Maintenance to the Longrun POC
And an upgrade...
Our President and our Membership officer have been out and about checking the wooden posts on the Longrun Meadow Permanent Orienteering Course. Replacement plaques have been made and attached, and more significant structural repairs to one post are being arranged.
New QR code plaques have been added, allowing their use with MapRun6 QR punching. We'll be releasing a new range of courses using these in the near future.
Virtual TempO
Ever wanted to try Trail Orienteering? Well, now's your chance to have a go at an online version.
Instead of running from control to control, TrailO involves looking at the map and identifying which of the controls you can see in the landscape matches the one on the map. It allows everyone to compete on a level playing field. In the popular modern form, TempO, you are timed making each decision.
If you want to have a go at the March series, go to http://temposim.yq.cz/tempo.cgi. Make sure you select 'GBR Quantock orienteers' when setting up your account (or your own club if you just happen to be visiting our site).
Restarting Events
The government timetable for England currently has competitive outdoor sport restarting from 29 March. British Orienteering has indicated that to be the earliest date that they will support orienteering events. Obviously, this is dependent on what happens in the next few weeks.
Quantock Orienteers is planning on restarting with a few events where social distancing can be easily managed. They will be MapRun events requiring no touching controls, no download, and only minimal contact at map collection. As before, there will be online registration and only a few competitors allowed within each 15-minute start window to avoid queues at map collection and any congestion on the course.
Missing Maps Project
The Missing Maps Project was set up by the British and American Red Cross, Medecins Sans Frontiers, and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team to produce maps of vulnerable areas in the developing world that can be used to support humanitarian aid and disaster relief.
Quantock Orienteers would like to encourage orienteers to help with this effort as they already have the map awareness needed. The mapping is done using OpenStreetMap, which many members will be familiar with as we use it to create the base data for our Street Series maps.
Online JOG Planners Course
If you are looking to skill up during Lockdown, why not do our JOG Planners Course? It will take you through everything needed to plan and to control a Hare, Squirrel, Badger, and Fox for one of our junior activities sessions. It is also a great introduction for those wanting to go on to plan for Category D events.
New Lockdown Challenge
Can the club run Land's End to John O'Groats and back again?
This Lockdown, QO is taking on a challenge. As a club, we want to run Land’s End to John O’Groats and back again. Well, virtually, anyway. We’ll add up all your runs during daily exercise, be that a visit to a permanent orienteering course in your local area, a quick trip to the shops and back, or laps of your garden.
Update: We made it to John O'Groats on 31/1/21- less than a month to do it!
Tier 4
From 31 December, Somerset enters Tier 4. Accordingly, we will be postponing our scheduled events. We will announce more information shortly...
For full British Orienteering rules for Tier 4 areas see https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/news/5431
Happy Christmas
Happy Christmas from Quantock Orienteers. Hope you got all sorts of nice orienteering-related presents.
Some families have been sending in photos of children wearing club snoods...
JOG Spring 2021
As we are now in Lockdown, we are unable to arrange events. However, we are able to provide additional permanent orienteering courses. We'll be providing them in the normal JOG courses - Hare, Squirrel, Badger, and Fox. As they become available, they will appear on our POC page.
Uncrossable Boundaries
The recent Longrun JOG threw up a point about uncrossable boundaries. As so many were caught out by this, and earned a time penalty as a result, I thought it would be sensible to highlight this. In a more serious competition, disqualification would be the likely result of an infringment.