Category: Event Reports

event reports

Categories
Coming Events Emus Online Event Reports Social

Emus Online August 2023

Membership

Welcome to new club members Greg Bower, Kristian Ruuska, Jayden Styk, William Donnelly, Andrew and Lizzy Selby. The Selby family also have two youngsters who have been accompanying them at MelBushO events. We have picked up 9 new members this year and membership has grown to 68.

2023 VICTORIAN SCHOOLS ORIENTEERING TEAM ANNOUNCED

It’s great to see 4 of our juniors have been selected in Victorian Schools Orienteering team to be held at the Australian Orienteering Carnival in Western Australia, starting late September. The team will be away for 10 days. Congratulations to club members Xander, Matthew, Jayden and Izzy and coach Carolyn Layton and we wish them all a successful, adventurous and safe trip.

Members of the team are as follows:

  • Junior boys: Xander Greenhalgh, Matthew Layton, Jayden Styk
  • Junior girls: Izzy Greenhalgh, Angelina Kozma, Ella Maja Lang, Keely Williams
  • Senior Boys: Lucas Kent, Nicholas Mousley, Ash White
  • Seior Girls: Sophie Arthur, Maya Bennette, Milla Key

The team officials will be Bruce Arthur (Coach), Carolyn Layton (Coach) and Heather O’Donnell (Manager).

Our club will be supporting our members in fundraising for their trip.

Social: Christmas Dinner

Thank you Lauris Stirling for hosting the event and providing a wonderful meal. A great time was had by all.

Event Reports

Park and Street Orienteering – Contributor Lauris Stirling

As we enter the last two months of the winter season, I would like to take the chance to thank our volunteer course setters.

Our club was responsible for five Saturday afternoon events and six Wednesday night events.

Thank you, Martine & Andrew, Rick, Geoff, Robert, Christine.

Final 4 NE events not to miss:

Sat 12th Aug La Trobe University

Sat 16th Sept Glen Iris Enduro

Weds 30th Aug Heidelberg Heights

Weds 27th Sept Malvern Central 


YELLOW GUM – MELBUSHO (Plenty Gorge) 18 June

All courses for his event can be accessed at Livelox

Christine Prentice set the courses and Laurie Niven was the organiser for this event. There were 103 entries including 18 from our club and many other members who assisted without competing.

CANDLEBARK PARK – MELBUSHO 9 July

“RECIPE FOR A GREAT EVENT” Contributor Ian Parry

Take a crisp, cool Melbourne morning; add a location with something to offer for every Class from Easy to Long-Hard, mix in 134 enthusiastic runners and warm with mid-morning sun … Marvellous!

After a run of wet weekends, the Sunday morning at Candlebark Park on July 16th could not have been better. Sunshine, only the slightest of breezes and no rain forecast. Some last-minute changes to the map in light of the rain saw grassland reclassified as marshy, and marshes reclassified as ponds.

Respondents to the post-Event Questionnaire gave the Event organisation and the Courses a resounding Very Good from two thirds of the Entrants.

The Entrants varied from some very enthusiastic high-performance runners to family groups new to Orienteering … and there was enough fun to go round for everybody.

There were more than 50 Entries on the day, many people just wanting to give the sport a go on a great morning for getting out in the open air. New software “OE2010” has been upgraded to “OE12” plus the skills of Rob Edmonds made this a less of a daunting task than it has been in the past.

CANDLEBARK PARK OFFERS A RANGE OF TERRAIN

For a metropolitan park Candlebark has a lot of things going for it. Easy to get to, no parking issues, toilets on site and a range of possibilities to set Courses to please all levels of runners.

Big obvious tracks

“Maybe it’s a track?” Tracks

“Get in there and find the Control” Woodland

And the always popular “Am I allowed to swim on this Leg?”

A huge round of applause for all the “Emus” who gave up their Sunday morning to help … Events like this do not happen by themselves.

All courses for his event can be accessed on Livelox. There were 134 entries including 15 from our club and 6 members who assisted without competing.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO RUN A MELBUSHO HARD-LONG COURSE?

The standard answer is, on average about an hour. But that is just if you are a runner…

Running a MelBushO actually takes weeks, and many, many hours of work.

From planning the Event, organising permissions, setting, checking and tweaking the courses, organising the trailer load of equipment, setting up the data equipment and networks and then, on the day, there is a small army of hard-workers who put out Controls; do the Registration of runners; man the Start and Finish Controls; provide advice to newcomers; do data entry; download the runners times… then at the end of the day, pick up the controls, dismantle shelters; upload times and splits to the Net … and then get to go home…

Add up all those hours and day and the answer is quite staggering!

Congratulations to Event Director Helen Edmonds; and Course Controller Laurie Niven for their crucial work … but mostly to ‘Team Emu’ … including newcomers … who made it all work on the day.

Helen Edmonds in hi-vis vest registering a competitor on Sunday Morning.

Event Controller Laurie Niven making sure the whole Event is going smoothly and running like clockwork.

On the right Rob E. is talking to the computers … and the computers are talking to each other …

Could anybody wonder if this was an NEV “Emu” Event? The Shelters are marvellous!

And not to forget the all-important competitors … hope they had fun and will come back for the next Event!

And last but not least … a before the Event picture of a very soggy but very happy little Course setter out the weekend before the Event

This was Ian’s first event as a course setter. Congratulations on a fine job, Ian.

He has also been working on our new event management software, OE12 V.12.1 the club bought recently.

Ian set up the app on NE’s computers and solved connectivity issues.

Coming Events:

These events are not far off, and the Nillumbik Emus team is heavily into planning for these two important events. You help will be greatly appreciated.

Saturday Sept 2

Victorian Middle Distance Championships – Mt Alexander, Harcourt

Ron Frederick is the organiser with Rex Niven course setting. The adviser is Tim Hatley.

As Champs are on the Saturday, we will also need a few people on the Friday arvo to set up the assembly area. There is free camping with flush toilets available at assembly area.

Ron’s contact details: ronfrederick29@icloud.com 0418 994 841

Please note that the Victorian Long Champs will be using the same start location on Sunday.

This picture was taken last year at the Australian Carnival event held at Mt Alexander, at the finish. Carolyn and Matt Layton in foreground. Carolyn competed in Europe including the Scottish 6 day.

Ron has just arrived home safely after his sojourn in North America, including Alaska. “We were very fortunate to see these humpback whales bubble net fishing. Seagulls waiting for scraps.”

Mt Denali (formerly known as Mt McKinley), is the highest peak in North America. Ron didn’t have time to climb it. According to Park Rangers only about 900 did so successfully this season.

Sunday Sept 10

Vic Series (Bush) 8 – Mt Lofty, Redesdale

Laurie Niven is the organiser; Carolyn Layton the course setter and Don Fell is event adviser.

Laurie’s contact details: laurieniven153@gmail.com 0434 291 248

Categories
Event Reports

MT LOFTY AUTUMN BUSH SERIES #2 Sunday 15th April 2018

A great new area, West of Redesdale. Discovered by Rex Niven and mapped by Alex Tarr.

The event was a great success thanks in particular to : Course setter Rex Niven

Event adviser Russell Bulman and Organiser Ron Frederick.

IT team : Geoff Hudson, Rob Edmonds and Don Fell.

Registration team, headed by Laurie Niven.

Toilet and trailer towers Ron and Rob.

Another 10 or so NE members who helped with parking, pre start, finish, control collection and general pack up.

The area is generally runnable, spur gully with isolated rock and some thicker bush in the South, well away from the shorter courses.

Weather unpleasant on the Saturday, when we were setting up. However, on the event day, we only had a very small amount of rain, with patches of sunshine.

Rex negotiated with an adjoining land owner to use one of her paddocks for parking.

Most participants gave favourable feedback. It was suggested that the area would be suitable for school groups and/or relays, as it is relatively small and surrounded by open farm land.

Mt lofty results
Categories
Event Reports

Little Forest Report

Little Forest_2017

WinSplits

Video of Simon Rouse: Geoff Hudson sent this link to me and thought it was very impressive – heart rate shown….but the puffing and the way he talks to himself tells the story too. He passes Rob Edmonds on the way down to the creek from control 5.

Categories
Event Reports

Woodlands MTBO

woodlands-ss-mtbo-2017woodlands-mtbo

Woodlands Summer 75 #3 – Saturday Feb 18, 6 pm

Nillumbik Emus ran the event on a well loved Tuckonie map with the assistance of some TK members. With 53 riders gathered there was plenty of action around the assembly area. The Woodlands map has been updated with the 2 x 4 track system and some newly mapped areas. Keith Wade put a lot of thought into the course planning. Geoff and Schon Hudson set up the registration and results system on the clubs new computers. Geoff has developed a very user friendly and compact system with results going up on a screen and a small but powerful battery storage.

All was going well until John Gavens had a serious fall which required a rescue. Phil Giddings abandoned his course to assist and with another rider Gavin Thomas raised the alarm. Thank you also to Carolyn Cusworth for rendering assistance. Keith and Rob drove out and brought John Gavens back to base. He was driven to hospital but fortunately, though sustaining a badly strained shoulder, suffered no breakages or dislocations, as first feared.

Other club members present were Joyce Rowlands who got a bit lost finding the event site, Jim Glaspole who had a solid ride.,Jeff Hughes who assisted with packing up, Daniel Edmonds and Peter Maloney who collected some controls before dark after solid rides. Helen Edmonds helped put out controls and Ron Frederick helped set up and pack up. Phil collected some controls, getting in just before dark; but one control had to be collected next day. Thanks to Geoff and Schon for fetching it in.

Results of all Summer Series events Here

Woodlands results include Route Gadget

Rob Edmonds

Categories
Event Reports

Copperfield Rocks

Don wrote: There were 64 entries at Copperfield Rocks. I was very happy with the turnout as many of our people don’t travel far out of the Williamstown-Yarraville comfort zone.

Navigating my way by car through the streets was one of the worst experiences of my life – comparable to losing contact with the map in the middle of The Cascades!

Fortunately, it was much easier for the competitors on foot.

Anne Robinson wrote: An interesting new map “Copperfield Rocks” in Delahey for the Tuesday Western Summer series. Don Fell’s course setting provided more route choices than obvious at first glance and there were some close finishes and much comparison afterwards. The complex street network with pedestrian and bike access paths was a challenge in some ways but allows the locals to get out and about. Several orienteers commented on the numbers that were in the streets and parks and many gave us a friendly greeting. Not always the case!

copperfield-map
Categories
Event Reports

Tarrengower Maxi 2015

Maxi Class Results 2015.html

Maxi Splits 2015.html

The Maxi was held for the first time on the Mt Tarrengower map, Maldon. Derek Morris took the initiative to course set on the Bendigo OC map; a huge 1:10,000, A2 map. The Maldon Netball/Football club rooms gave the organisers a great venue for admin and catering. Late July can be quite cool and this day was no exception. Fortunately the forest was dry and the 82 competitors who set out soon warmed up. Ben Goonan and Craig Feuerherdt had a very close finish, both finishing the entire course of 30 controls, only 8 minutes apart. Congratulations to Thorlene Egerton for her superb effort, scoring 1500 points. Bruce Arthur would almost certainly have finished the course and given Ben and Craig a run for their money had he not had a late start

Alice and Helen Edmonds were the overall winners in the team category as well as the open female class. Patrick Jaffe won the junior male class and Asha Steer was the winning junior female. A pleasing aspect was the number of first timers who took part. Competitors enjoyed hot soups, cakes and fruit after the event, provided by Lauris Stirling and the catering crew. Thank you to everyone who took part and assisted with the running of the event.

Tarrengower.pdf  Pictures from the Tarrengower Maxi

GPS trace of Craig, Bruce, Andrew, Jim and Louise

Categories
Event Reports

Queen’s Birthday State Series 7 South German Mine – Maldon State Forest

Archived Entry: Tuesday, 10 June 2014

In perfect Orienteering weather 140 competitors enjoyed challenging courses set by Rex Niven. They were a little longer than we are used to, as the forest was nearly totally runnable and not particularly steep. Thanks to our hard working “thin controller”, course advisor Tim Hatley, organiser Ron Frederick and the hard working team of NEV volunteer officials.

Results, Route Gadget and Winsplits may be viewed athttp://www.vicorienteering.asn.au/results/.

Results are also displayed on Eventor.

Categories
Event Reports

Maribyrnong “Get Active” Expo 2014

The Western Park-Street Series hosted two events for the City of Maribyrnong “Get Active” Expo.

On a wet night at the Whitten Oval 15 keen participants braved the elements at a “Come and Try It” event.

Results:

60 minute Run:
1st. The Sneddon group (Robert and Daniel) 60 points

60 minute Walk:
1st. The Butcher group (Tony, Terri, Josh, Emily, Elise) 26 points

40 minute Run:
1st. The Harpur group (Clair, Ava, Peta) 25 points

40 minute Walk:
1st. The Sayers group (Lisa, Ned, Poppy, Tom, Xavier) 21 points

Thanks to Fiona, Ken and Don who worked at the event and to Ed and William for the course setting and BK for use of the map, and to Rick and the City of Maribyrnong for organising the Expo and use of facilities.

And the following Saturday at Footscray Park approx. 50 joined in with the Saturday Series crowd in glorious weather.
Results are listed with the overall Saturday Series results. http://www.vicorienteering.asn.au/gfolder/parkstreet/results/7-sat/event3.html

Thanks to Fiona, Ken and the TK members who worked at the event, to Don for course setting and to Peter and the Tuckonie club for use of the map, and to Rick and the City of Maribyrnong for organising the Expo and use of facilities.

Categories
Event Reports

Nillumbik Emus back-to-back at Victorian Teachers Games, September 2013

A Nillumbik Emus Orienteer, Rob Fell, took out the Open Men’s title at the Victorian Teachers games.  Rob won the 60min score event by completing the course in just over 45min; almost 3min clear of second place.

This year’s competition was held in Ballarat and organised by Eureka Orienteers.

From Mt Clear Secondary college, competitors traversed the logged areas south of Canadian Forest and explored the newer Mt Clear estates.

Last year’s teachers’ games event was won by Robert Edmonds. Rob broke the drought after a run of 5 silver medals, in 2012.