The Orienteering Foundation is a charity that promotes and supports orienteering in the UK and to ensure that our sport is here for the enjoyment of generations to come. You may be aware that there is an Orienteering Foundation project researching volunteering in orienteering which was launched on 17th March. See https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/news/6578/improving_volunteering_in_orienteering

Orienteering is dependent on volunteers and the Foundation would like to encourage all orienteers to complete the short survey whether they currently volunteer or not.

The insights from the survey will enable the Foundation to establish strategies and actions that will enable British Orienteering and its clubs to support volunteers better, making their roles easier to perform and more enjoyable, and identifying how to improve volunteer retention and make volunteer recruitment easier.

There is a prize of a £200 voucher for outdoor kit for one lucky survey respondent to be used at www.sportsshoes.com and six other randomly awarded prizes of Kickback coffee bags.

The survey can be found at https://forms.office.com/e/EMkEg01DZY
Any questions or feedback about the survey should be directed to the Orienteering Foundation on survey [at] orienteeringfoundation.org.uk (survey[at]orienteeringfoundation[dot]org[dot]uk)

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