Over the last two months the Dunedin Orienteering Club has run its annual school series.

Introduction to orienteering day – Sunday 16 February

This year we started the series with a dedicated introduction to orienteering day at Otago Boys’ High School. The idea of this event to support new or novice students to understand not only the features on standard orienteering map, but also how an orienteering events work. Each attendee had the option of

· learning to read a sprint map,

· matching what was on the map to the ground,

· route choice activity using a basic sprint map, and

· attempting (repeatedly) the extremely popular maze.

We had fantastic turn out for each of the three, one-hour sessions. I’m sure the great weather helped.

School Series events -Sunday

Along with the above introduction to orienteering day we continued to offer a short map interpretation coaching prior to each of the events for anyone interested. This proved to be very popular and much appreciated.

The three school series events were held at Chingford Park (middle), Taieri College (sprint) and Bethune’s Gully (long). The Taieri College sprint also introduced the use of artificial barriers to make the route choice more interesting.

We had great turn out with 114 students competing at one or more of the three events.  The breakdown of age groups were – 36 secondary students, 24 year 7&8 students, and 54 primary school students in years 0-6.  The events were also open to other family members and the general public, so we had great numbers competing.  Excitingly we had competitors came from as far afield as Ōamaru, which is really fantastic to welcome our wider Otago whānau.

Trophies were awarded to the following schools for their overall cumulative points gained by all competing students representing that school:

• Secondary School Boys –Otago Boys’ High School.
• Secondary School Girls– Otago Girls’ High School.
• Years 7/8 – Balmacewen Intermediate School
• Primary School– Kaikorai Primary School

Otago Schools Championships – Sunday 30 March

The Otago Schools Individual Championships (and OY1) this year was a combination of a long-distance event held on the Pyramids, Okia Flats and a sprint held at Green Island School.

Unfortunately, the curse of the Otago School Champs came again – with a southerly and squally showers hitting the Otago Peninsula just as the students started their races.  Thankfully the weather improved for the sprint later that evening.  Everyone seemed to really love the challenge despite the weather.

Students are placed according to their relative times for the course completion in their grade – primary (years 1-6), years 7&8, junior (Years 9), intermediate (years 10&11) and senior (Years 12-13).

Trophies are awarded to the winners of the secondary school championship categories only. They were:

• Jon Searle Trophy for Senior School Boys Champion – Years 12-13: Odin Hyink, Logan Park High School

• Smith Cup for Senior School Girls Champion – Years 12-13: Kotomiyo Cowell, Queen’s High School

• YODA Chalice for Intermediate Boys Champion – Years 10-11: Henry Hodgson, Otago Boys’ High School

• Smith Cup for Intermediate School Girls Champion – Years 10-11: Julia Hodgson, Otago Girls’ High School