Congratulations to Barney Steventon-Barnes who has been selected to join the GB Talent Squad South.The performance pathway for junior orienteers has been improved this year by having three squads across the country (South, North and Scotland) and this will lower the amount of travelling for squad members and coaches.Barney was selected through his performances at a number of selection races in 2021.These squads are a natural progression from the regional squads for talented juniors.
Barney was also selected to take part in the 2021 training camp, held this year in Scotland instead of Sweden (because of travel restrictions). His account of the training, both in the dune areas of the Moray coast and in the beautiful Glen Affric, will feature in a future edition of the club "Punch" magazine.
Two smiling family - and SuffOC - members were photographed at the EAOA presentations during our Bury St Edmunds Urban event today. Sarah Mansel is pictured holding the Bill Stevens Trophy while her daughter Bronwen has the 2021 East Anglian Championship Women's Open Trophy, the latter won at the Regional Championships held at HAVOC's Epping Forest SW event on 26th September.
The Bill Stevens Trophy was created in memory of the SOS member who died in 1987; it is awarded annually for "for people who have contributed greatly to orienteering in the region at any level, often working in the background, and irrespective of competitive ability".
The Club AGM, held after our recent event in Nowton Park, resulted in a few changes to the committee. We welcomed Simon as the new Chair, Clive and Sally as joint Secretary, and Adam as an additional committee member. Full details, including some additional non-committee Club roles, are listed on our Who's Who & Contacts page.
Will and Alison stood down as Chair and Secretary respectively and we would like to thank them for all the work they carried out on behalf of the Club.
The post of Punch editor has been vacant for a while, since both a Scottish university and a Scottish club enticed our previous editor to move up North. We're grateful that Louise Walker has now stepped into the breach and, now that orienteering is back on the road (and soon, hopefully, back in the forest!) hoping to get the next edition out by the end of August. Louise has already put out a request for articles via the club email list, so we'd better all get typing!
We'd like to thank our previous editor, Chloe, for all the work she did in this voluntary post, and wish her every success both on her course and with her new club.
We've now established permissions for our Simon Peck Summer Series & we also have a new venture, a series of Social MapRuns, as informal meets, open to all.
The SPSS events will have the normal format, i.e. a choice from 3 or 4 linear courses with SI timing, while the Social MapRuns will be score courses using GPS tracking. The Social MapRuns are unashamedly based on the successful format used by local running clubs - meet near a pub, run, return to said pub for refreshment and chat.
The Social MapRuns will each involve a 60 minute "Street-O" score course where you will need to use the MapRun6 (or its predecessor, MapRunF) app on your smartphone. In addition, carrying a printed map is an option which makes route planning easier - and is a necessity if you run with the MapRunG app on your Garmin sports watch.
If you haven't used the MapRun app before you can find details on our MapRun pages. All will be welcome, whatever their level of experience, so please encourage your friends to have a go!
