Join us this autumn for an exciting programme of webinar series and sessions ranging from topics covering Major Events, through to improving your mindset and focus when completing orienteering courses and how to take care of your joints over the decades!
Session 1 – Major Events 1 – Major Events Review, Competition Rule Changes, Delivering Large Sprint Races, and Safety Update
Monday 14th October 6-8pm
The first of our two Major Events sessions will see Alan Rosen, Graeme Ackland, Barry Elkington and Tim O’Donoghue discussing a range of aspects that underpin our Major Events.
Alan will be providing a review of the nine major events in 2024, providing reflection and thoughts, and learnings to take forward for future events.
Graeme will be discussing how planning a sprint differs from planning in a forest. The planner must engage earlier, working with the coordinator for permissions and the mapper to create a clear map. The planner's role is to design challenging, fair courses, but in sprint racing, "challenging" emphasizes route choice and execution, rather than the technical difficulty of finding controls, which should be easy to locate. Sprint racing is evolving, and I'll touch on innovations like multi-level layouts, artificial barriers, and mazes.
Barry will provide a summary of the updates to the Competition Rules (British Championships, JK, etc.) that will come into effect for 2025, as well as plans for how future updates to the Competition Rules will be managed.
Finally, Tim will provide a safety update, identifying and controlling significant risks, from the early stages of planning and organising through to delivery and any reporting required. Anonymised examples will be included where possible as will the changes in risks arising from the trend in recent years in orienteering to have more urban/sprint events. Reporting (how, what, by whom and when), will be raised for discussion.
Images below of presenters L-R: Alan Rosen, Graeme Ackland, Barry Elkington and Tim O’Donoghue.
Session 2 – Major Events 2 – Event Commentary, 2025 Rule Changes, Getting Controls Right, and Elite Processes & Course Planning
Monday 21st October, 6-8pm
The second of our two Major Events sessions discuss some more aspects that underpin our Major Events. Katherine Bett, Helen Marsden, Ian Marsden, Alan Wallis, Neil Crickmore, and Nick Lightfoot will be providing sessions across the following topics:
Katherine, Helen, and Ian will be discussing how an effective commentary can be exciting and energising for your event by lifting the lid on how you can achieve this. Katherine and the GPProjects team, who have been doing this a long time and know the sorts of things that work well (and most of the pitfalls), will walk you through aspects that can make a big difference like control choice, arena layout and prize giving. Attendees can take the opportunity to understand what is involved, and have any burning questions addressed.
Alan Wallis will take you through the likely upcoming rule changes, ahead of their implementation in the updated rules, set to come into effect on 1st January 2025.
Neil Crickmore will cover some of the main reasons why controls end up misplaced, and the steps that can be taken to minimise the risk of problems. This is a demanding area for event officials, alongside having an accurate and suitable map, and producing appropriate courses, and this session will offer six key reasons that could cause controls to end up being placed inaccurately.
Nick Lightfoot’s session will give a brief overview of the technical and mental challenges of orienteering, and how elite-level orienteers overcome them. This understanding can help with planning challenging, but fair courses for Major Events, as well as the use of route analysis tools offering a more objective assessment of technical difficulty for Orienteers.
Images of presenters L-R: Katherine Bett, Ian Marsden, Helen Marsden, Alan Wallis, Neil Crickmore, and Nick Lightfoot.
Session 3 – Title: Back to basics: Putting the 'thinking' component back into orienteering
Presenter: Rachel Collins
Monday 28th October - 7-8pm
Rachel Collins, a high-performance mental coach, will be combining her knowledge from Sport Psychology and tools from Therapeutic Coaching to deliver this unique webinar.
The premise of this session is to make you more consciously aware of how you can start ‘thinking’ your way around a course, including mindset and focus. All levels are welcome!
Session 4 - Caring For Your Joints Across The Decades (by Revive Active)
Monday 9th December – 7-8pm
This 45-minute session presented by Nicola Sainty, Revive Active Nutritionist, will take you on a journey showing how to best care for your joints, bones and tendons through the decades - from your physical regime to best nutrition and key supplements to consider – so you can keep on doing what you love best and run your course with confidence.
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