Captain’s Newsletter
In this 2023 end-of-year newsletter email, we've got exciting news about the 2024 qualifying heat of the CompassSport Trophy, part of a nationwide inter-club competition for which CHIG will pay for your entry as a way of saying thank you to its members for their efforts in helping us stage events. On this subject, thank you very much to all of you who volunteered as part of this year's Michael Brandon Mitre event in Epping North West on 3 December. We had almost 300 finishers including many top-level juniors, with the event having been designated as a selection race for juniors seeking to represent England in the forthcoming Interland competition (see here).
We've also got a round up of recent performances by CHIG members in events over the past few months and a note on this year's club champions and Maycraft Trophy winner as well as a request for expressions of interest in taking part in relay competitions in 2024. In addition, there's a reminder of what training sessions we have lined up over the coming months.
We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year's and are looking forward to taking part in more orienteering events over the course of 2024! Best wishes to those members taking part in the HH and LOK-organised Boxing Day score event at Trent Park! To anyone who is around on Boxing Day and has yet to enter, you can still sign up here until 23:59 today (24 December 2023).
Save the date: CompassSport Trophy qualifying event, Sunday 18 February 2024 @ King's Forest, near Bury St Edmunds
We are delighted to announce that our qualifying round for next year's CompassSport Trophy competition will be held at King's Forest, near Bury St Edmunds, in an event organised by SUFFOC.
By way of background, the CompassSport Cup and Trophy events are the UK's premier inter-club competitions, with orienteering clubs from around the country taking part in regional qualifying events to seek selection for the final held in October. As in previous years, CHIG will be submitted and paying for entries centrally, as a way of saying thank you to you for your time and effort in volunteering to make our events a success throughout the year, so look out for an email next month inviting you to sign up. Until then, please save the date!
2023 Club championship winners and the Maycraft Trophy
This year's club dinner, organised by Sally Pribul and held at the Miller & Carter restaurant in the heart of Epping Forest, saw the awarding of trophies following our club championships. These were held on 1 October as part of HAVOC's SWELL and EAL event in Epping Forest South West, giving us our 2023 club champions as follows:
Open / Men's Champion: Harold Wyber
Women's Champion: Not contested
Women's Veteran Champion: Sally Pribul
Men's Veteran Champion: Stephen Middleton
Novice Champion: Joanna Qiu
Congratulations to all of our new champions, and also to Iain Ambler who was this year's recipient of the Maycraft Trophy. This trophy is awarded annually to an individual who the club committee considers to have made an outstanding contribution to the running and life of the club, and Iain represents a worthy winner given his role as Organiser for a number of our recent events as well as his work on the club committee. Thank you also to Sally for organising a very successful club dinner!
Recent events round-up
It's been great to see and hear of many club members taking part in a range of events over the part few months. Highlights include:
Donatas Tumaitis's 16th place on the Black course at this year's Mitre. Donatas also competed in this year's World Deaf Orienteering Championships, representing Lithuania in the Long Distance event in Sweden in August
Iain Ambler's 12th place on the Blue course at the SWELL event at Belhus Woods organised by HAVOC on 12 November. Iain has been one of our most active members in recent months in terms of number of event attended
Philippa Allen's 6th place in the women's results, and 32nd place overall on the Blue course at this year's Mitre
Strong results from a number of CHIG members on course 1 at this year's South East Night Championships at Addington Hills on 18 November, with Mark Ford coming 6th, Campbell Welsh coming 11th and Jacob Stevens finishing in 17th place.
Congratulations to these members and to all of you who have taking part in events over recent months!
Separately, you may be interested to hear that former club member Henriette Albon recently completed the Bob Graham Round in a time of 17 hours and 55 minutes, setting a new women's and overall record time for a mid-winter round. The Bob Graham Round represents an ultra-distance fell running challenge in the Lake District entailing a c. 100km circuit of 42 summits with over 8,000m of climb, and is seen by many as one of the pinnacles of fell running. Many congratulations to Henriette!
Relay competitions in 2024: Request for expressions of interest
Orienteering relays are exciting, engaging events which foster a great sense of club spirit, as well as being fun to participate in. While we have historically put out teams in some of the UK's major orienteering relay competitions, we have done less over recent years and are keen to reverse this trend. As such, to help your club captain plan which events to target, can you please reply to this message if you are interested in taking part in any of the following events:
JK Orienteering Festival Relays (Stanton Moor, near Matlock, Monday 1 April
British Relay Championships (Hutton Mulgrave & Skelder Woods, near Whitby, Sunday 14 April)
British Sprint Relay Championships (Birmingham University, Saturday 22 June).
Club training reminder
Don't forget that club training sessions resume next month, with our next edition to be a workshop on Saturday 27 January providing coaching, guidance and advice ahead of the CompassSport Trophy qualifying event mentioned above. Look out for emails from Tim Pribul for more details about this and future training sessions!
Next event
The next CHIG-organised event will be on Sunday 24 March at Hainault Forest, making use of an extensively-updated map of this spacious woodland area not far from Hainault station. Look out for details over the coming months on how you can enter and also how you can volunteer to help with the smooth-running of this event.
Harold Wyber, Club Captain