Come join us amongst the rocks of the Strath Taieri, to celebrate 50 years since Dunedin became the first South Island based orienteering club.   Entry information: Orienteering event pre-entries required by Wednesday 21st January.Jubilee specific website – see the ENTRIES tab linked hereFollow us on Facebook and the Dunedin Orienteering website. Any further inquiries, email  secretary@dunedinorienteering.org

Many of you may have already met Anna Taksdal who is visiting from Norway and coaching PAPO members. Anna (left) is pictured above with Phoebe Hunt.   1. How did you start orienteering?My parents since I was a little kid always went orienteering.  For every holiday and vacation we went away as a family to competitions […]

What began as a casual 2023 bus-ride chat between PAPO member (& school bus driver) Raymond Nicholson and the Deputy Principal of St Joseph’s School has grown into a funded programme. In 2025 more than 600 students from Years 4-13 across Mid Canterbury will be introduced to orienteering. Raymond’s passion for orienteering, combined with his […]

Julie Quinn from Australia has taken the interim International Rogaining Federation (IRF)  President’s role until the council finds a President. The October 2025 newsletter featured some of the big rogaining events from around the world including: bus rogaining in Japan, plus other events in Estonia, Romania, Canada, Albania and Spain. Read it here

The four Australian MTB Championship events will be held at Creswick and Ballarat with a model event at Ballan. Both Ballarat and Creswick are both approximately 120km from Melbourne airport. The events will feature new or updated maps that will provide an excellent orienteering experience suited to riders of all ages and experience levels. As […]

Following on from last months Compass Point, Joolz has engaged personally with members from a few clubs to find their opinions on relays. Diverse experiences shape how orienteers think about the relay format. Please send your own personal and club feedback on relays to ONZ  Click here to share your thoughts Llew McGivern (CMOC)Relays are exciting and electric. […]

1. What was your overseas orienteering and study goal? I’d heard good things about orienteering and life in Sweden so I thought I’d try and experience this while still studying towards my degree. 2. How did you choose your exchange destination? What was the criteria? There were only a few destinations that allowed me to study civil engineering papers while […]

FootO Event Advisors from around the world met online in November to share experiences from international competitions in 2025 and discuss new initiatives within international orienteering. Dive into the foot-o material and presentations from the seminar in this article from IOF here

In early December IOF announced the new Gold WRE status, which debuts in 2026. It is designed to elevate elite orienteering events and highlight the most prestigious races. It will help athletes access high-quality terrain, so they can choose Gold WRE events that are relevant by listing a preliminary 2026 Gold WRE Calendar. Read the […]

In September, the IOF introduced an interim Heat Policy – ​​find it here –  for guidelines to ensure competitions are not held in conditions that may be dangerous to competitors, officials or spectators. It will be followed up by a permanent Heat Policy in 2026. The IOF article which also links to the 2024 Olympic Games athlete guides […]

Looks like we’ve just punched through another month! We are in the thick of our regional championships. I had the pleasure of attending the Pokopū Champs last weekend near Whanganui, racing around in the beautiful forest maps of Knottingly and Koitiata. It was so neat to see two traditionally smaller clubs (Red Kiwis and Hutt Valley) come […]

The four events at the Pokapū Champs saw some fascinating racing. The middle and long distances were held on Knottingly and Koitiata respectively, both using areas of the map essentially untouched by the Oceania Champs last January. They presented very low, intricate topography requiring both accurate compass use and reading of the contour detail. In […]

The 2026 Auckland Schools Orienteering Calendar for the Auckland region is now complete, including the finalised dates for the Schools’ competitions. This information will be available on the Auckland Schools Orienteering website later in the year.As always, there are  two different calendar templates – one containing just schools events and the other containing all the […]

UPDATE: Extra land  will include neighbouring properties north and east of Lake McKay Station down to the Clutha River and trails along.. HQ and camping available in the middle of the course. Online rego closes 8pm, 19th November. As well as the 24 hour championship event, there will be 15, 6 & 3 hour options.Details here

Scottish Orienteering Association (SOA) and British Mountain Bike Orienteering (BMBO) are delighted to invite you to Morayshire in Scotland, renowned for its coastline, farmlands, woodlands and scenic beauty.  It is home to the Speyside whisky industry, with more than half of Scotland’s distilleries located in the region. World class orienteering areas await. The MTBO races […]

A huge congratulations to the seven New Zealand orienteers who recently attended the IOF Event Advisors Clinic in Brisbane! This intensive clinic is crucial for ensuring our major events are run to an international standard. Becoming an IOF-accredited Event Advisor (EA)  is a requirement for running World Ranking Events (WREs) in New Zealand. We’re thrilled […]

IOF’s IT Commission is hosting an open meeting on ”Technology in Orienteering” at 7:00-10:30am Monday 10 November NZDT (19:00-21:30 Sunday 9 November CET) . The meeting is open to everyone and is an excellent opportunity to stay updated on what is happening within the use of technology in our sport. The format will be short presentations (12 minutes […]

This winter just gone, Sophie Harrison and Nick Hann escaped the Queenstown frosts and gloom for warmer climes. They decided to try their hands at a European summer orienteering campaign. And it was a little bit different to the traditional way Kiwis go orienteering in Europe. It developed the title of ‘Off-the-couch, Off-the-bikes Orienteering’ which featured:• […]

The President and Leaders Forum included representatives from 16 of our 18 clubs as well as the ONZ Board and General Member.  The first half of the meeting looked at the strategic pillars and clubs shared their feedback about the content of the draft strategic plan as well as examples of areas where ONZ could […]

A huge thankyou to the Thirty-Two attendees at this year’s forum that discussed strategic goals and ideas for both orienteering as a sport and ONZ as the national body.  A summary of what was discussed can be found here

UPDATE 16 DEC 2025 – We have temporarily removed the document while a section of it is being updated. This helpful document provides guidelines for clubs was around volunter and contractor payments. The document is intended to ensure clubs understand the legal requirements around tax for volunteer payments and tax requirements by providing clear explanations on what […]

I’ll start this month’s compass point update with how we finished our recent Board meeting with BEST WISHES to the Southern Cross and Pine Stars Teams heading over to Queensland shortly to compete against the Australians. In total the juniors heading over from New Zealand make up about a third of the field, including the […]

It is the second year for orienteering as a school sports code at the Zespri Aims Games, and the numbers have improved from 260 to 320 per day which is a good increase. Most are doing both events as the price incentivises students to do both the sprint and rogaine events giving  young people the […]

Nelson Orienteering Club invites all orienteers, from New Zealand and abroad, to celebrate top-quality orienteering in the South Island of New Zealand.  Would you like to revisit those stunning locations from King’s Birthday 2024? Did you miss out and wish you had been there? Alternatively, do you need navigation training or want to test your […]

What? A parent-led 3 day residential orienteering training camp at the start of the summer holidays, supported by Peninsula & Plains Orienteering Club (PAPO).  Who? All keen young orienteers, of any level/experience, up to school year 8.  When? Starting 9am Saturday 20 December, ending 2pm Monday 22 December.  Where?Spencer Beach Top10 Holiday camp, 20min north of Christchurch CBD.  More […]

The Canterbury Schools Orienteering Festival is an annual event with the dual aims of providing an introduction to orienteering for school aged students as well as a competitive race for experienced orienteers. It is designed for all school-aged students from  primary, intermediate, high school and those homeschooled in Canterbury. PAPO plan plenty of training opportunities in the lead up […]

Organised in conjunction with the New Zealand Rogaine Association, the location is likely to change. So Highland Events are working on a new 2025 event area. Check-in on the website

At the end of April I travelled to Whitehorse (capital of Canada’s Yukon territory) to start an 8-week coaching programme with the local club, the Yukon Orienteering Association. Whitehorse is a small city with 34,000 residents, located on the banks of the famous Yukon River (where Sophie Hart and Nathan Fa’avae began their triumphant Yukon1000 […]

Taupō / Pinelands marked a fantastic milestone in mid-September with a special 50th Anniversary celebration dinner for Taupō Orienteering. The evening featured a wonderful display of memorabilia. Jim Lewis unearthed very original relics – bucket controls that were 50 years old! Photos from the past were provided by various people including Simon Webbison, Mike Grayburn, […]

Lan Kelly from South Australia shares her experience helping design the Tatachilla College sprint orienteering event in South Australia. Initially unaware it was an Orienteer of the Year (OY) event, they faced challenges fitting OY sprint distances onto the compact, building-heavy campus. Ongoing issues included expanding temporary fencing, unexpected tennis matches, restricted access to mapped […]