The club's AGM took place this Friday. There were the usual officer reports. Bernie Newitt stood down at the end of her three years as Secretary - thank you Bernie for all your good work. Rachel Robertson was elected as her replacement. The rest of the Committee was re-elected unchanged.

The updates to the constitution to require British Orienteering membership for active members, and clarify what members affiliated through other clubs can and can't do, were approved. The question of why juniors are not allowed to vote was raised: something to consider for next year.

The award for Outstanding Contribution went to Mark Light (again) in recognition of everything he does for SOC and beyond. Those for the Most Improved Senior and Most Improved Junior went to Sophie Blundell and Emma Currie respectively. Andy Snell retained the Night-O trophy, and The Pits went to Chris Ballard for his fall at Holmsley that saw the demise of his dibber. Mary Nixon was awarded Honorary Membership of the club.

After a break for food and chat, Rachel and Iain taxed our brains with quiz questions on orienteering, cheese, and service stations! Thank you both for an entertaining end to the evening.

The coaching activity saw 14 SOC members attend (including Coaches). Between them, they shared 51 runs on a selection of 7 different courses using a standard map or a map with the tracks and paths removed. So experienced orienteers and the less experienced all had challenges to match their capabilities.

Like the last coaching activity at Bramshaw Wood the emphasis was on working on direction, using map and compass to run on bearings!

The area was very open and runnable so running on a bearing was quite achievable, enabling participants to run straight most of the time.

Even so, feedback indicated that although you could generally run straight, it did not always work as planned. Often you need to combine other navigational techniques as well. Techniques such as 'aiming off', navigating to larger identifiable attack points, gauging distance and picturing and ticking off features as you pass them. T something 

I think we all learnt something and gained good experience trying to follow bearings which I hope will encourage the participants to practice further and add this skill to their navigational armoury.

Kevin

John died at his Ferndown nursing home on March 9th 2025 aged 88.
John will be known to the longer standing members of SOC as a great friend to our club.
He controlled the November Classic on a number of occasions. 
I will particularly miss our long phone conversations, especially in the early days of the OCAD mapping software, and we would always finish with putting the orienteering world to rights!
Details of his funeral have now been circulated and are as follows:

It will be at 1pm on Tuesday 1st April at New Forest Crematorium, Stem Lane, New Milton
BH25 5FH. This will be followed by a gathering and afternoon tea buffet at Burley Manor, Ringwood Rd, Burley, Ringwood BH24 4BS. 
Dress code: we know that John loved orienteering and so if O-club members would like to wear their club kit, you'd be welcome to do so. 
A live-stream will be available if anyone can't make it and wants to watch the service remotely. If you are able to attend or would like a link to the live stream please e-mail eamondoc [at] aol.com (eamondoc[at]aol[dot]com) A link will be confirmed shortly. 
Family flowers only preferred. Should anyone wish to donate to charities that John supported we'll be collecting for RNLI and Parkinson's UK"