Category: Coming Events

Post author By nillumbik
Post date July 5, 2022
Sticky post

This post gives members some information about upcoming bush events

All other events are listed on Eventor including Bush, Park/Street and Mountain Bike events. There are a few events coming up which you are invited to help at and take part in.

August 7 MTBO at Sandon State Forest near Newstead. DETAILS For inquiries contact organiser Robert Edmonds by email Contact@emuorienteers.com

August 28 FootO VIC Series at Crocodile Reservoir near Castlemaine. DETAILS Course Setter- Carolyn Layton, Organiser- Ron Frederick. email: President@emuorienteers.com for further details. Please note, Ron is looking for a co-organiser.

Sept 24-Oct 2 Australian Carnival: Full PROGRAM Ron Frederick is the organiser for the Australian Middle Distance Champs to be held at Blackwood on September 25. Neil Barr is the Course Setter and Chris Norward event advisor. Don Fell will be the advisor for the Schools Relay.

Entries close August 31.

Oct 16 The Maxi at Mt Franklin Gorge. Derek Morris has already started checking out the map, loolkingb for a suitable arena and course setting. For inquiries email: Contact@emuorienteers.com

Coming Events

Martine Barrot wins Park Street Course Setter of the Year Award

Post author By nillumbik
Post date April 4, 2020

Martine at the finish of the Waterford Valley event with her fluffy emu

Martine was invited to write a few comments about her experience and tell us a little more about herself. Congratulations Martine on a superb job.

“Along with my partner Andrew Johnston we started orienteering mid-2018. By late December 2018 we started going to Monday night StreetO regularly and quickly became hooked, at the same time we also discovered Geoff’s (Hudson) Suburban Adventure Racing series which we also love.

Through the Autumn/ Winter series in 2019 we decided to do both Monday and Wednesday nights as by this stage we were both well and truly addicted to the sport. Andrew has also taken me Rogaining on some 6 and 12 hour events, and we have done a couple of Metrogaines as well. When Lauris Stirling put the call out for course setters towards the end of the Winter series we both thought we’d have a go at setting a course each, and after an OCAD training course with Geoff, I started setting my very first course using the Waterford Gully map in Rowville. With no experience in course setting I didn’t really have too much of a plan.

My goal was to keep the controls as consistently spaced as I could and to use as much of the map as I could by going out to all corners of the map without being too long in distance. From there I just focused on trying to have route choices in every possible direction, I tried to make it so that as a runner there was not an immediately obvious drop of controls for course A, then being a power walker myself making sure there was enough options for those wanting to walk short and long distances. I feel I was very fortunate the event I chose to course set lent itself to providing multiple options, with winding streets going off in all different directions, with a few parks providing cut throughs and the basin through the middle providing ways to link as well. I was so nervous on the night as to what people would think, everyone was so complimentary, and now to have won the award on my very first attempt I’m a bit shocked, it’s certainly a confidence boost to do more course setting in the future.”

The Map and Course

Tags maps, Park and Street Orienteering

Coming Events

MapRun

Post author By Don Fell
Post date May 23, 2018

MapRun, a simple phone app which allows you to create and manage orienteering courses with minimal effort, no ground infrastructure etc that has to be set out and collected up, and almost no effort on the ground to plan courses.

Originally demonstrated to Victorians in 2015 at Westerfolds Park by its developer Peter Effiney, Maprun was trialled during the last Geelong and Surf Coast Summer Series. Initially events were run in parallel with the conventional punched card/control plates events. After the initial 6 weeks of experience the Maprun app has been significantly revised to provide a robust and reliable tracking tool. The final 6 weeks of the Geelong Series were exclusively Maprun events and this format has proved a huge success. The idea now is to develop a programme of MapRun events to run alongside our other events, targeted at non-orienteers, and those of us looking for something different to do on training runs or whatever.

We are presently running MapRun events in the Western Autumn Night Series coincident with conventional punched card/light pole controls courses.
It is a tool for urban and suburban environments – it is less reliable in the forest – but for those it brings a number of advantages over our current street series events: It doesn’t require special maps, courses can be planned almost wholly from your desk; and the phone app handles timing, scoring and results processing, so the planner/organiser has very little to do on the day.

We are looking at the best way to exploit MapRun as a means of attracting active people who are looking for something new to try. Meanwhile, as a taster of a new way of orienteering, the following images show part of my run last night in Footscray.

Post run reports include a RouteGadget report whereby other competitors’ routes can be compared and the event can even be rerun with graphical display of competitors moving around the course.