A map of one of the Wairarapa Orienteers courses. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
ORIENTEERING
CHRIS COGDALE
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The Wairarapa Orienteering Club are planning a series of events to kickstart the club back into life.
Club member and event organiser Jim Barr said the club has effectively been in recess for the past decade.
“We haven’t held a local event for a long time, and there have just been a few of us going to major regional and national events,” he said.
The club are holding a weekly series of free events in Masterton on Tuesday evenings, starting next week with an event based around Colombo Rd.
Barr said that the events are ‘Town Score Events’, also known as ‘Urban Rogaines’.
“Participants in a score event are given a map with a number of control points marked by circles which have a points value.
“The objective is to decide which controls you can visit and in what sequence for your highest points score in the allowed time, in this case 45 minutes, and there are penalty points for exceeding the allowed time.”
There will be two further events using the club’s new map of the Queen Elizabeth Park and Henley Lake areas, and the final event of the series on March 30 will be a conventional line event where competitors must visit controls on a pre-set course in the correct sequence.
Barr said participants would need a smartphone with the MapRun6 app installed.
“This clever app will have the event course loaded into it, with the GPS locations of each control point included, and as you get to each control point the app beeps to indicate that it has recorded your visit.”
The first event will start from 5.30pm to 6.30pm on Tuesday on Colombo Rd, opposite the Trust House Wairarapa Netball Centre.
- More information can be found on the Wairarapa Orienteers Facebook Page.