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Sorry to see Chasers’ night events have been cancelled. 
But there’s still plenty to do…
Saturday 7th: Brandon Wood, Coventry (OD)
Sunday 8th: Titterstone Clee (HOC)
Tuesday 10th: Walsall (HOC) – evening
Saturday 14th: Brocks Hill, Oadby (LEI)
Sunday 15th: Eyam (DVO) and Wroxall Abbey, Solihull (OD)
Tuesday 17th & Thursday 19th: Outwoods, Loughborough (LEI)
Sunday 22nd: Aberedw Rocks, Builth Wells (POW)
Wednesday 25th: Worcester (HOC) – evening and Burbage Common, Hinckley (LEI) – night
Saturday 28th: Charlecote Park, Warwick (OD) and Wyche Ridge, Malvern (HOC)
(Wyche Ridge is hosting a day event and a night event that day.)
Sunday 29th: Swynnerton (POTOC)
The next big event for me and the rest of my club is the CSC Final at Fineshade in Rockingham Forest. Unbelieveably, it’s the first time Harlequins have qualified, and at least 17 of us will be travelling over to Northamptonshire on the 18th to do our best to put Worcestershire (and environs) on the orienteering map. As you can see from the 1994 map, it’s a complex area:
Good luck to us!
Next weekend is another Seekend 
The OD charity event on Saturday is followed by Chasers’ maze event, and then on Sunday there’s a normal event on Cannock Chase.
Saturday 3rd: Tony Haw Charity Score event, Polesworth (OD)
and Maize Maze Challenge, Burton (WCH)
Sunday 4th: Cannock Chase event, Rugeley (WCH)
Saturday 10th: Leicester (LEI)
and Welsh Championships, Wentwood (SWOC)
and British Schools Score Championships, Chelmsford (SOS)
Sunday 11th: Chester City Race (DEE)
and Welsh Championships, Ystrad Mynach (SWOC)
Saturday 17th: Newcastle (POTOC)
and Cambridge City Race (CUOC)
SUNDAY 18th: COMPASS SPORT CUP FINAL, CORBY (LEI)
Tuesday 20th: Ratby (LEI)
Saturday 24th: Solihull (OD)
Sunday 25th: League event, Hereford (HOC)
Saturday 31st: Oxford City Race (OUOC)
Sunday 1st November: League event, Cannock Chase (WCH)
Himley and Baggeridge are nextdoor to one another so I thought it’d be a good idea to have an event with two races, a sprint around the parkland and woods of Himley Hall followed by a normal (or “Middle”) race around Baggeridge Country Park. Thus next weekend’s Black Country Championships were born. It’s clearly a bit more complicated to organise than a single competition, but in effect it’s only about an hour longer than a normal event would be. The Sprint starts are between 10 and 11, and the Middle ones between 12 and 1.30. The event details are here. For the sake of the championships aspect, the courses are organised according to age class, but people can treat it just like a normal colour-coded event if they like.
Paul Basher is planning the Middle race on Baggeridge, and Alison Sloman, as well as doing an excellent job updating the maps, has been out for us checking the controls. Updating the Himley map is a continuous process – trees keep disappearing!
I’ve been over there a couple of times this week and one of these mild days we’ve been having of sunshine and showers would be perfect. Poster
Tuesday 1st: Haughmond, Shrewsbury (WRE)
Sunday 6th: West Midland Relays, Long Mynd, Church Stretton (WRE)
and Trailquest, Haugh Wood, Hereford
Tuesday 8th: Nesscliffe, Shrewsbury (WRE)
Saturday 12th: Rough Wood, Coventry (OD)
Sunday 13th: Black Country Championships (sprint + middle), Himley Hall, Dudley (HOC)
Tuesday 15th: Lyth Hill, Shrewsbury (WRE)
Saturday 19th: Anna-Marie Son-Rise Challenge, Kidsgrove (WCH)
Sunday 20th: West Midlands League, Oakley Wood, Warwick (OD)
Tuesday 22nd: Shrewsbury street race (WRE)
Saturday 26th: Festival Park, Stoke (POTOC)
Sunday 27th (early): Peter Palmer Junior Relays, Sutton Park, Sutton Coldfield (COBOC)
and (later) Llanymynech, Oswestry (WRE)
Calf pretty good now – looking forward to trying it on Saturday and Sunday.
Sat 13: Warley Woods, Bearwood (COBOC)
Sun 14: Uffmoor Wood, Halesowen (HOC)
and: Severn Valley Country Park, Bridgnorth (WRE)
Tue 16: Fosse Meadows, Hinckley (LEI)
and Lilleshall, Telford (WRE)
Wed 17: Abbey Fields, Kenilworth (OD)
Thu 18: Clent Hills (HOC) – June Jaunter, a kind of sprint wayfaring, or wayfaring sprint.
Tue 23: Carding Mill Valley, Church Stretton (WRE)
Wed 24: Warwick University, Coventry (OD)
and Wombourne (StuWeb) – 5k time trial
Thu 25: Biddulph Grange (POTOC)
and: Lickey Hills (HOC)
Sat 27: Old Hills, Worcester (MADO)
Tue 30: Wrockwardine, Telford (WRE)
Wed 1 July: Coombe Abbey, Coventry (OD)
Thu 2: Haden Hill, Halesowen (HOC)
Sun 5: Park Hall, Stoke (POTOC)
and Carneddau, Builth Wells (POW/HOC)
All events within 50 miles of Birmingham
Time for a few ads…
1. Harlequins’ Thursday evening series is under way and carries on through August.
2. Droobers’ new park race series begins in Coventry tomorrow.
3. We’ve just had a bank holiday, I know, but the next one is very soon. That means Springtime in Shropshire!
4. Before then, on the 17th, there’s a Level Two event in Bentley Woods, and the entry deadline is this coming Sunday. Maybe the timing is bad, it coming the week after the big races in Nottingham and Thringstone, but I hope the number of entries pushes on well beyond the current 145. (Even assuming they do, I think some of the age classes ought to be combined at smaller regional events like this one: e.g. 18+20, 21+35, 40+45, 65++.)
Although I can’t find the map, I’ve found the results of the only event I’ve run there: it was the Midland Champs in February 1996. A good run by my standards: I got a “silver” time on M21S. This year’s event seems better value for money: the M40L was 8 km in 1996, while this year it’s 10km!
Excluding the string course, there were 637 competitors, and these were the course winners that day:
10 Megan Greenall OD, Nicholas Tinker MDOC
12 Emma Whitehead DVO, David Hodkinson NOC, Matthew Dickinson DVO
14 Julia Leventon WRE, Stephen Wright NOC
16 Hannah Wootton HOC, Alastair Footitt NOC
18 Claire Daniel HAVOC, Adam Harrison WAOC
20 Jo Abbott WRE, David Jenkins LSOC
21 Alice Bedwell BOK, Jamie Stevenson ESOC
35 Janet Evans NOC, Stephen Kimberley DVO
40 Jane Booker NOC, Barry Elkington OD
45 Judith Holt LEI, Roger Richards WCH
50 Sue Porter LEI, Rex Bleakman DVO
55 Judith Powell WRE, Brian Morris WRE
60 Marlene Palmer WCH, Peter Bayliss WRE
65 Barbara Bradley WCH, Frank Smith OD
70 Phillip Broadhead LEI
p.s. I love you too, Mark.
2nd-4th: 0007 (Forest of Dean)
Tue 5th: Alveley
Wed 6th: Coventry
Sat 9th: Nottingham British sprint championships
Sun 10th: Thringstone British middle-distance championships
Tue 12th: Brown Moss
Thu 14th: Hartlebury
Sat 16th: Schools Championships, Cannock Chase
Sun 17th: Bentley Wood badge event
Mon 18th: Bentley Wood police championships
Tue 19th: Stanmore
Wed 20th: Warwick
Thu 21st: Habberley
Sat 23rd: Stapeley SinS day 1
Sun 24th: Brown Clee SinS day 2
Mon 25th: Corndon SinS day 3
Tue 26th: Haughmond and Market Bosworth
Wed 27th: Rugby
I’m somewhat embroiled in a debate about how many clubs there should be in the West Midlands. At the moment there are three big clubs: OD in Warwickshire, Chasers in Staffordshire, and HOC in Worcestershire, three smaller clubs: Potoc in the Potteries, Wrekin in Shropshire, and Coboc in Birmingham, and two university clubs: BUOC and UWOC. (A few other clubs have come and gone: Wye, Solos, AOK…) Potoc and Wrekin are pretty strong for their size: they put on plenty of events and training, and organised the recent Compass Sport Cup round at Weston Heath. Coboc, on the other hand, seems to struggle to get a lot done. I’m partly to blame for this: I live in Birmingham but have always been a HOC member. (I can’t remember how I came to join HOC rather than another club, except to say that despite the existence of Coboc, HOC has seemingly always been the biggest club in the city, in terms of membership.) And although I intend to join Coboc, I have no intention of leaving HOC. HOC’s a great club: it’s got over 300 members and organises 50+ events every year. I suspect that for most people, being a member of such a club is more attractive than belonging to a small club.
What the debate boils down to is, will orienteering develop better in the West Midlands if new clubs are formed, or if the existing clubs start “initiatives” in the underdeveloped areas? One could argue that those people who say we shouldn’t start new clubs have a vested interest in maintaining/increasing the strength of their own club. But the evidence does seem to be rather on their side: small clubs struggle to keep momentum, and there is a lot of wasted energy in the duplication of committees and so forth.
My initial reaction to the growth in orienteering in schools in Wolverhampton (and elsewhere in the Black Country) was that there should be a new club. But who exactly would run the club?? And how would agreement be reached on which areas and maps belonged to whom? A better approach seems to be a MADO-style initiative. The Hartmanns started the ball rolling in Malvern about five years ago and it’s been a great success, but it’s always been part of HOC, with no prospect of it being a club in its own right.
But, then again… isn’t HOC in danger of spreading itself too thinly? What with all the other things it’s organising, how can it effectively launch a programme in the Black Country, an area where it and the other clubs struggle to muster two dozen members between them? Answers on a postcard, please. (Sacks of cash round the side entrance, ta.)
Black Country Map Racers (not a club)
Wolvo (not a club)
So what kinds of orienteering have I yet to do? Let’s see… First, a list of the kinds I’ve tried:
cross-country (winter 84/85) – two runs while I was at Durham, then a long gap till I did a well-publicised event in the Lickeys about 15 years later
night street (winter 94/95) – a staple of the Harlequins diet – a happy hunting ground!
score (winter 94/95) – the annual New Year’s Day event is great
summer evening (spring 95) – these low-key events have a different feel to them from the regular Sunday-morning slogs
wayfaring (winter 97/98) – I suppose this activity has transmogrified into the mountain marathons. My first and only teljesítménytúra was the Téli Mátra. More on this another time.
string (summer 06)
night cross-country (winter 07/08) – I put off trying this for three reasons: 1 I spend enough time orienteering already, 2 you need special equipment, 3 I thought it would be too hard or not fun. But it isn’t too hard and it is fun! I’ve recommended this video before and it continues to inspire.
relay (easter 08) – thereby hangs a tale. I did put my name down for a team back in 96 or 97, but went to the wrong venue! The venue had been changed but somehow I hadn’t noticed… On Monday I have a chance to make up for last year’s disaster.
sprint (summer 08) – Darwin Park, Stoneleigh and Archeopark
radio O (summer 08) – weird and wonderful
Yet to do:
urban sprint – almost what I’m going to be doing on Friday, but not quite. These events are clearly popular but also seem like an accident waiting to happen
trail O - coming up on Saturday
long O – I entered for the Cannock Chase event last year but couldn’t go. Which reminds me – I ought to ask the organiser for the map I paid for!
night relay – got my eyes on next year’s Jukola – Marti loves Finland and has been wanting to go back for ages
hash
mountain marathon/rogaine – I’m looking forward to doing a few of these in a few years’ time
MTBO – ha!
ski O – even less likely
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