Chairman's chat

Thanks to the Committee and Club Members for their support during my year as Chairman. I had been brought out of retirement after Bob Lloyd completed his maximum term of three years.

The major achievements since the last AGM have been: Progress with QO map conversion to OCAD; the successful staging of Quantock Weekend of Orienteering, incorporating the Army Inter Corps Orienteering Championships and the QO Galoppen; the use of the new building, COACH, at French Weir Park as a centre for training and development (as well as shorter Committee meetings!); and the launch of the new QO website as an alternative to the Quonicle magazine.

Turning to the ‘credits’ for our extended ‘season’.

In partnership with DEVON, the Long ‘O’ team of Andy Rimes, Rosie Wych, Bill Vigar, and Richard Sansbury at Belstone on Dartmoor

The new QO Website created by Paul Frost with much work done by Jeff Pakes. Thanks to Nathan Fernandes for the previous website, and for Mike Crockett, Adrian Edwards and Gavin Clegg for their contributions to keeping the Quonicle going. Hopefully a new editor will be found for the future. Thomas Hasler has fed us with O info on a weekly basis.

• The Quantock Weekend of Orienteering was planned by Richard Sansbury. The expansion to include the Army Night and then the Reserves Championships meant continual revisions, so the organisation became too much for him, especially when the QO Galoppen and an Avon Schools event were added on the Sunday, so a Steering Committee was formed and worked well to produce a worthwhile weekend. Extensive management of the Forest commissioned by the Forestry Commission now has meant limited use of the area for the next two years. Thanks to Bob for liaising with the Forestry and Quantock Wardens about areas we hope to use for the next Level B (Regional) event for early in 2018.

Steve Robertson joined the Committee and has headed up the Mapping sub-Committee to oversee the conversion from Bill’s highly respected, but non main-stream Postscript files to OCAD files. The decision made to progress this ‘in-house’ rather than seeking outside professional help is a considerable cost saving to the Club. Thanks to Bill Vigar, Andy Rimes and Jim Mallinson for making use of the latest technological skills to enable this.

Julia Robertson has exchanged ‘jobs’ with Judy Craddock and will operate as membership secretary from outside the Committee. Judy continues with putting together a fixtures and activities list by ‘twisting arms’ to find planners and other officials throughout out the year. Chris Hasler has remained on the Committee, despite an extended illness. We wish him a speedy return to the Forest and to competition with the rest of his family!

• The QOAD series continues with a select group of night orienteering devotees. Often these come from other clubs and Robin Carter from DEVON won the series again. There is something magical about being lost in the dark as well as in the forest! Why not give it a go this year?

• JOG has continued to draw in newcomers and their families, thanks to Judy’s persistence and persuasion. Her firm belief is that regular training and a progression route for children is the way forward for both the members and the Club. Thanks also to Tess Stone and Vikki Page for providing the coaching and to Angela Modica for initiating the ‘buddy’ system. It has been suggested renaming JOG to include the increasing number of seniors who take advantage of regular Saturday events and mid-week training. Any suggestions welcome!

QO’s recognition in the Orienteering world is retained thanks to the success of our ‘super veterans’ Bill Vigar and Mike Crockett. However we are hopeful that our age demographic is reducing with our ‘O’ tops appearing in the top half of the Galoppen and other Regional events. At the younger end the success of Andrew Page in Urban events has been re-enforced with his wins in the junior classes at the recent Poole and Bristol events.

An underused resource which is being given increased emphasis by British Orienteering are our Permanent Orienteering courses in Somerset. Considering the popularity of Parkrun ‘tourism’, I am surprised we do not find more people ‘exploring’ the areas in Taunton, Minehead, and Yeovil that have been mapped and control sites identified. The maps are freely available on the QO website and members have been identified to keep an eye on them. Thanks to Mark Maynard, and Chris Page for looking after the Taunton areas.

Ray and Sue Toomer and Vikki Page used World Orienteering Day last month to promote our sport in local schools. The ‘Maze’ style challenge has proved to be a convenient, simple method of getting children to read a map at speed and has been used at several events this summer.

What of the future?

Rosie Wych has wrestled with producing a two day Long ‘O’ event this year although Martin Longhurst (DEVON) is well ahead with planning the Sunday event.

We are using the summer to encourage and recruit more juniors by our Thursday evening coaching and the Norton Manor Camp Orienteering Festival for about 850 primary school children in conjunction with the Somerset Activities and Sports Partnership (SASP). An amazing 17 members volunteered to help.

The StarTrack Athletic Summer School organised by Taunton Athletic Clubincludes an Orienteering session.

The relays this summer and the Peter Palmer Relay in Birmingham in September are great fun. Hopefully these will kick-start our JOG season with activities on Saturday afternoons and training and development courses at the COACH Club Nights on Thursday evenings. I hope you will support us. Our Level B (Regional) contribution next year will be the Preliminary Round of the Compass Sport Cup when we have high hopes of actually making the Final.

• Next year is the 50th Anniversary of Quantock Orienteers and you can read a splendid account of the history of the club on the website. I would like to suggest the next Committee look at producing a major event on the new OCAD version of the whole of the Quantocks to celebrate this milestone -but that will be up to the next Chairman to motivate the officials and mappers!

- Roger Craddock, Chairman

• Report as delivered (with one or two amendments) to the AGM, 24 June 2017
• Follow the links in green typeface for more information
• Editors note: of course, the next chairman turned out to be...Roger!

P.S....wishing you a successful recovery from your knee op, Roger!