The club will be holding a pre-Christmas meal on 11th December in The Horseshoe Inn in the village of Llangattock near Crickhowell. Everyone is welcome!
The meal will be immediately preceded by a MapRun event around the local area, which will be a great opportunity to work up an appetite.
Along with the village of Llangattock, the local area also features the River Usk, the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, the small picturesque town of Crickhowell, and quiet country lanes and footpaths. So plenty of variety and interest.
If you plan to attend the meal, please book your place when you enter the MapRun event via Fabian4 so that we know how many to expect.
Full details can be found on the event page here.
Category Archives: News
Western Night League 2024/25
Orienteering in the dark!
Fancy adding an extra layer of challenge to your orienteering?
The Western Night League is a series of night orienteering events put on by our neighbouring clubs in South Wales and western England. The events are held on Saturday evenings after dark throughout the winter, and the format is typically a 1 hour score event.
On top of your standard orienteering gear, all you’ll need is a good, bright headtorch (plus a backup just in case), a whistle in case of emergencies, and a good sense of direction in the dark!
Head over to the Western Night League website for further details.
They also have a facebook page.
MapRun Winter Series 2024/25
Our popular Wednesday evening races are back!
MapRun is a low key street race against the clock. In order to win, you’ll need to be quick on your feet and even quicker with your decisions.
- 18th September – Cardiff City Centre
- 16th October – Caerleon
- 20th November – Radyr
- 11th December – Llangattock
- 15th January – Canton
- 19th February – Whitchurch
- 19th March – St Mellons
- 16th April – TBC
All events are a 7pm mass start
Entries close at 6.45pm on the night, however please enter early as it allows us to print the correct number of maps.
Entries online only on fabian4.co.uk
CROESO 2024
Croeso is a 6 day festival of orienteering held every 4 years in Wales.
This year the event was held in Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons National Park) and surrounding area from the 21st to the 27th of July, with two of the six days racing being organised by SWOC.
The event was a huge success, with over individual 1500 competitors taking part from around the UK and overseas. Competitors were treated to 6 days of fantastic orienteering ranging from the complex sand dunes of Merthyr Mawr to the wild limestone uplands of the Brecon Beacons.
Several SWOC members made the overall podium, as follows:
Rhys Manning – 1st in M40 class
Tom Foord – 2nd in M45 class
Matt Whipple – 3rd in M35 class
Jill Manning – 3rd in W75 class
Full results for each day can be viewed on the Croeso website.
Welsh Championships 2024 Prize Winners
Congratulations to SWOC prize winners :
Mark Ponsford – 2nd M35
Rhys Manning – 1st M40
Tom Foord – 1st M45
Anthony Raven – 3rd M50
James Clemence – 2nd M60
Graham Tough – 1st M80
Frank Ince – 2nd M80
Clare Ponsford – 1st W35
Christine Farr – 3rd W45
Jill Manning – 1st W75
Welsh Championships 2023 Prize Winners
Congratulations to SWOC prize winners –
Douglas Innes-Farr 2nd M12,
Andrew Raven 3rd M18,
Christopher Raven 2nd M18,
Rhys Manning 1st M40,
Tom Foord 1st M45,
James Clemence 1st M60,
John Mills 3rd M70,
Frank Ince 1st M80,
Alun Morgan 2nd M80,
Christine Farr 2nd W45,
Jane Bush 2nd W65,
Jill Manning 1st W70,
Anne May 2nd W70,
Sue Colbert W75.
Get out & go orienteering How-to videos
‘Get Out & Go‘ is a series of short films to take beginners through all the basics to confidently try orienteering. All the skills and techniques shown in the films are easy to practice using our Anytime MapRun Courses.
The four films are titled Getting Started, Getting Going, Getting Confident and Getting Faster.
- Getting Started gives information on orienteering maps, useful symbols to note, how courses are drawn, and what to look for at checkpoints or controls. It also shows how to line up the map with features nearby, a key skill to help the novice orienteer set off in the right direction.
- Getting Going covers more detail on the map, shows how to use a compass, simple route choices, how to use features other than paths as handrails, and when to cut corners.
- Getting Confident gives tips on techniques that help build more confidence in navigational decisions. These include learning to take a sure route into a checkpoint, finding a safety net if you overshoot and using control descriptions to visualise the checkpoint.
- Getting Faster demonstrates where to plan ahead, where to speed up and slow down and gives some tips on reading the map on the run.
Thank-you to Manchester and District Orienteering Club and GMOA for creating this fantastic resource