Fall Newsletter 1997

We would like to thank all those who set up and helped run the spring events. The weather was on our side and hopefully this trend will continue through the fall. A special thanks to Diana Hocking and family from British Columbia who set up a meet in Pippy Park this August for the club and for the attendees of a cartography conference.

Orienteering Clinic

We will not be holding an "Orienteering for Beginners" clinic this fall. Instead, the first event will be geared towards developing orienteering skills. The event will be held in Pippy Park as it is an ideal location to introduce anyone interested in learning how to use a map and compass to the sport of orienteering. Also there are always a number of experienced orienteerers around at all our meets that will be only too happy to answer any questions that you might have about how to improve your map and compass skills. All our events have courses for the beginner, intermediate and advanced participant.

Summer Mapping Project

Our federal summer grant was severely cut back to three weeks this year, but we did manage to get additional funds from the provincial government to hire one student for four additional weeks. The club matched funds for a second student to cover this period. We were fortunate in having John Paul Richards and Jared Rypkema working for us again this summer and the provincial championships will be run on the map that they produced. They also digitized the Pippy Park map and the area opposite the Flakey Downs map, accross the Trans Canada Highway from the Holyrood access road.

Orienteering Championships

The Provinical Championships will be run on the Motion Head map produced this summer and located just south of Petty Harbour. The area is mainly open barrens with many undulating hills, bogs, scattered trees, ponds and thickets. This year we are going to start the championships an hour earlier. There will be a meeting for all participants at 11:00am. The first start time will be 11:30am and the course closing time will be 3:30pm. This will give us time to organize the results which will be announced at 4:30pm. Note that you are strongly advised to preregister for the provinicial championships so that we can have preprinted maps ready for you.

Fall Events

For all other events, please refer to our schedule. For the event on Bell Island we have arranged a group crossing for the ferry leaving Portugal Cove at 11:20am. Please try to be at the ferry terminal by 11:00am so we can minimize the number of vehicles that need to go across. The group rate will allow people across for free but we will have to pay for every vehicle we take on the ferry. Other ferry times are 1:05pm and 1:45pm and returns from Bell Island are at 2:25pm, 3:45pm, 5:00pm, 6:00pm, 7:00pm and 10:30pm. Note that there is a $2.00 map fee for all courses.

Internet Home Page

Please look for our schedule and newsletter on our web page and put it in your bookmarks. Our home page URL is "http://www.cs.mun.ca/~sjoc". E-mail us if you would prefer to be put on our e-mail list and no longer need to have correspondence delivered by regular mail.