February Roundup
Goddards at BOC 2026
February was a fairly low-key month as far as QO-organised events go, but QO members have been busy taking part in events elsewhere, including some big competitions.
February was a fairly low-key month as far as QO-organised events go, but QO members have been busy taking part in events elsewhere, including some big competitions.
Starting with our own events, we had the last two events of our more condensed than usual street series. Well done to the winners: Robin, Hazel, Emily and Ray. Big thanks to all our planners: Hazel, Ollie, Ray and Brian, and especially to Ray for stepping up to pull this series together at fairly short notice. You deserve your win! And thanks to the enthusiastic regulars for coming and supporting it of course.
Only one JOG this month as Netherclay was quite understandably postponed. But the rain eased enough so Roughmoor could go ahead. Theo was way ahead of the rest on the Squirrel course and now leads the league table. Lots of participants on Badger, Boris won ahead of Luke, but Luke leads the league so far. Also good numbers on the Fox course with Tom the fastest. Thanks to Mike for planning.
For classic forest colour coded orienteering, the month started at Cranham, near Gloucester. Jeff and two Toomers took part, but best QO performance came from Steve coming 9th out of 60 on green.
Devon held two events on consecutive weekends. The first of these, Fernworthy, attracted twenty-two QO members, not counting joint controllers Andy and Rosie. Among the Fieldmice, Robin and Robert were 1st and 3rd respectively on brown, Adam would have been faster but mispunched. Brian P was 4th on blue, Ollie L just beat Ray to come 5th out of 26 on green. Tony was 2nd on short green, and Dylan 2nd on orange.
The QO Forest League concluded with the Devon's Harcombe event, although we don't have league scores yet. Seventeen QO members were there. Robin took the win again, with Robert 4th and Will 5th. Other good results from Steve and Phil, 7th and 10th on blue, Ray 10th on green, and on short green John T was 3rd, very closely followed by Adele, Tony and Sue.
BOK held a night score at Stockhill which two QO tackled. Good result for Brian P, 14th out of 65, and Ed came 39th.
This year's Compass Sport Cup heat was at Clouds Hill, Bovington. A QO team of twenty-one travelled down. A stroke of luck - our late starting times meant many of us missed the heavy rain. Our habitual winner Robin did spectacularly well, winning the brown a long way ahead of all others. Great 3rd places by Robert, Brian P and Ollie L. 5th place scores came from Bee and Richard, with Steve taking a 6th. But unfortunately QO was some way behind the winners, so there will be no trip to the final for us. Strong teams from joint hosts gave the victory to WIM and WSX, and I believe SOC and SARUM will also qualify, and well deserved too.
The month ended with the British Long Distance Championships in South Wales. Ten QO members took on the best orienteers in the country on tough terrain. There's a report elsewhere so I will not repeat it, but I will pick out a good result from Finley, and Brian P capped off a successful month with a strong placing too.
In committee news, Steve and the other mappers have tidied up our digital filing so we have a proper map inventory and a secure back-up system. Ollie has now fully taken over the webmaster role, and we have a new national photo policy to comply with. When attending events please take photos (providing you have permission) and send them in, this will help keep our website vibrant and relevant.
The club has committed on a number of major events, We are already lined up to host the Southern Championships next year, and having organised the Compass Sport Cup qualifiers a few times we are investigating whether we could step up a gear and host the final. But the biggest of all is the possibility of QO organising the sprint day of the JK weekend in 2028, although we are still unsure whether this will happen.