Website News - Discounts Available to BOK Members

A new Discounts page, accessible from the Klub page, lists shops and organisations that offer a discount to BOK members. If you are aware of any errors or omissions, please inform the Webmaster.

Holiday Events 2008

Have you made plans for holiday orienteering in 2008? The latest issue of CompassSport magazine contains a three page "Holiday O Guide", which may give you some ideas. Tricia Walker has recently updated her article about the World Master Orienteering Championship (WMOC) on our own Holiday Events 2008 page. If you would like to share your own ideas/plans, please contact the Webmaster [email].

Penpole - Report and Photos

Katy Dyer's report is now available. Photos.

November Committee Meeting Minutes

A summary of the minutes of the committee meeting held on 15th November 2007 is now available.

Press at Penpole

Martin Helfer writes: The Evening Post will be sending a photographer to the Christmas Novelty event at Penpole on 16th December hoping to get some good pictures of primary school children enjoying orienteering. There will (hopefully) be an editorial feature on Orienteering published in the Primary Times to be distributed next February. This publication has a circulation of 72,000 so this is an opportunity for stardom for some of our junior runners.

DVO National Event - Longshaw, 9th Dec

A handful of BOK members competed in this event in what were presumably less than ideal weather conditions. Clive Hallett won his M40L class by an impressive 8 minutes, while Jackie and Michael finished 3rd in W50L and 11th in M12A. David Maliphant was 8th in M16A, only 4 minutes down on the leader; and Pete Maliphant was 14th in M50L, closely followed by Charles Daniel in 18th. Nicola Johnson finished 9th inW18L. Full results here.

Website News - BOK Kit (Tops & Trousers)

Information about how to order BOK kit (tops and trousers) has been added to the website. A link can found on the Klub page.

Cannop Ponds - Final Results

Colour standard times have been added and the results declared final. Details of the SWOA Colour Coded Award Scheme may be found in the November 2007 issue of SINS.

New Chairman for ASO

Jo Foster writes: At the ASO AGM on Thursday 29th November Pete Foster stepped down as Chairman to be replaced by Martin Helfer. Martin has two children at Cotham and a third at Westbury Park, all of who are keen orienteers. He can often be seen helping at Registration at BOK events.

Compass Sport Cup Qualifying Round - 13th Jan 2008

The qualifying round for the 2008 Compass Sport Cup is on Sunday 13th January. It is now confirmed that BOK will compete against DEVON, NGOC and HOC at the NGOC event at Sallowvallets in the Forest of Dean. This event is pre-entry only via your club captains - an entry form is available in the November BOK News and via the Hot Links on this website. Latest information on entry fees is £7 for seniors and £2 for juniors, so please use these fees instead of those on the entry form in BOK News if possible - but don't worry if you haven't, we'll sort it out.
We need as many BOK members as possible to enter the qualifying round to ensure we get through to the final, which will be held on 19th October at Sutton Park, Sutton Coldfield. So please put 13th January in your diaries now and get your entries in as soon as possible but no later than 28th December.

BOK Galoppen - Cannop Ponds 25th Nov

This combined SWOA Galoppen and ASO event saw an encouragingly large turnout on a fine November day, with over 100 runners on the Blue course and over 90 on Green (not so many on Brown though - are we all getting too old?). The planning and organising team of Duncan Innes and Christine Farr provided everyone with an excellent day out in fine runnable terrain, with courses offering good route choice. There were some excellent junior results, in particular from Tom Helfer who was 5th on Blue and Isla Simmons who won Green, ahead of Ralph Eliot in 5th, Alex Russell-Bates in 6th and Ben Maliphant in 8th. George Hurford and Luke Grenfell-Shaw finished 5th and 6th on Light Green; Cameron Davies, Jack Stuckes and Michael Hallett were 2nd, 3rd and 4th respectively on Orange; James Helfer was 3rd on White and Kit Benjamin 4th on Yellow. On Blue and Brown it was the usual candidates in the top BOK places - Pete Maliphant was 2nd on Blue; and Clive Hallett saw off Pete James to win Brown. Full results on this website. Apologies to those juniors missed out of the original report - and we'd welcome any other schools juniors who may wish to join BOK.

Veterans Home International - 17th-18th Nov, Scotland

A belated report on this as information seems to be lacking (or hard to find) on the British Orienteering website - thank you Jackie for providing feedback. BOK had 5 representatives at this 4-nation event, comprising a relay at Faskally near Pitlochry on Saturday and the individual day at Errochty, Calvine on the Sunday. After the first legs of the relays, England were well down - careful navigation was needed not to overshoot controls on the 1:7500 map. But England finished well and most of the BOK members had good runs - Mark Saunders was in the winning Welsh team and Jackie and Clive Hallett were in the 3rd and 4th placed English teams respectively. On the individual day in a very technical and physical area, Clive won M40 and Jackie was 4th in W50 (after a 10 minute error) for England; while Alice Bedwell, Mark Saunders and Trevor Griffiths were 2nd in W40, 3rd in M45 and 8th in M55 respectively for Wales. Although Scotland won the individual day, England capitalised on their lead from the relay day to win overall. The chocolate cafe in Pitlochry was a welcome retreat after a wet and cold event. Full results here.

Go Local This Weekend! (1st/2nd Dec)

There are no major (level 3+) events in the UK this coming weekend, but plenty of local fixtures to keep you busy should you need an excuse to avoid the Christmas shopping crowds. Saturday sees day-time events at Wenallt (South Wales Orienteering Club, SWOC) and Painswick Beacon (North Gloucestershire Orienteering Club, NGOC), followed by a night event at Webbs Wood (North Wiltshire Orienteering Club, NWO). On Sunday there are day-time events at Webbs Wood (again) and King's Cliff (Quantock Orienteering Club, QO).

NGOC's Saturday event at Painswick Beacon is the third round in their Mini League competition and BOK's Duncann Innes, Kelvin Davies and Christine Farr will be hoping to consolidate their positions near the top of the Blue division. This year's NGOC Mini League events boast SI punching and pre-printed maps. The senior entry fee is a bargain £3 for members of SWOA clubs (£4 for non-members). Last month's event at Mallard's Pike attracted an entry of nearly 120 and results and split times were available next day on the NGOC website. Highly recommended.

Cannop Ponds - Comments

Comments from the organiser, controller and planner are now available.

Cannop Ponds - RouteGadget

The map and courses of the Cannop Ponds Galoppen have been uploaded to RouteGadget. You can trace your route and compare it with the other competitors. If you're not familiar with RouteGadget, you can find some help and a test event to practice before drawing today's route.

Cannop Ponds - Provisional Results, Photos

Provisional results (including Splitsbrowser and WinSplits) are now available. Photos.

British Schools Orienteering Championships - Prize Draw

John Lewis writes: Discover Adventure have made the draw for the mountain bike. The winner is George Ronson of Bristol Grammar School (and BOK).

Bristol Orienteering Klub has a new Chairman

Robin Walker writes: It is a pleasure to report that Philip Fawkner-Corbett has agreed to be co-opted onto the committee and to act as BOK Chairman with immediate effect. So now the committee once more has its full complement of Officers - Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer and Captain(s) - and the Klub has a new hand on the helm.

Website News - Publicity Page

The website now has a Publicity page, accessed from a link on the Klub page. This page is the responsibility of our new Publicity Officer, Jonathan Hurford [email]. On the page you will find links to a number of publicity documents that Jonathan has recently produced. Members are encouraged to print and distribute the documents to suitable venues and organisations.

Southern Championships (Sun 11th Nov) - Report

Dudley Budden writes:
The Southern Championships 2007 were held at West Woods, near Marlborough last weekend the 11th November 2007. The event was hosted by North Wilts Orienteers which has a link to the full results. The terrain was a mixture of mainly fast runnable terrain, with courses giving opportunity for both direct and some complex route choice.

85 members of BOK attended with 73 competing on championship courses, of these 17 were junior members. Notable winners were, Abigail Jeffery W10 (closely followed by her sister Jessica), David Maliphant M16 (27 seconds ahead of the field), Jackie Hallett W50L, Katy Dyer W55L, Sally Thomas W60L, Anne Donnell W75L, Clive Hallett M40L, Christine King W55S, and Clare Fletcher W65S. One other performance of note was David Palmer 2nd on M60L.