would have had a bigger audience/entry. Being at the end of the carpark was too far for most people to walk!
Anyway, 25 of our regulars and a few new participants turned up to complete what proved to be a rather wet course!! Recent tides had flooded the usually dry flat area.
Full results are posted to the IOA website
I hope it was a useful training event for the younger children. Thanks to John Casey for putting out the controls and to Laura Cox on upload and Angela Cox on registration.

Updated Colligan results

Nobody spotted the deliberate mistake...the map was titled Colligan East...it should have been Colligan West!!!
Honour of the day goes to Ian Heggs who found the sport ident unit I mislaid when putting out the controls. Thanks.
General concensus was that some of the contours were missing on the map and that the climb was more than advertised. I have altered the heights accordingly.
There is no doubt that the damp summer resulted in heavy growth of ferns and brambles. Tracks used previously for the Munster schools event in May required clearance. Hopefully the addition of taped sections improved the courses for everybody. Times were correspondingly long for the length of course.
Full splits/results are posted on the IOA website.

Silva Orienteering Camp

Silva Orienteering Camp took place in Vidnava in the Czech Republic the last week of August. It's a camp for 8-18 year olds, mostly Czech children, but there were people from Israel, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland and Spain too. Really my experience can be summed up in an A-Z!

Andrea - my friend from the Irish Squad who acted as a translator for a lot of the camp

Bikes - we went on bike trips as well as cycling to and from events

Challenge - as well as the maps being complex, our fitness levels were challenged
Dancing- everybody in camp had great fun dancing the macerena at the Spanish evening!



Entertainment - every evening there was cultural evenings or discos to keep us amused

Frogs - they were everywhere in the forests we were in!

Great experience - a chance to learn from top Czech orienteers

Heat - most days it was over 20 degrees celcius which was different to what the Irish orienteer is used to!

Israelis - they were interested in finding out about different cultures and in sharing their own

Jokes - they gave us a control on a rock in the middle of a river...why???

Kangaroos - Sagi from Israel supposedly saw kangaroos whilst out orienteering but we hunted and found none

Late night cards - our team had a tendency to play 'DONKEY' every night until quite late ...

Mosquitos - too many bites, my only complaint!

New friends - I hope to meet up with all my friends at orienteering events next summer :)

Orienteering of course but also organisation. Silva O camp is impecably organised

Playing games - we had our own olympics with crazy madeup games like throwing the control as opposed to a javelin!


Queen - when a girl on our team entered the miss vidnava contest, we all helped her with her free performance by dancing in the background the dancing queen

Rain - it rained all morning for the score event

Slovakians and Slovenians - pretty much all the friends I made at O Camp where one or the other

Terrain - very complex forested areas which were quite different from Irish terrain

Uphill race - we had to run 800m of steep uphill

Vidnava - we were 4km from the town


Wasps - lots of them, especially at breakfast

X(cross) - the first day we had laps to run in the heat, a bit like the time trials except steeper.

Yellow - the colour of the girls tshirts, the boys got blue

Zdrahal, Robert - the guy in charge, usually known as Brko

I'm looking forward to going back next year to this excellent camp!! See you there in 2010?