Sorry – I had to miss the Club AGM this year . I however paid the ultimate price as ‘friends’ on last years committee connived to elect me as your Chairman. Let this be a warning for all non-attendees in the future – the precedent has been set !

The new committee has now met together for the first time since the AGM. We have a busy year ahead – we will need as much help as you can offer if we are to stage these events, remain sane and still continue to enjoy our sport.

In less than a month, November 19^th, we have our EAGAL colour code event on Knettishall. Simon Peck and Bill McLean have produced a fine new map. The courses are currently being finalised. If you are available on the day to help out please give Goff Hill a call.

Rendlesham Forest is being mapped with the aid of Lottery funding and the new map will be ready for use early in the New Year. On March 4 we will be running a BOF Ranking BADGE event. This in itself is a serious undertaking and I am particularly grateful to John Webb for agreeing to act as overall Organiser and to Bert Park for undertaking the course planning. Good luck guys.

On top of this we will be utilising the new EAOA electronic punching system. Read John Webb’s article on page 5 for more about e-punching. Also John is making an appeal for help. We are holding a training day at John and June’s home on 2^nd December. Please break cover and volunteer to join the e-event organisation team.

We aim to test out the equipment in competition conditions at our colour coded event at Ickworth on January 14th. Hopefully the team that runs Ickworth will be encouraged by the experience and will be prepared to undertake a similar role for the Rendlesham event in March. Andrew Elliott will be the first of our planners to set e-punching courses. Again – the best of luck.

And then there is a colour code event at Shrublands on 22^nd April . I’m still looking for someone to organise this one – any volunteers ?

I must not end this chat of mine without looking back and thanking Louise Walker, our retiring Chairman, and Bill and Yvonne McLean who edited the Punch last year. They may of handed on their respective batons to Ian Price and myself – it’s good however that they continue to actively support the club events and have agreed to remain on the committee in 2000/2001. The three of them were of course responsible for Planning, Controlling and Organising our Introductory event at Nowton Park last month. Nice day and good fun for all who made the trip up to Bury.

I hope to see you out in the forest sometime. I am the rotund, bald M55 in Suffoc colours who will probably be in the process of re-locating. Someone has to set the standard. My car, an Orange Peugeot 306 is also conspicuous – do look out for me, we can exchange news of our triumphs !

Here's the fixtures list for the next few months

Editorial

Welcome to the first newsletter that I’ve put together. Although I like computers and the latest website information, you still can’t beat having the newsletter in paper format.  Easy to read whilst eating your cornflakes or having it to hand for forthcoming events - although now you're reading this website edition you can have the best of both worlds! For this reason I hope that the printed edition will still continue, but linked in with the web and emails.

All members are welcome to email or post articles to me. Even room for the odd holiday advert if requested! It would be nice to have a junior section too.

I currently have two spare places, sharing a twin bunk bedded room in a superb self-catering apartment at Méribel for the week 20^th to 27^th January next year. The apartment is well appointed and placed so that unlike at most places in Méribel you can ski to and from the door. There are also plenty of things to do for non skiers. The cost of the apartment is about £130 per person, depending on the state of the Euro next January. If you are interested and would like more information, please contact me as soon as possible.

John Webb 01473 742778 (Telephone & Fax) or

e-mail John@sproughton.flyer.co.uk

http://www.ordsvy.gov.uk/

Just a quick update on the Rodings Rally position. I have one full team and one team of two for the long course and Ellie, my daughter, is trying to pull together a junior team. If she gets a team together I will be looking for an adult to accompany them as I expect they will all be under 18.

There's also still time to get another team together if anyone is interested. Please contact me by email goffh@btconnect.com or telephone 01473 255099 if you want to compete.

Goff Hill

I recently travelled to SMOC’s colour coded event at Twywell Country Park. A park event, and a 1:5000 map – hardly worth going to, except that I wanted to try an electronic punching event. At least it would be a chance to stretch my legs. The parking area in a flat featureless field with the start control and finish controls clearly visible on gates was not a surprise, but the mass of brown squiggly lines on the map was a bit puzzling. Anyway in due course I started and found myself in what must be the most complex area in the region, and one that is both technically and physically demanding! Moral – don’t underestimate country parks!!!

Having got the idiot bit off my chest what about electronic punching. This was the first time I had seen it and as a competitor I was very impressed.

You start by hiring a little red plastic “dibber” thing with a number printed on it, which you can attach to a convenient finger. You then take this to registration where you write your name etc. on a piece of paper together with the number on your dibber. In return you are given a map, a description sheet and a nominal start time, but no control card.

At the start you poke your dibber in a little black box labelled “CLEAR” which after a few seconds bleeps and flashes at you. This erases whatever, if anything, is stored in your dibber from previous use, so it is ready to be used again. You then poke it in a second black box labelled “CHECK” to make sure that it has been cleared properly. This one should bleep and flash almost immediately.

You then wait for your start time. When you are ready to go and there is a master map vacant you poke the dibber in yet another black box, this time labelled “START” until it bleeps – virtually immediately. This starts your personal clock. You then proceed round the course in the normal way, except instead of punching a control card you poke your dibber in a black box at each control, making sure that each bleeps. On the finish are yet more black boxes (labelled “FINISH”), and poking the dibber in one of these will stop your clock.

You then go poke your dibber in a final black box which is joined on to a computer. After a few seconds this bleeps and almost immediately your time for each control is printed out on a slip of paper for you.

If you go to a wrong control, or take one out of order this does not matter provided that you retrace your steps and correct your error so that you visit all of your controls at least once in the correct order. However, details of your errant wanderings will be printed on your slip for all your friends to see.

As a competitor, the only snag I found was that without a control card it is very easy to lose track of how far you have got and to miss a control (or in my case, two). Hence my knowledge about “misspunching”.

From the organiser’s point of view, labour requirements on the day are reduced, and no-one has to stand at a cold wet draughty “Finish” waiting for late runners to arrive. However, there will be new skills to learn, but

overall I was very impressed.

We are proposing to hold a training day for people who want to get involved with the nitty gritty of electronic punching, and who are prepared to help, or be available to be in reserve to help at Ickworth and Rendlesham.

Ideally we need people who have the following qualifications or interests:-

Unflappability and a general interest in computers combined with either:-

Expertise in setting up and using Local Area Networks or

Well versed in the workings of Windows.

Unflappability combined with:-

Expertise at entering data into a computer quickly and accurately via a keyboard and mouse.

The training will be held on Saturday, 2^nd December in the morning and running on into the afternoon at 17 Church Lane, Sproughton.

We have our beady eyes on a number of members in the club, whom we think fit the bill, but please do not be bashful. Please phone us before we phone you! Willing volunteers are better than people who are reluctantly co-opted.

Contact Clive Coles or John Webb to volunteer, or for more details.

This was my first time as Planner and judging from the comments of those arriving at the finish, the courses were enjoyed, especially the red course.

Initially I thought that I should start my planning with the easiest course, white, but this actually proved to be the most difficult as there was a lack of paths crossing the area from east to west. This resulted in very long courses for the white, yellow and orange. To cut down on the distances it was decided to separate the start and the finish, which made the organisers’ task more difficult but brought the course lengths to within BOF’s guidelines. I did however manage to plan a long course, red, of 4.4km which even on a small areas such as Nowton is achievable.

The main difficulty was the age of the map. Fenced areas have been introduced along with a maze. This restricted the use of the map in the south-western corner as a control point cannot be put on a map correction and the corrections were to numerous for the runner to copy accurately. (I will be interested, should the map be re-surveyed, what orienteering symbol will be used to represent the panda bear and the Totem pole!)

The area was ideal however for a 'come and try it' event as the park is well used by others and this served to raised the profile of Orienteering in Suffolk. It did however lack technically difficult control sites and the light green course was possibly technically easier than it should have been.

My thanks to Stella Haward who helped put out the controls on the day and to Bill McLean for his help and advice.

If anyone reading this wants to try planning, but doesn’t think they are capable- try it! You won’t be left to flounder, as there is plenty of expertise within the club to help you. I tried it and enjoyed it- Why don’t you?

http://www.cam.ac.uk/societies/cuoc/eaoa/