Event report: Sprint 4 & AGM

This event on a new park and bush map at Mills Park in Beckenham provided a good opportunity for those travelling to Easter to get into some interesting bush features in a compact area. Courses started in the park area then traversed many features in the bush ("swamps", watercourses, ditches, depressions, tree stumps, etc) before heading into more sprint-worthy park terrain to finish.

Eighty+ entrants braved the conditions and the party workers to have their say in the annual elections, finding the voting booth in the bush and marking their ballots in the post AGM election. Liam Dufty made the course setter happy by blitzing the course in a tad under 15 minutes so it was an appropriate length long course. Winning times on the medium and short (outside of speed demon Oliver on the short) were a little on the long side but everyone seemed to enjoy the area and the anticipated (few) grass seeds that the setter encountered when drawing the map were reluctant to make a showing today.

The original long and medium courses needed a last minute revision just a few days prior thanks to a small amount of rain in the week leading up to the event that caused the (until then) dry creek to suddenly have water in it! Otherwise it was pleasing to see on Eventor that most routes were utilised and even some that the setter did not consider or perhaps that was just waylaid orienteers.

Thank you to setter Ricky Thackray for providing an interesting and, at times humorous, event. Thanks also to those who assisted, including with control collection and packing up.

Results are in Eventor.
Add your track to Livelox and compare your route choices with those of your fellow orienteers.

Photo: Setting up at Mills Park, taken by Sue Dowling.

OWA's New Council

Orienteering WA's Annual General Meeting was held at Mills Park immediately after the sprint event. Following the AGM, the Council has some new faces!

President: Graham Braid;
Vice President: Mark Lommers;
Treasurer: Susan Coleman;
Secretary: Ceri Pass;
Coaching convenor: Rachel West;
Mapping convenor: Sten Claessens;
MTBO convenor: Ricky Thackray;
Communications convenor: Jan Fletcher;
Technical convenor: Craig Dufty;
General council members: Liisa Hirvonen, Heike Behrbohm, Sharon McFarlane, Tash Thackray, and Riley McFarlane (youth representative);
Auditor: Brain Austin.

Welcome to new members Graham Braid, Mark Lommers (was a general councillor), Craig Dufty, and Tash Thackray.
Many thanks are due to retiring members Anna Napier (former president), and Tony Simpkins (former technical convenor for many years).

NOL Thank You

At the Mills Park event, and immediately prior to the OWA AGM, Rachel West, the overall organiser of the recent National O League events in and around Perth, thanked those with major roles in the events and presented them with 'thank you' gifts. There was a lot of activity going on behind the scenes during the events, and the end result was amazing. Thank you to all of you (pictured below) and especially to Rachel for her guidance, as well as all of the many other volunteers who assisted with these events!

Photo: NOL workers, taken by Sue Dowling.