Happy Herts Newsletter 270 May 2020

Note from the Editor I hope you all enjoyed a quiet but relaxing Happy Easter. This edition is full of ideas for training, plus news of two victories, one two three games, a quiz, and a prizegiving. We also have a feature about Alan’s efforts to review the club archive since 1968!

Sascha (newsletter@herts-orienteering.club )

Getting outside There are several things we can do while keeping to both the letter and the spirit of current government advice. These can be your daily exercise:

• David Dixon's article on Post-O explains a limited version of Street-O you can do from your own home each week - and chat about it on Tuesday evenings.

• If you do go out running, why not upload your runs to Strava (the free version works for most of us) and join the club called 'Herts Orienteering Club'. You will need either a GPS watch or to carry your phone running the Strava app. Strava lets you see where other people near you go and how much / how little running they are doing.

• People can use the Permanent Orienteering Courses , if they live near close to Stanborough or Highfield Park – see

https://www.herts-orienteering.club/fixtures/permanent-courses/

• A few of you will be lucky enough to live near mapped areas that are still fully open to the public. You can use your old map of the area, else screen grab from Routegadget. Do please cooperate with any restrictions landowners may have put in place since the event.

Indoor orienteering – Game 1 Orienteers are notoriously geeky – sorry, inventive - so there are plenty of ideas out there for orienteering-related exercises to do at home. To name but 3:

• Lots of ideas, especially for those with children, at : https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/Home_Resources.

• Lockdown Orienteering runs a competition every 2nd or 3rd weekend on their website here https://lockdownorienteering.wordpress.com/ .

You can compete against the international elite, though you may want to always try some of the old events on there to get an idea first.

• For the planners and would-be planners out there, TVOC have a challenge to fit an M21E course into Wendover Woods. Note the Closing date May 24.

https://tvoc.org.uk/events/prize-armchair-course-planning-competition

Mike (Chairman@herts-orienteering.club)

270 – May 2020

Trophies! Virtual Annual prize giving We normally have an annual dinner at this time of year to socialise with each other and to award trophies for 2019: the various class winners in the club championships, and 3 trophies for the best newcomer; junior support to the squad; and who has done most to support the club – with committee members barred from the last one!

For 2020 we will present the trophies virtually, taking over one of the slots for the Post-O chats. Eating your dinner on a video call isn't recommended, but a glass or mug of something would be a good idea, so that you can raise a glass to the winners….

• When - Tuesday 12 May at 20:00. At 20:10 prompt we will present the trophies; the call is limited to 40 minutes so you won't be there all evening.

• Where - Zoom call using the details for the Tuesday night training/Post-O. • https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82873760412?pwd=QTNrMFBPdU9CRFdE

WWZ2OWVicjhyUT09

There will be a message on the Yahoo group nearer the date giving the Zoom call details. We hope many of you can attend.

Viv and David reign supreme at SWELL Viv Hodson and David Dixon achieved success at the South and West Essex Local Orienteering League (SWELL). David won the Brown category and Viv the Green. With 451 competitors across the 7 events, David was also crowned overall champion and Viv was the leading lady as they both won the overall Adult combined league.

View the South & West Essex Local Orienteering League (SWELL) Winners Table here: https://www.orienteering-havoc.co.uk/documents/SWELL_Summary.pdf

The HAVOC website explains SWELL as “the South and West Essex Local League, an individual league which is jointly run by Havering and South Essex (HAVOC) and Chigwell and Epping Forest (CHIG) orienteering clubs. There are eight to ten events held on either a Saturday or Sunday between September and June each year. The league is open to everyone.”

270 – May 2020

Alan digs deep into the HH archives Alan Rosen has started to review the HH Club archive, with the intention of creating a webpage about the HH Early Years 1968-1982. [Ed – When I say before my time, I’m not kidding…..]. Alan explains more on the next page.

Following a request from an M90, Alan started to review maps of Ashridge that he found in the treasure trove. You could say there have been a few changes…

Alan would like your assistance (you can stay at home) It’s a mammoth undertaking, yet Alan is keen for more information - and you can help. Having reviewed Club minutes dating back as far as 1969, Alan has a request for any members who may have access to club information, particularly those with HH since the start….

• An open question: What would you be interested in finding out? What should we try to do with the club history?

• Do you have any club-related photos pre-1982? • Do you have a secret stash of newsletters?

(cont.)

270 – May 2020

“ The Early Days of Happy Herts (now aged 51¾) I have been researching the early days of the club, using the archives (five lever-arch folders of minutes and press cuttings etc) plus memories and maps from former and present members.

I am covering the years from 1968, when the club started, to the end of 1982, when Pacemaker (the club's magazine) began. From that point onwards, the magazines, newsletters and meeting minutes should give a fairly comprehensive record. However, the club archives don't have Pacemakers 10-32 and 44, or anything after edition 76 (does anyone know which the last edition was?). We also have no newsletters at all and, given that we are now at number 270, that's a big hole in our records.

So this is a request to anyone who has been with the club for quite a while - and never throws anything away(!). If you have copies of the missing Pacemakers or newsletters, could you let me know? If you want to donate anything to the archives that would be great, but we could just as easily make copies.

Please do get in touch if you can help, or if you have anything of interest from the early years - the club bobble hat, the original 'flocked' long-sleeved t-shirt, the club sweatshirt, the helicopter landing o-top, maps of early HH events, medals from HH team successes etc.

I don't have a date for finishing the Early Years but hopefully it's not too far away. This will only be version 1 as there is some useful material in the BOF archives which are held at Sheffield University; as and when they are opened up for visits I hope to get some more material for version 2.

Many thanks

Alan Rosen ”

Please email rosenalan0@gmail.com with your information or questions.

Game 2 Separately, given we are currently largely housebound, the latest club competition involves past copies of the HH newsletter or Pacemaker.

à Who can produce a copy of the earliest edition by the end of May?

Emails to secretary@herts-orienteering.club

270 – May 2020

Puzzle corner is back! Word Fit Thanks to John Duffield for this contribution. The answer is given later in the newsletter

The list shows words that are control descriptions or orienteering areas. Simply fit them into the grid.

When you have finished, there will be one word left over. What is it?

Open Pond Ride Well Hedge Rough Woods Perry Heath Tower Forest Common Burley

Blawith Boulder Shallow Writtle Boundary Sherwood Evergreen Liverpool Waterhole Vegetation Broxbourne

270 – May 2020

Post-O replaces Street-O Street-O was due to start on Tues - but obviously cannot. I was thinking whether there was anything we could offer and came up with: Post-O, as a bit of fun. This has been endorsed by HH committee, though we must stress it is not an HH activity - there is no insurance coverage and you are entirely responsible for your safety and that of others, and for complying with current government restrictions.

My testers enjoyed the trial and you are welcome to join in:

1. Use OpenOrienteeringMap. Zoom in to your place of residence (use your postcode top right), and click to generate a map. Use the Add Postboxes button. Suggest using default 1:10,000 scale; move centre around or flip between landscape/portrait as sensible, and add your start/finish point.

Visit https://oomap.co.uk/gb/#/new/streeto/11/-0.2666/51.7402/

2. If you want a walk-through please see this short video: https://herts-orienteering.club/uploads/misc/Postbox_map_generation.mp4

3. Print out a copy of the map ("Save & get PDF map" button at top-right). You can plan a route if you wish!

4. Rules: On or before the following Tuesday (any time before 7:00pm), run/walk past as many postboxes as possible - Start from the edge of your property and get back home in 45 mins. Send your time and number of postboxes to me for collation (even though it's not a competition...)

Please note: *This is your once-daily exercise*. Take care around road-users and pedestrians; maintain social distancing and prioritise safety over speed.

5. Optional/recommended, upload your route, time and number of postboxes to Strava, and join the HH Strava group.

https://www.strava.com/clubs/hertsorienteering

6. If a few of you run in the same area, we may also be able to set up a RouteGadget page to compare routes – there is one each already for Hemel, St Albans & WGC.

7. Join the post-run social - 8pm, each Tuesday (whether you've run, or not – armchair experts welcome):

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82873760412?pwd=QTNrMFBPdU9CRFdEWWZ2OWVicjhyUT09

8. Each week while we are unable to offer other events, I'll come up with a variation of the activity, based on the same map.

Best wishes,

David (Street-O@herts-orienteering.club )

270 – May 2020

More SEOA success – this time the Juniors Dawn has provided a list of HH juniors who recently qualified for SEOA colour badges. Many congratulations to all of them - It is very encouraging to see the number of up and coming juniors.

Dawn has put in the claim for the badges, so all these juniors will be able to collect their badges at Saturday Series events when orienteering recommences.

White Yellow Orange Benjamin Ch

Daniel E

Izzy F

Csongor F

Tunde F

Eloisa K

Theo M

Cerys M

Niamh M

Eliska M

Tallis O

Lois R

Scarlett Y

Harriet B

Leila Rose Ch

Poppy C

Annabella K

Eliana M

Cerys M

Lauren M

Oliver B

Bors F

Hanga F

Daniel H

Alice S

Light Green Green

Oliver B

Maggie S

Oliver B

Paying for recent events Some of you took part in the relays earlier this year. Those who did should have received an email from Club Captain Ian explaining the payment details, so please do respond to Ian or Hugh.

One of you even owes for an event in 2019! The Editor will check to see if you need to be named and shamed in the next edition.

270 – May 2020

Most Determined Competition – Game 3 Dawn came up with a great idea - or perhaps borrowed it from Eborienteers - inviting nominations for a Determination Award. This will be awarded to the person who has shown outstanding perseverance in completing a single leg of an orienteering course.

Entries will be calculated based on the pace over a single leg so I need to know the leg length (measured as a straight line between the centres of the control circles) and split time, together with the date and location.

Any event between January 1st, 2019 and the start of lockdown can be counted. You can nominate yourself or a friend.

Closing date is June 15th. (Email newsletter@herts-orienteering.club)

Dawn Figg

Virtual courses – promoted by British Orienteering To help prepare for the future relaxation of restrictions and upskill clubs and members about how they can create and develop Virtual Orienteering Courses, BO is hosting the following webinars; Routegadget (with Simon Errington, HH) on Thursday 7th May at 7.30pm Register here

MapRun (with Pat MacLoud, NGOC) on Tues 12th May at 7.30pm Register here *The latest release of maprunF – 4.8.8 – comes the Start Anywhere facility so that, where set up, you can start and finish at any control. Pat has the Admin permissions across the UK for setting clubs up clubs/individuals and so on.

Please note by virtual courses we mean courses set up for people to practically go and do. We will demonstrate how these can be used to set up virtual courses, the practicalities and functions of each platform and Q&A. Please register.

When this is all over ... Orienteering is a great sport to do in partial lockdown, it's designed to work with people well apart from each other. So the committee has been looking at how we might start up again. Our discussions have also been supported by a consultation document from British Orienteering called ‘Navigating out of Lockdown, aimed at generating ideas.

Of course, it all depends on precisely what the Government and British Orienteering advice is, so we may have to adjust our plans up to the last minute.

We'll start small and simple and local. So Street-O first, followed by Saturday Series. Both of those will mean some extra precautions to maintain social distancing - we're working on those. Let's hope it's not too long before we can get out doing what we enjoy again ... safely!

Mike, Chairman

[(the answer is Blawith) ends]