Garry created this map by pacing (he didn’t have the Google Earth image as a base map). In pacing, you walk around the perimeter counting your steps. Let’s say that every two steps is one centimetre on your page. If you count 20 steps for a fence length, then you’ll draw it as 10cm on your page. Once you’ve got the perimeter of the property, then you mark in significant features – like the house, washing line, big trees, bushes, embankments, shelters (outdoor entertainment area thatch thing). Again pacing is used to determine the distance between features and distance of features from the fence. And there you have a map!

A bus transported everyone from Jo’burg to Bushtrail on Friday afternoon. The venue is used for children’s holiday camps so they’re well equipped.

Saturday kicked off with a short warmup run and stretches and then throughout the day were orienteering activities to teach and improve basic skills. These included a 6×6 cone grid, map memory exercise, a walk-the-line course and one that saw participants moving from one control to the next using the techniques of aiming off, handrails and attack points. The day concluded with a star relay that turned a little messy (and funny) when a runner grabbed the cone from another team.

The camp was timed to coincide with one of the regular orienteering events on the calendar. This was the first cross-country orienteering event of the year and it was held in the Muldersdrift area. The objective of bringing the schools O participants along was to introduce them to an orienteering event outside of the OSL structure. This area is also a little more tricky than the park and school environment that the pupils are accustomed to so the skills learned at the camp are put to the test.

Although most seemed to wobble a little around Control 4 and 5, they got back on target to successfully complete the Light Green course. In orienteering events the courses are colour coded where yellow/orange are the shortest and easiest. The Light Green course is of medium distance and controls are not all located on paths – some may be just off the paths to increase the difficulty.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend for the coaches and the participants and we hope to see many returning to regular orienteering events throughout the year.

Photographs from the camp and from the OSL events are on the Orienteering Schools League Facebook page - www.facebook.com/OSchoolsLeague

The calendar of orienteering events for the year can be found on this website (Event Calendar > 2012 Events). Everyone – of any age and ability – is welcome. You do not have to be a club member and groups of up to three people can do courses together.

The next event is a short course event in Modderfontein. The event sheet is now available (PDF).

The Gardens are an interesting network of flowerbeds, open lawns, rough ground and paths. The Birds & Butterfly Garden, the Succulent Rockery and the People’s Plants Garden caused chaos with its network of small paths and trails. Runners were scattered all over the place looking for controls. Out on the open lawns they seemed to fare better and without the structured buildings of the school environment the orienteers had to use paths and vegetation features to keep their maps orientated.

The Junior Boys results were certainly the most competitive  with only 32 seconds separating the first three runners. Devon Cowling (Fourways) took top honours with Marc Flint (Charter College) and Christian Dlamini (Fourways) breathing down his neck.

The experience of the top three Junior Girls kept them at the top on this more technical course. Christie Courtnage (Trinity), Cian Oldknow (Fourways) and Kirsten Chambers (Bryandale) are regular orienteers. Snapping at their heels is Ruth Avierinos (Cornwall) who, with experience over the next year, will challenge for the podium at OSL next year.

Timothy Chambers (Fourways) has dominated the front of the Senior Boys. A regular orienteer, his experience and fast running speed have kept him in the lead. Greg Avierinos (Cornwall) hasn’t been far behind at each event and like his sister Ruth (Junior Girls), another year of orienteering experience can make all the difference for next year. A closer challenge between Timothy and Greg will be very exciting.

The Senior Girls have shuffled positions throughout the series but again, on this tehnical course, a regular orienteer had the upper hand. Jessie Oldknow (Fourways) finished with a comfortable lead over Natalie January (Fourways) with Jessica Thiels (Fourways) in third.

It is interesting to note that Fourways took wins in three of the four categories.

The splits for each runner on each leg are very interesting to look at.

Above is shown three rows (two numbers in each row) – each row is a runner – and a number of columns.

• 2. 3. 4. at the top of the columns – that’s the control number and below the number is the distance, in metres and as-the-crow-flies, between controls.
• In the next row, at the top, the orange, bold number indicates the fastest time out of all the runners for that leg. The number in the brackets is the person’s position, based on time, for that control (all the orange numbers will be first).
• Below the orange number, in the first row and column, is a blue number. This is the total accumulated time. So, using the first example, the runner took one minute to run from #1 to #2 and their total time out on the course is 1:55. They are in 1st position. All blue numbers are 1st position. You’ll notice that the second runner got ahead of the first in total time, but then lost it with a bad leg on #6.
• The brown shading highlights that the person ran a bad leg on that control losing a lot of time over the runners ahead of them.
• In the other rows and columns, the upper more bold white number is the same as the orange number – it’s just the person’s time for that control (the number in brackets is their position at that control) and the less bold white number below it is their accumulated time (their overall position at that stage – accumulated time – is in brackets).

This weekend we have a sleep-over Orienteering Schools Camp near Hekpoort. It starts on Friday evening and runs through Saturday with coaching in specific orienteering skills in a more bushveld environment. This will prepare the participants for the first cross-country orienteering event of the year, on Sunday morning. This event is on the regular orienteering calendar.

The results from the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens (final) event are as follows:

Junior boys (21 runners)

1. Devon Cowling, Fourways, 16:13
2. Mark Flint, Charter College, 16:39
3. Christian Dlamini, Fourways, 16:45

Junior girls (21 runners)

1. Christie Courtnage, Trinity, 13:23
2. Cian Oldknow, Fourways, 14:17
3. Kirsten Chambers, Bryandale, 16:46

After an eventful start for the new SAOF management committee the team has begun to settle down and find their feet.  Having held our second meeting on 4 February it is an opportune time to share with the SA orienteering community our progress as well as our plans for the future.

Links to the full minutes of our meetings as well as the various portfolio progress reports can be found at the following link.

SA Coaching Framework

The most important initiative for the SAOF over the next few years is the SASCOC-lead South African Coach Framework.  This project is fully supported by SRSA and follows hot on the heels of the Long Term Participant Development (LTPD), which the SAOF rolled out at the end of last year.  An assessment of what is required to grow our sport and to retain more of the people exposed to orienteering leads to the conclusion that access to high-quality coaching is critical.  As such the SAOF management committee was more than happy to pass a resolution that we will work towards generating a Coach Education System that is aligned with the principles of the SA Coach Framework.  Read more on this project here.

High Performance

Nicholas Mulder has been reappointed as the High Performance manager and the Selection Committee has busied themselves with updating the SAOF’s Selection Policy documents and selecting the various national squads. The selection process is moving toward a situation where a minimum fitness requirement is likely to be introduced for 2013.

SA Champs 2012

The South African Orienteering Championships in 2012 will be hosted by the Adventure Racing Club in the beautiful Haenertsburg area.  The Middle distance event has been granted WRE status.  Nicholas Mulder has been engaged by AR club to make maps of the area using funds from the SAOF’s strategic mapping fund.

Capacity Building

The SAOF encourages its member clubs to put on our quota of 3 World Ranking Events per year. Each such event is required to have an associated International Orienteering Federation (IOF) Event Adviser to ensure IOF standards. Currently South Africa has two accredited IOF event advisers in Ian Bratt and Garry Morrison.  We believe it will be beneficial to have more active accredited IOF event advisers.

As per the SAOF’s mapping strategy, we need more people who are comfortable and available to make school-level maps that will facilitate our Expansion projects.  In addition we need to develop more local mappers capable and willing to map strategic maps

Expansion Plan

Great progress is being made by Lisa de Speville and Peter Hemer, both of whom are involved in implementing our Expansion Plan.  Prompted by a number of learnings at the first Teachers Training Course in Polokwane, the Training Course has been re-developed.  In addition a B&W mapping format has been developed (based on UK’s now defunct Simple Maps for Orienteering).  It has been interesting to note that even relatively well-off schools, like Randpark High cannot afford to use colour maps for training activities.

(One particularly inspiring output from the Polokwane “Come And Try It” event was this map by Ephrahim who participated in orienteering for the first time. Using  the Capricorn High School map as his template he created a wonderful colour map of his school.  This map was used for orienteering activities at his school).

Other activities include:

Orienteering exposure at the Extreme Sports Expo, including 35 high school children from Diepsloot and Cosmo City.
Meetings with various teachers of Lebone High School in Rustenburg and the Royal Bafokeng Sports Trust.
A successful workshop was held in Cape Town for PenOC.  This served to share what has been developed in Gauteng for use in the western Cape.

We received good publicity at the SASCOC Coach Conference in November 2011, attended by Lisa de Speville and Sarah Pope. Lisa’s presentation on our LTPD model and Expansion efforts was a highlight.

Lisa has developed a number of Resources that are now available under the Schools Resources section under the Development tab.

The SAOF is now the proud owner of an Expansion Plan trailer, which is fully equipped to present workshops and Come And Try It orienteering events in new areas.

Publicity

The SAOF has produced a large number of Orienteering publicity flyers (210x100mm), available to all the clubs to distribute (please contact Val to get yours.)

There are also a number of posters that can be used to publicise your events.  Whilst these are aimed primarily at schools, they are available to all clubs.  They are available for download on the Schools Resources page.

There is a new generic Orienteering Schools logo that can be used for any new schools league that is started.

The Gauteng Schools League is now Facebook savvy.  We are exploring this means to engage with and appeal to the youth (and younger at heart orienteers).

Finances

We have been experiencing challenges with respect to receiving our final payment from our 2011 SRSA grant.  We are expecting the balance of the grant to be paid by the end of February.

Towards the end of 2011 we were notified that our 2010 NLDTF was partially successful.  The year-end has also proved to be a challenging time in our efforts to submit the required documentation and receive the grant payment.  Once this process has been finalised, we will notify the orienteering community of the final allocation amounts.

Governance

Googledocs has becoe an invaluable resource for the management committee.  We are exploring this tool as a repository of all important SAOF documentation.  It is being put to good effect in our financial processes – each edit is tracked, allowing auditing of our payment approval processes.

We are in the process of exploring registration with SARS as a Public Benefit Organisation.  This is necessary so that we can employ people and receive the necessary tax exemptions due to organisations such as ours.

We are also exploring NPO registration, although this is less urgent that the SARS registration.

Glossary
CATHSSETA – Culture, Art, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport Sector Education and Training Authority
NLDTF – National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund
SRSA – Sport and Recreation South Africa
SASCOC – South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee

The SA Coaching Framework will be a system for the identification, recruitment, deployment, support and recognition of coaches.  The thinking behind the SA Coach Framework has underpinned similar frameworks in the UK and in Europe.  The approach outlined in the SA Coach Framework is recognised as a starting point for a proposed Global Framework for the recognition of coaching competence (South African Coaching Framework consultation document, March 2011).

Long Term Participant Development (LTPD) and Long Term Coach Development (LTCD) are seen as core building blocks of a system that aims to create an active and winning nation.  There is also an emphasis of sport-specific delivery of these models.  The proposed model for LTCD will be aligned to the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), which is administered by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) and the Culture Arts Tourism Hospitality and Sport Sector Education and Training Authority (CATHSSETA).

The SA Coach Framework project is sponsored by Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) and managed by the South African Sport Confederation and Olympic Commission (SASCOC).  Successful implementation will require buy-in from the important stakeholders, e.g.  SRSA, Department of Basic Education (DBE), CATHSSETA, SAQA, etc.

Various presentations and documentation relevant to the development and implementation of the SA Coach Framework are available on the SASCOC website: http://hp.sascoc.co.za/the-south-african-coaching-framework/

Launch & Implementation

The SA Coaching Framework was launched at the SASCOC Coaching Conference on 18-20 November 2011.   In the first phase of implementation, which runs to March 2013, a project team will set up the structures and guidelines for the full system.  In parallel a first wave of sports will be involved in developing sport-specific Tutor Training programmes aimed at school sport.  The plan is to train up large numbers of coach educators and assessors who will then educate large numbers of school coaches in these sports.

National Federations have a key role to play in developing a realistic and workable LTCD that is aligned with the needs of the participants within their sport (as identified in models for LTPD). There is recognition of the significant capacity issues faced by many of the National Federations. The enhancement of National Federation capacity is considered a priority component of the implementation of the South African Coaching Framework.

Impact

SRSA are looking for Impact in terms of coaching Numbers; Levels; Demographics; and demonstrable activity in many Districts.  SRSA envisage that the National Federations will be instrumental in delivery through their club structures.

Willing, Ready and Able

There is recognition of a lack of capacity amongst the majority of National Federations and that most are only active in 3 provinces.  This limits the number of sports currently able to make an Impact.

At the end of 2011 National Federations were requested to complete an honest Willing; Ready and Able (WRA) assessment in order to determine which sports should participate in the first roll-out wave.  A prerequisite for participation in the first-wave roll-out was that the National Federation needed to have either launched its LTPD model or be in the process of developing their model.

Whilst the SAOF is currently only one of 16 sports to have launched their LTPD model, our frank WRA assessment concluded that whilst we are Willing, we are neither Ready nor Able.  Our WRA assessment was submitted to SASCOC along with a Management Committee resolution committing the federation to create a Long Term Coach Development plan that is aligned the SA Coach Framework.

SAOF Approach

The WRA assessment serves as a tool to assist us identify gaps and prioritise our efforts.  SASCOC will use this assessment to evaluate progress that we make towards becoming Ready and Able.  Although we are currently neither Ready nor Able, the conclusion is the same: our priority must be to develop our coaching system and align it with the SA Coach Framework.

It should be noted that Ready and Able are measured relative to our ability to make an Impact according to SRSA’s measures.  What is clear is that the SAOF’s own strategy as embodied in our Development and Expansion plan is all about achieving the same goals, but at a more realistic level that is informed by our current capacity.  We believe that constant progress in this direction will be viewed favourably by SASCOC and SRSA.  Evidence of this is that our commitment to developing a LTPD model have already placed us in a very favourable light with both SRSA and SASCOC.

Funding

It should be noted that future access to government funding for sport (SRSA and SASCOC, via the National Lottery) will only be possible for National Federations that are aligned to the SA Coaching Framework.  Any strategic or development plans need to specifically demonstrate that they support the targets of SRSA’s plans.

At the end of the day we know that our sport is all about the participants, and that is why we embraced LTPD.  We have also recognised that without a coach education system, we are going to have difficulty fully implementing LTPD – the two go hand in hand.  Hence it makes sense to embrace the LTCD project.

SAOF Plans

Re-energised Coach Commission

The SAOF development and implementation will be driven by our Coaching Commission, which will be re-energised.

Key Issues

We have no official, formal coaching and accreditation system. However, a number of experienced volunteers do provide ad-hoc coaching at beginner and high-performance level.  We need to gain access to coaching material, which exists within well-developed orienteering federations.  This will avoid the need to re-invent the wheel.

We often struggle to gain access to participants at schools.  Currently we gain limited access through Life Orientation syllabus teachers who are inspired to provide orienteering instruction at their schools as part of that subject.

Actions proposed 2012-2014:

1)  Develop a formal coaching education system.  An initial draft document was produced in 2011 but needs adapting to the SA Coach Framework and LTPD model.

The SAOF is in the process of establishing a collaboration with the British Orienteering Federation, whose own LTCD model was recently re-developed and aligned with a similar Coach Framework system established in the UK.

We also aim to begin to populate the Orienteering coach education system by:

2)  Initially focusing on the education and accreditation of school teachers, in particular, to develop the sport and introduce the sport to school children – in line with the initial implementation approach of the SA Coach Framework.  A Level 1 Teacher’s course in orienteering is already developed for this purpose.

3)  Developing an intermediate level of coaching (club level) aimed at retaining novices as they improve, and to develop future members of the national squads.

St Stithians is a huge property with a good mix of buildings, fields, facilities and rough ground. There’s also a lot of uphill (and downhill) running on this terrain. In hindsight, we think that the Senior girls course was just that little bit more challenging than the Senior Boys course.

The Junior Boys results are quite interesting. Dean Walker took the win with a decent lead on Liam Riley, who is new to the podium. Looking at the times, third placed Peter Carides was only one second behind Liam and in tie fourth were Christian Dlamini (fourways) and Obakeng Moswane (Rand Park) at 15:20 (two seconds behind Peter) and Dominique Pereira (Rand Park) only another four second behind. Yes, only seven seconds between second and sixth!

In the Senior Boys, the challenge between Timothy Chambers (Fourways) and Greg Avierinos (Cornwall Hill) continued. Timothy’s experience has paid off and he again took the win.

In the Junior Girls category Cian Oldknow (Fourways) is still at the top with another win. She has won three of the four events. Magdalene Kamau (Fourways) is a newcomer to the podium. Junior Girls is our biggest category with 54 runners!

Brooke Reed (Rand Park) shuffled the Senior girls podium with her very comfortable win. Jessica Thiels (Fourways) still stays on the podium and Natalie January (Fourways) takes her turn in the sun.

Moving on, next Monday, 5 March, is the Orienteering Schools League Final and it will be held at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens. The best 82 runners, from the four OLS age-gender categories, have been invited to participate. Their place in the final has been awarded according to the average of their results over the Series. This really will be a show down!

The results from St Stithians are as follows:

Junior boys (45 runners)

1. Dean Walker, Rand Park, 14:24
2. Liam Riley, St Davids, 15:17
3. Peter Carides, St Davids, 15:18

Junior girls (54 runners)

1. Cian Oldknow, Fourways, 10:57
2. Christie Courtnage, Trinity, 12:01
3. Magdalene Kamau, Rand Park, 12:53

This week saw a number of newcomers but most participants have been to one or both of the previous events. And it shows in the results. The number of runners disqualified for incorrect punching (wrong control, wrong order) is down substantially; only 12 in total compared to 49 last week!

The final event of the Orienteering Schools League is this Monday, 27 February and the event will be held at St Stithians. Top ranking runners from each school will be selected for the Schools League Final, on Monday, 5 March. Every runner who has participated in the League is invited to enter teams (three in each team) for the annual Clubs Relay on Sunday, 25 March. This event will be held at Cornwall Hill College in Centurion.

The results from Delta Park are as follows:

Junior boys (50 runners)

1. Peter Carides, St Davids, 14:58
2. Devon Cowling, Fourways, 15:05
3. Jaya Curtis, St Davids, 19:33

Junior girls (47 runners)

1. Cian Oldknow, Fourways, 11:24
2. Christie Courtnage, Trinity, 12:28
3. Kirsten Chambers, Bryandale, 19:41

Remember to check our Facebook page (/OSchoolsLeague) for photographs from the event.

The course was possibly a little more tricky than the first event at Wits Education Campus and the runners had to pay close attention to their maps. It was also a harder run physically with hot conditions slowing down participants and the campus feeling very much like the terrain was either up or down. The four age-category courses had the runners returning to the Sports Complex side of the property from the tunnel down by the river, which meant an uphill run/walk/crawl to the finish area. 

The results are as follows:

Junior boys (56 runners)

1. Mark Flint, Charter College, 14:32
2. Devon Cowling, Fourways, 15:28
3. Peter Carides, St Davids, 16:00

Junior girls (59 runners)

1. Christie Courtnage, Trinity, 14:02
2. Kirsten Chambers, Bryandale, 18:10
3. Kirsten Kruger, Charter Collage, 22:43

Remember to check our Facebook page (/OSchoolsLeague) for more photographs from the event.

We greeted 142 participants across the four categories: junior boys, junior girls, senior boys and senior girls. These runners represented six schools (Cornwall College, Fourways, Randpark, Charter College, St Davids and Krugersdorp) plus one runner from Trinity and one runner from Bryandale Primary.

The results were as follows:

Junior boys (45 runners)

1. Timothy Chambers, Fourways, 11:07
2. Christian Dlamini, Fourways, 14:18
3. Jonathan Estie, Randpark, 15:28

Junior girls (43 runners)

1. Cian Oldknow, Fourways, 8:34
2. Christie Courtnage, Trinity, 8:51
3. Kirstyn Hutchenson, Fourways, 11:45

The five orienteering races were put organised by the four Johannesburg-based clubs, with a large group of volunteers working together to ensure a successful outcome. Without the help of these volunteers, the Big 5 would not have been possible.

Judging by the comments and reports that we’ve received so far, both from local as well as international competitors, the Big 5 O-Week was an enjoyable and successful week of orienteering. There were a few wobbles, which we would like to apologise for. From the organisers perspective, I think we have achieved what we set out to do, but more importantly we have learned a great deal about organising orienteering competitions at this level. We have had a very steep learning curve, but I believe we’ll take all the lessons, good and bad, and be able to build a stronger, better Big 5 O-Week in two years time. For this reason, we welcome all comments, criticisms and encouragements from both competitors as well as our volunteers that can help us improve on the Big 5. Please contact us via email or other means with your suggestions.

Thanks must first be given to all our volunteers and their clubs: AR CLUB, ROC, RACO and WITSOC. Their dedication ensured that the Big 5 event succeeded. Special note must go to a small handful of persons who volunteered to help on all 5 days, choosing to assist with the organisation in place of competing themselves.

A big thank you must go to our event sponsor, First Ascent, South Africa’s leading outdoor apparel brand. The First Ascent – Big 5 branded t-shirts were extremely popular and well liked. Thank you must also go to our land owners, Komatiland Forests, the Dullstroom community, York Timber and the Lowveld National Botanical Gardens. Orienteering in South Africa is entirely dependent on their generosity and we thank them for their continued support of our sport. They manage some beautiful areas and we are truly privileged to access them.

Congratulations to all the participants in the Big 5. We had some tough competition, not just in the Elite categories, but in the age groups as well. Well done to the winners, but also well done to everyone who finished all five events. We trust that you thoroughly enjoyed the orienteering and the areas. If you were visiting South Africa, we hope you enjoyed your stay and leave the country with good impressions. Once again, please feel free to send us your comments to nmulder@infodoor.co.za

Thank you for your support and all the best with your orienteering…