Captain’s Blog – June/July 2009

Apologies for the delay in putting fingers to keypad to update the Captain’s Blog. Orienteering has taken a back seat in the Brett’s household since the Easter trip to Newcastle to the JK for a couple of reasons: one good and one bad. The bad first; my long reoccurring injuries are back and so I have not been running to much. In fact my only trip out was to jog a few controls at the Club Championships before deciding a comeback was still in the planning stage!

The second reason is more exciting: in May we bought a property in Derbyshire, not far from BOF headquarters in Matlock and many fine orienteering areas, and are currently renovating it – which is taking most of my out of work (and plenty of my in-work) hours.

We did however have a glorious day on 30th May – where 61 competitors enjoyed the sunshine at Hainault Forest. Whilst we didn’t attract as many new faces as we wanted, it was notable that CHIG had force in the younger classes with 9 juniors competing. With all the talk of the aging of the sport it is good to see the young out in force. Thanks to Jason Haigh and Josh Jenner for planning and organising.

CHIG has had a busy spring, thanks to a series of training events put on by Josh Jenner (see weekly updates, if you haven’t had these and would like them email him (click to send). Still a few weeks of Wednesday night and Saturday morning Training in July.

On 21st June CHIG ran the first FROLICS of the 2009 season. For those of you who are not aware the Frolics is a series of 6 events organised by CHIG, LOK, HAVOC, DFOK, MV and SLOW. The event is open to all, and every competitor runs the same course (about a light green standard). The results are then adjusted for age and sex, and previous orienteering experience. The first six finishers on handicap count towards their club’s scores, which are totaled at the end of the series to produce an overall winning club. After good performances from Mark Ford, Josh & Derek Jenner and Robin Campbell CHIG was lying 3rd with 18 Frolics points behind LOK and HH. As a new area for the FROLICS series Claybury Park attracted some good comments.

The second event was held on 28th June at another new FROLICS area Horsenden Hill. With a lower CHIG turnout Howard Wyber was the top handicap performer for CHIG, followed by Tom Edelsten. After two events CHIG is now lying in 5th place with 31 points, equal with HAVOC and DFOK. Leading so far is HH with 38 points. We await the confirmation of the 3rd race, held yesterday at Shooter’s Hill…………….. Full details and write ups are at http://www.londonorienteering.co.uk/frolic2009/frolic-series-cum-results.htm

Finally, after a top event planned by Mark Ford and results produced by the Jenner’s once again I should add my congratulations to our CHIG CLUB CHAMPIONS

  • Junior Boys = Alex Blowers
  • Intermediate Girls = Caitlin Campbell
  • Open = Robert Campbell
  • Open Women = Emma Blowers
  • Veteran Men = Tim Pribul
  • Veteran Women = Alison Curtis
  • Novice = Dave Blowers
  • Handicap = Marcus Blowers

All the best

Mike