New to orienteering?

Check out our Getting Started guide for an introduction to the sport. Then learn more about the club, what it has to offer, particularly for juniors, and how to become a member. If you still have questions, feel free to contact us.

Coaching on Saturday 26th November - Cancelled due to Illness

By Helen Wheelwright , 19 November, 2022

There will be some more free, low-key coaching on offer for SOC members this coming Saturday 26th November, meeting at 10.20 for a 10.30 start at the northern end of the Blackwater car park of the Rhinefield ornamental drive, grid reference SU 267047.The session will run until 12.30.Toilets are available in the car park.

This session will focus on route choice and use of bearings and is most suited to improving orienteers. Double bagged paper maps will be provided.

There are ten places available for this activity. Please contact Helen on helenamandaaa [at] gmail.com (helenamandaaa[at]gmail[dot]com) for further information and to sign up.

Tim Holt

By Webmaster , 17 November, 2022

Sadly we have to report that former member Tim Holt passed away at home on Tuesday at the age of 79.

As Philip Cooper recalls, Tim was a long-standing member of the club until his early 60s. He had been introduced to orienteering, as were many of his contemporaries, through running with Gerry Barrell at Southampton University. He was active as a competitor and organised many events, including the 1980 British Championships on Kings Garn Gutter.

Tim had a successful career as a statistician and is remembered in this message from another former club member, Sir Ian Diamond.

There are no details of a funeral or memorial at the moment but, if you wish to send condolences to his daughter, Sarah, please webmaster [at] socweb.org (email) for her contact details.

November Classic 2022 - New Park, New Forest

By Terry Smith , 6 November, 2022

Attachment Size
Results by Class with Standards 487.12 KB

Colin Hicks

3 years 6 months ago

Just a quick thank you, more details to follow later. Firstly many thanks to my assistant organiser Alastair Moir for a sterling job, who I definitely think I could not have managed without. Thanks to Roger Crickmore of WSX for his controlling of the event, and especially to Kevin Bracher who planned excellently on a challenging area. The challenge being created by the major constraints placed on us by Natural England overseen by Forestry England. I wanted the event to achieve a big event feel with an assembly area and the finish central to it. I think it created a good atmosphere, despite the frequent rain showers throughout the day attempting to dampen our spirits!

Finally for now I need to say the event would not have taken place without the volunteer help of around 60 people. My thanks goes out to them, especially the team leaders for investing so much time into the event. I am proud we could host this event incorporating the SHI, UKOL, SCOA Championships and a junior selection race for Interland 2023. Oh and the normal November Classic ranking event!

And a PS to WSX OC thanks for partnering with us to host the urban event on Saturday at Friar's Cliff in Christchurch.

 

It is great to see we now have Routegadget up. Please take the opportunity to add your routes.  Now a couple of pieces of lost property found when clearing the site - one Air Walk woolly hat and a worse for wear large black umbrella! Both are currently with me.

 

Kevin Bracher

3 years 5 months ago

Planners Report

I hope you all enjoyed the November Classic this year and had good runs. The weather turned out much better than the forecast with some dry bright spells between the heavy rain, great if you dodged the showers not so good if you were out in the open.

I was very happy when I knew I would have a brand new area of the New Forest, never mapped before, to plan on. That was before we were given all the restrictions for ecological reasons which reduced the map area considerably. We ended up with what was in effect two separate areas linked by a narrow corridor.

This restricted planning options and so only the longer courses reached the western half of the map. I do not think anyone would have thanked me for taking you on a long walk to a remote start and then running everyone back through the restricted narrow section.

From green down I had to plan courses on the eastern half of the map. Apart from the OOB that all courses had to cross early on the eastern area had some of the best terrain and I think I used almost all the possible control sites. It was also great to have a run in and finish inside the Assembly area, this always adds to the feel of the event.

We decide that everyone should have an A3 map so even though you may not have run on the western side you still had the full map.

We were hosting several competitions from the Senior Home internationals, UKOL, SCOA Championships and Junior Selection Race as well as the Classic itself and several Club championships so I tried to make it as challenging as I could but fair.

A big thank you to my forest team and particularly Bill Davidson (Assistant Planner), Roger Pleasant and Steve Pullen who Hung controls Friday,Saturday and Sunday. Thanks also to Roger Crickmore our Controller. His help and advice was spot on.

We have noted a couple minor tweaks that are need on the map for future use and hope to be able to use the area again in the future. If we can find parking on the western side of the map we can offer the chance for shorter courses to run on that half of the map.

Kevin Bracher (Planner)

Event
November Classic