It\u2019s not often that I\u2019m lost for words but I was quite speechless at the end of my run at the CompassSport Trophy regional round up on Cringle Moor. I\u2019d had a fairly average run myself, no big mistakes but nothing spot on either and my running was weak after an unexpectedly high mileage the day before. Things hadn\u2019t started well when I failed to find the start; thanks Mark for putting me right and thanks to the CLOK start marshals for letting me start as they were packing up and having a punching start rather than me starting with a 20 minute time penalty.<\/p>\n
Why was I speechless? I was sat at the club tent taking off my club shirt and putting on my new club windshirt (have you got one yet?) when our CompassSport captain Mike Hind comes across and says, \u201cWe\u2019ve won \u2013 by seven points\u201d. The last few years we\u2019ve been close but never quite made it. We\u2019ve been beaten by EPOC, by Northern Navigators, or by NATO by a tiny margin but this time we were there, numero uno. For once we weren\u2019t penalised by being the host club, losing capable runners to plan, organise or control as at Guisecliffe or Timble. Despite the understandable absence of a handful of regulars we\u2019d turned out 31 runners and they\u2019d all performed to expectations.<\/p>\n
Scoring for CompassSport is complex (Tim Moon has a spreadsheet if you can\u2019t sleep) but it\u2019s two competitions in one as the larger clubs (CLOK, Aire, Ebor) chase the Cup and the smaller clubs (Claro, NATO, NN and EPOC) compete for the Trophy. What matters is beating your rivals from the other small clubs. Getting beaten in your class by an Airienteer has no effect. It also helps if a club can spread itself across as many classes as possible. That\u2019s just the simplified version of the rules.<\/p>\n
Mike Hind had done a cracking job as team captain, twisting arms and encouraging as many of us to come out. He\u2019d judged the distribution of runners to classes well and in so many ways he was his usual ever-competitive self. We had the semi-detached pair of club tents, the club flag and plenty of club shirts and jackets in view. A presence to be proud of. \u00a0There are plenty of CLAROs in Vince’s photos here<\/a> and in Wendy Carlyle’s here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The highlight of the Claro results to me was the performance of the under-14 juniors on the Orange course where we took all three podium places in a very large class. Well done indeed to Luke Fry, Lois Parker and Alexis Whitaker. Ewan Reid and Eve Whitaker weren\u2019t far behind either. The Junior League is certainly helping to develop some fine orienteers. Looking at Claro\u2019s results just against the other small clubs I reckon we scored three 1st places, four 2nd, four 3rd, three 4th, and six other top ten places across the spread of ages and both genders. Claro\u2019s finest hour for a good few years and a credit to everybody\u2019s hard work and effective performance. Changing the subject, I\u2019m pleased to say that I\u2019ve finally been able to present the Charles Lewsley Cup for 2015\/16 to its deserved winner. We\u2019ve brought the award of that trophy in line with our club championship trophies, normally presented at the AGM. The Charles Lewsley Cup is awarded for a member not on the committee who is judged to have made the greatest contribution to the activities or reputation of the club. I\u2019m sure we all remember the Yorkshire JK (how could we forget) which was so well masterminded by Mike Cope. You may not be aware though that Mike also serves as YHOA regional fixtures secretary and chairs the national fixtures committee for BO; he has the job of persuading recalcitrant regions that it really is their turn to host the JK in 2020 or the British Champs in 2019. A combination of Mike\u2019s well-earned sabbatical and my own absence due to injury has led to him not receiving it until Cringle Moor. I can\u2019t imagine that we\u2019ve ever had a more deserving winner. Mike retains the trophy until just before our AGM in September when it will pass to the 2016\/17 winner. Now, where\u2019s my map of Devon…… It\u2019s not often that I\u2019m lost for words but I was quite speechless at the end of my run at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chairmans-chat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.claro-orienteering.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.claro-orienteering.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.claro-orienteering.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.claro-orienteering.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.claro-orienteering.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.claro-orienteering.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.claro-orienteering.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.claro-orienteering.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.claro-orienteering.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.claro-orienteering.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSo that qualifies Claro to compete in the final against the best of the other regions\u2019 small clubs. The final is to be held on Sunday 22nd October down at Yelverton in west Devon. I don\u2019t know the area but from the map and Geograph it looks like a mix of steeply sloping woodland, an open common and some early industrial or mining relics. It\u2019s a long way to travel but our initial reaction is that we\u2019d like to do our best to make it. Committee will be looking at the issue of a significant contribution to costs as well as the logistics of getting us all down there. In the meantime put that weekend in your diary; I think it\u2019s probably the first weekend of school half term.<\/p>\n
\nDon\u2019t forget we\u2019ve got Lindley Moor coming up on March 26th, planned by Liz Potterton on a newly-extended map and organised by Susan Birtwistle. That\u2019s a round of the Yorkshire Superleague so expect big numbers and the need for many volunteers. One of our regular car parking volunteers is laid up at present following a nasty hand injury competing at Burley and Ilkley last week that needed surgery; get well soon John Birtwistle. Meanwhile he joins the increasing ranks of Claro\u2019s walking wounded which oddly includes three of the four club officers.<\/p>\n
\nStan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"