There will be a club meeting on March 2nd in the Foxes Den, Ashbourne. That's just before our League event in Mullaghmeen on March 7th. Tommy says the planning is progressing well. Donal Ó Murchú of CNOC is controlling the event for us again. We have decided however not to use SportIdent on this occasion.

Thanks to all of you who came and participated in the club training session last Sunday, at the Setanta event in the Hellfire Wood. It was a reasonable success although we were a bit disorganised due to the weather. However I think all those who participated gained something from it. We will try it again in March or April if there's a suitable event. Thanks to Ciaran, Doug, and Mick for giving the training.

Our Night-O event is on in St. Anne's park on Tuesday, 27th. This year the start will be at the seafront end of the park, the east end, near the causeway to the Bull Island, not Sybil Hill. Starts are from 6.30 to 7.30. There will be 2 courses, Long 5K approx, and Short, 3.2K. We will have a meeting after the event also, in the Dollymount Inn.

Happy New Year to all club members and other visitors to this site.

We are planning to do some training at the event next Sunday, 11th Jan., at the Hellfire Wood. We will put up the club banner somewhere in the car park as the meeting point. All club members are welcome to come along. The training will be at a basic level for juniors and beginners, starting with map symbols, relating the map to the ground, and how to use a compass. If time allows we will move on to pacing and other orienteering techniques.

Results of St. Anne's Park event are here.

The event list for next Spring is here

At the recent club meeting the possibility of using SportIdent at our event in Mullaghmeen was discussed but no decision on using it was made. Running a training course was also discussed. Many club members, particularly juniors, need basic training in orienteering techniques, such as using a compass and pacing. The problem is that a practical training session would have to be on a Saturday, but people have other activities on Saturday. Having a classroom type training session on some evening was raised also. If anyone has any thoughts, and more importantly would like to help organise something, please let us know.

Results of Newbridge House event are here.

At the Munster Championships on the October Bank Holiday weekend, Erika Jones won the W14 Class. The event was held in Rathgaskig, in West Cork, in an area used many years ago for the Shamrock Oringen. The event used a new map with a 1.5000 scale and 2.5 M contours. This meant it was incredibly detailed, especially in the forest section. Although the courses were quite short the times were still long, which probably meant that most people lost time at controls due to the technicality of the map and terrain.

Erika Jones and Meghan O'Driscoll were recently selected for the Irish Junior Team, and took part in the Junior Home International in Fermanagh. The English team just pipped Scotland to win the event, with Wales third and Ireland fourth. The Irish team were short of junior girls, with only our 2 in the W14 class and only 1 in W18.

Results of GO ORIENTEERING day at Malahide Castle Demesne are here. Thanks to all who supported the event. We had many individuals and families trying Orienteering for the first time. We sold around 50 maps but there must have been at least twice that number of people taking part. It was a pity the weather didn't hold up. Thanks to Tommy for planning, and to those who helped out, and helped explain the basics to beginners, Alex and Bernie, Ian, Doug, and Mick Kellett from GEN

There will be a club meeting on Tuesday, the 16th of September, in the FOX'S DEN in Ashbourne, at 9.00 PM. It's on the main street in Ashbourne, on the right heading if you are heading north.

The event list for the season has been published. Check here. We are holding 5 other events, apart from Malahide Castle - Newbridge House in November, St.Anne's Park in December and again in January for Night-O, Mullaghmeen in March, and Howth in April or May. For club members if you want to try planning an event now is your chance. Most of these events are local park events and will not be difficult to plan. Don't leave all the work to the same people.

<- Val Jones at the French 5-day.

Several club members travelled abroad to events during the summer. Tommy and Cathal Burke, Jean O'Neill, and John Rowe travelled to the Belgian 3-Day, Jean also travelled to the Finland 6-day, and Val, Helena, and Erika Jones and Meghan O'Driscoll went to the French 5-Day. See the report here.

Look out for changes to the event calendar next season. The Leinster League is being reorganised. Although still to be confirmed, the main change is that it will be split into 2 leagues, an Autumn League of 5 events before Christmas and a Spring Cup of 6 events after Christmas. The Black course looks like being dropped, but the other 6 courses will be retained. There will also be more local events throughout the season starting in September with introductory events throughout the month, then continuing interspersed between league and championship events through the season. The League events will have standard colour coded courses only. The alternative events such as Street-O, Long-O, Park-O, will no longer be part of the league but they can be run as part of the local events. Hopefully Street-O won't disappear altogether.

The Wicklow Way Relay took place again last weekend. It was a great day, with the rain holding off for most of the day and it finished in very pleasant sunshine outside the Parkview pub in Shillelagh. The Fingal Vikings team consisting of Doug and Jonathan Corrie, Mick O'Keeffe, Fran Lafferty, Ray Linn, Ciaran Young, Eddie O'Flynn, and Don O'Keeffe, came 13th out of 27 teams. Val Jones was also competing as part of Team Bayer, and Deirde O'Neill in 'Kevin 2'. The summer hill running series continues on Wednesday evenings, with next Wednesday's ( June 18th ) annual hill run in Howth.

At the Irish Championships in Silent Valley we had 2 wins with Jean O'Neill in W55 and Erika Jones in W14. Meghan O'Driscoll was second in W14. Also there were Val Jones, Tommy Burke, Fearghal Burke, Kathryn Walley, Doug Corrie, and Padraig Kearns. The longer courses were mostly on open mountain with only a short section in woods at the end, finishing at the foot of the Dam. Unfortunately the weather was pretty unrelenting making it hard to appreciate the scenery. At the relays the following day the Fingal W120+ team of Jean O'Neill, Kathryn Walley, and Brid Quigley came in first only to be disqualified for mispunching.