On a lovely Sunday morning Norfolk Orienteering Club hosted a mixed event at Waterloo Park in north Norwich. White, Yellow & Orange courses were provided as a ‘Try-O’ session for those new or newer to the sport, with a fun relay for regular club members.

For all those new to a NOR event we hope you enjoyed yourselves, and if you wish find out more about the club or Orienteering, do check out the other pages on our website. If you’re interested (or might be interested) in joining, and we didn’t capture your email address, do drop the Membership Secretary a line at NORmembership [at] norfolkoc.co.uk  You can see your results at the link below.

For those in the relay we hoped you enjoyed something a bit different, and whilst it was just for fun be sure to also click the ‘Results’ button once on the Relay Results page to see the times for each individual course – some of the split times may surprise you!

Our next event (and the last before the summer break) is at Bacton Woods, North Walsham Sunday 10th July – details will be posted here shortly – hope to see you there!

Results

White/Yellow/Orange courses – Results and Split Times
Relay Results and Split Times

Organiser’s Comments

This was my first event as organiser and Liz’s first event as planner. What could possibly go wrong?

Luckily the event was great fun, with several new families coming to try, and five relay teams competing for the honours of 2022 Relay Champions. Well done to Dave, Eden & Daniel for their win.

Waterloo Park proved a nice venue and has given several of us reason to consider using it for a Schools event and/or another Try-O event. As was proven, courses can be made challenging enough with thought, and the cafe and toilets are very welcome. The relay was also great fun and we’ll certainly look for more opportunity to add these to the program.

Thanks to all those who helped. We say the same after every event, but these things just wouldn’t happen without folk pitching up and mucking in. Particular thanks from me go to Liz for her planning and to Paul for all his assistance.

Ben.

Planner’s Comments

As Ben has mentioned, this was my first attempt at planning courses and I’d thought beforehand that it would be a (relatively) easy way to start – small venue, more of an urban setting than our usual woodland events and plenty of time to pull it all together. Despite that, we were still tinkering with courses on Monday and there had been several times over the last couple of months I’d cursed under my breath because we’d decided a fantastic course we’d planned couldn’t be used as it was too long, or I was trying to get people to run the wrong way, or didn’t have enough route choice. It turns out you just can’t get ‘perfect’.

Having spent weeks planning courses, in the end it was difficult to judge whether they were good or not, so I was pleased with the comments I heard today, from families who had gone round the White and/or Yellow courses, club runners who had tackled Orange and from the relay teams. It sounded like people enjoyed themselves and that there was some challenge to the courses. I hope people who have never tried orienteering before today will search out other events to see how they get on.

I have to give a massive vote of thanks to Paul Garton who voluntarily took on the job on ‘teaching me planning’ (and who in all honesty did most of the work). Possibly he’s only passed on a fraction of all he knows but it was always well received. Thanks also go to Jonathan and Paul who had the job of updating the map and making the hedges ‘more green please’ and to Ben who contributed with ideas and advice and much needed ‘it’ll be fine, don’t worry’.

For those thinking they might like to be involved in planning an event, do make yourself known. It is a real challenge but it’s also pretty thrilling and you get to see a side to orienteering you’d never otherwise see, plus there is a mass of help available so it’s never a one-person effort. Do it.

Liz.