Club Championships - Entry Deadline

Entries for the Club Championships at Leigh Woods on Sunday 5th October must reach Neil Connelly by Monday 29th September.

Headless Hill - Flyer

A flyer for the BOK Galoppen event at Headless Hill, Forest of Dean, on Sunday 23rd November 2008 is now available.

Three Brooks, Bradley Stoke - Comments

Comments from the organiser are now available. Photos on PicasaWeb [album; slideshow]. Articles about the launch event can be seen on the Bradley Stoke Journal and Bradley Stoke Matters websites. Read more about the Three Brooks permanent orienteering course.

Wimborne Galoppen - Sunday 14th September

After so much summer rain, we were fortunate to enjoy fine weather at Wimborne's event at Turf Hill. The Galoppen season got off to a competitive start, with Ben Chesters trimming 13 seconds off Clive Hallett's time to win Brown, and Mark Selley putting in a good performance to finish 6th, two places ahead of Charles Daniel. On Blue, David Hunt was 2nd and 5 minutes ahead of Andy Creber, while Charlotte Daniel finished just over a minute ahead of Jackie Hallett. Isla Simmons excelled herself by finishing 5th overall on Green, one place ahead of SARUM's Alice Butt. Matt Jeffery was 3rd on Light Green and Michael Hallett 5th on Orange. Full results here.

Yvette Baker Trophy - Sunday 14th September

Despite some excellent results from the small group of BOK Juniors who ran in the Yvette Baker Trophy at Wimborne's event last Sunday, SOC were represented in greater numbers and scored 894 points against BOK's 792. So thank you to all our Juniors who competed and well done to SOC for going through to the final.

Compass Sport Cup Final - Sun 19th October

The Compass Sport Cup Final will be held at Sutton Park on Sunday 19th October. BOK can look forward to strong competition, so we need as many members as possible to represent us. Please put the date in your diaries now and let’s see if we can field a strong team to improve on our 3rd place of 2 years ago – or perhaps even win it.
To make the day more of a Klub outing and social event, we’ve organised a coach for the day. With a small BOK subsidy, and also making use of the extra cash we inadvertently collected from you at the Qualifying Round, you should find the cost of transport quite attractive. The event is pre-entry only via your Klub Captains and an entry form is available via the Hot Links on this website. Please indicate on this whether you would like to take advantage of the coach. Places will be allocated on a first come first served basis, so get your entries in fast to avoid disappointment. You can give your forms to Chris or Helen Kelsey at the Caddihoe Chase.

Please note also that we've been advised that there will be another event in Sutton Park on Saturday 18th. Competitors for the Compass Sport Cup Final must not participate in that event.

Ashton Court - Organiser's Comments

Comments from the organiser are now available. Katy has also written an account of the BOK interview on BBC Radio Bristol.

Bristol Half Marathon Sunday 14 September 2008

Grant Floyd says:
"I am a BOK member, and I have an entry for the Bristol 1/2 Marathon on Sunday 14th Sep 08, sadly I am not going to be able to run it, and would like to recoup some of my costs and make sure it is used. Is there a way of letting the whole club know this is available (for only £15!!), via a user group or the website?"
If anyone is interested, please contact the Secretary, Robin Walker, via this link to the Bristol Orienteering website ASAP. Thanks

BOK Members Interviewed on Radio Bristol

BOK members Katy Dyer and Anne Donnell were interviewed on this morning's Weekend West programme on Radio Bristol. Katy and Anne chatted with presenter Ali Vowles about orienteering in general and were also able to advertise today's 'come and try it' event at Ashton Court. You can 'listen again', until 12th September, using the BBC iPlayer. The orienteering chat starts 1 hour 17 minutes into the programme (you can use the +15 button to get there quickly).

Club Championships - Flyer and Entry Form

A flyer is now available for the Club Championships that take place on Sunday 5th October at Leigh Woods (in combination with a BOK District/ASO Event). Entry forms (PDF, MS Word) must be returned by Monday 29th September.

SWOA Website Updated

The SWOA website has been updated. The changes include:

• Final results of the SWOA Summer Relay Series
• Minutes of the 25th June 2008 SWOA Committee meeting
• New list of SWOA Controllers

BOK AGM/Skittles Wed 10 Sep 2008 19.30hrs

The committee hopes as many people as possible will come, as we have an important decision to make about future event fees which will affect everyone - see 'Why you need to come to the AGM', the BOK blog posted 6 Aug. Of course attendance at the AGM is free of charge and everyone is welcome.
The Klub's informal social get-together, which follows immediately after the AGM at about 20.15hrs, consists of skittles and a substantial buffet. The Landlord of the Ring O' Bells, Nailsea, has now given us until Sunday, 31 Aug, to give him the final numbers for the buffet, so there is still time to complete the form which came with the last BOK News. For your subsidised buffet (£6 for adults, £3 for children) you can either tranfer the money electronically to the BOK account and email me your details or send me your form and cheque, made out to 'BOK', to Tricia Walker, 18 Mulberry Close, Backwell, Bristol, BS48 3HX, Tel: 01275 462879 as soon as possible. For my email address or any other details about 10 Sep, please contact me via the above tel no, the BOK Membership list or the website.

Publicity Help Required

Jonathan Hurford writes:
I have produced a poster for the September come-and-try-it events. Could members please print-off and distribute, particularly if you live in Bradley Stoke and Thornbury. There is also an excellent colour poster [large file - 388KB] advertising the Bradley Stoke event, which it would also be good to distribute. If anyone would like copies of these documents please contact me via the publicity section of this site.

Why you need to come to the BOK AGM

BOK Secretary writes:
The new British Orienteering levies for 2009, agreed at their 2008 AGM , will have a dramatic effect on the cost of BOK events - see Mark Dyer's Treasurer's report in the BOK committee minutes of July 10th, available now on the BOK website. This will force us to increase event entry fees and these changes will need to be discussed and voted on at the AGM on Wednesday September 10th. Come along and have your say - with skittles and a buffet it will be a very pleasant evening anyway. Deadline for your reply is August 27th - there's a form in your newsletter. Don't leave it to the last minute, do it now!

Club Championships

Neil Connelly writes:
Because of difficulties in arranging the Club Championships at the usual time (July ­ to ensure brambles, stinging nettles and bracken are at their best), they will now be held on October 5, to coincide with theBOK/ASO League event at Leigh Woods. The usual accurate and fair handicapping system will be used to ensure that all entrants have the same random chance of winning.

The coincidence of the Championships and the League event may pose some logistical complications but will, however, hopefully enable/encourage more members to take part. There may even be prizes though the accolade of 'Club Champion' should be enough.

Details and an entry form will be posted nearer the date. Meantime, continue to hone your fitness and orienteering skills, and think of good (legitimate) reasons why you should receive a helpful handicap.

July Committee Meeting Minutes

A summary of the minutes of the committee meeting held on 10th July 2008 is now available.

Ashton Court - Flyer

A flyer for the 'come and try it' event on Saturday 6th September 2008 is now available. Please note that the venue has been changed from The Downs to Ashton Court.

Leigh Woods - Flyer

A flyer for the district event and 2008 club championships at Leigh Woods on Sunday 5th October 2008 is now available.

WMOC 2008 (Portugal) - Full Report

This is Jackie Hallett's full report on the World Masters Orienteering Championships:

This event was held in Portugal in the Leira region in Pinewoods planted back in the 13th and 14th centuries to support Portugal’s naval ambitions for world supremacy. With over 3500 competitors Britain was the 5th largest nation with 232 competitors; the Scandinavian countries fielded the most with Norway having the highest number with 686. There were 13 competitors from BOK. The age groups spread from M/W35 to M/W90 but the largest fields for both men and women were the M/W60 category with 622 competitors. The week consisted of 2 competitive events – a sprint and classic. The sprint race had a qualification race in the old town of Leira which contained narrow, often steep slopes or steps. For those who have not competed in sprint races the courses are short, mine being 1.5 km with a winning time of 14 minutes. I think sprint is possibly the wrong word as it is really intense orienteering with a map scale of 1:4000 controls come up very fast and it is easy to miss a turning or to find yourself the wrong side of a flower bed or a wall (which are not crossable). Unfortunately I had a punch which didn’t register and so was disqualified – really disappointing as I would have been second in my heat. The sprint final was quite different as it started in forest, then onto sand dunes before finishing in the old town of Praia da Vieira. The scale of the forest and sand dunes caught many people out but there were good results from Alice Bedwell 5th W 45 and Mark Saunders 9th M45. I managed to win the B course but it was little consolation. We followed this event with a traditional Portuguese dish – sardines. We certainly did not expect the size and amount of sardines as we only ordered enough for 6 even though there were 8 of us. Even so, and delicious as they were, I did have to stop after 4 although a few hardy souls managed 6! A rest day followed or the option of an open race near to where the long distance final would be. Mark Saunders had entered us for this event and upon arriving at the start I discovered my course was 8km. Needless to say I treated it as a practice and just did some controls.

The long distance race has 2 qualification days in lovely pine forested sand dunes with lots of small contour detail. Mistakes were costly but easy to make in the 2½ m. contours with it being difficult to know what was up or down at times. Conscious of being disqualified in the sprint I made sure my dibber beeped twice at every control. I was careful and kept in contact with the map to ensure I always knew where I was. No one was more surprised than me to find I had won my heat. The second qualification day was in similar terrain although we had 19 controls in 4.4 km. I wanted to have a clean run but did not really want to end up as a last starter as the final always has the best athletes from the qualification starting last so I tried to be steady but take a little more time. I wasn’t the fastest on the day but with both days added together was fastest overall in my heat. Many BOK runners had made the A finals which in itself is a good achievement. A rest day followed with time for some sightseeing. The final was in a different forest which has been described as Culbin with attitude. There were some denser areas of younger trees near the finish and some hillier parts but also still some vague areas. Early starters were off at 9am but unfortunately I had a 12 o’clock start as did Alice. I was pleased with my race although I felt really tired in the heat especially in the middle of the course where we had some long uphill legs. I did make a few small errors but was pleased to finish in 6th place overall. It was great to see 2 BOK people on the podium both achieving fantastic results by coming third on their courses– Alice Bedwell W45 and Anne Donnell W75.

Adams Avery & ASO Relays - Final Results

The results have been declared final by the organising team. Further comments (from the Deputy Controller) and photos (courtesy of Jamie Hayward) have been added.