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Auckland SS Sprint Series

Paul I Posted: 25 February 2009, 7:51 AM   from what I hear mike's even managed to get Rangitoto College to put a team or two together for the first time - nz's largest public schl, oooooh the potential from a school that has produced some great atheletes. Great job Mike and his helpers.   robbie Posted: 26 February 2009, 5:16 AM   Paul---for the first time? Thats like saying Pinelands never existed. Rangitoto was a strong orienteering school when the Stones family were involved.   robbie Posted: 26 February 2009, 5:45 AM   Nick I have just spent the last 35 years working on orienteering to help the sport grow. The last 9 years doing working with secondary school students doing the same work that Mike is doing now. I know what the work load is and there is no finish line. I am not against the project but if you refer back to Martins comments they are very valid. Mike is working for college sport and it covers all of Auckland. When I had Mikes job I didnt leave out Westlake boys for example. Thomas, What would your reaction if your ex school and club was left out of the summer series that I ran? What I am on about is a change of format is great but lets all be involved or should we hold the Auckland Championships and only Auckland and North West can enter   Paul I Posted: 26 February 2009, 8:50 AM   Sorry Robbie I didn't mean to undermine anyone, I was just impressed that the huge school just up the road from us is finally doing some orienteering, something I hadn't seen since living here in Auckland for the past few years. As most people north side of the bombays has probably never heard of Pinelands, when I lived south of the border I never heard of Rangitoto so I have no idea what has gone under the bridge so to speak. Just finding you class at that school requires you to have an affinity to orienteering so here's hoping...   Neil K Posted: 26 February 2009, 11:40 AM   What are we arguing about? I hate these pesky kids.   valerie Posted: 27 February 2009, 12:52 PM   Neil your soooo funny   Mike B Posted: 28 February 2009, 6:02 PM   I have read with great interest all your comments about the SS series When I first took over from Robbie my two immediate goals were too: 1 Lift the profile of orienteering in Auckland sec.schools to a level where we would have at least 200 entries in the 2009 AKSS champs to be held in May. In the past few years the level of entries has remained around 90-120 give or take a few. Not good enough for a population of well over one million. So I felt if I could double previous years figures I was making progress. My second was to set up a properly structured school season beginning early in term one with a sprint competition run on school grounds, to give newcomers a taste, in a safe environment, of what this great sport is really all about, and where they could rub shoulders with many of our experienced juniors and learn from them. This series would lead them into the AKSS, NISS and finally NZSS champs all held in term two. Along the way the idea was to encourage them to also take part in the Summer series and then into promotional forest events, and so give them a more rounded experience. This would also give them more confidence when they compete in the school championships events on very unfamilar areas. I felt the best way to achieve these goals was to try and advance the sport in the schools which already had a reasonably strong orienteering base with juniors who compete at club level. These juniors could act as mentors for the newer ones as they came into the school series. There are probably 80/90% of the club juniors in Auckland who live north of Kings College, so it made good sense to me to put all of my initial energy into this area and try and build momentum around this strong base. I saw little point in trying to build it in any other way. This to me does not make it elitest and only for the central and nothern areas, it's the fact of the matter at the moment, that's where the immediate growth will come. I have not excluded any one else from attending, it's on the College Sport website for all Auckland schools to see. The fact that hardly any school age children between Kings College and Drury orienteer, is a major concern but in the future I would like to see that turned around. Maybe CMOC should try to move a little further afield than just Counties, and look at Manakau. From schools like Westlake, MAGS, Massey, St Cuths, Wentworth, Diocesan, AGS, Rangtoto Kings and Birkenhead we have increased numbers substantially. New schools have come onboard by word of mouth like St Marys, Avondale College with a dozen or so students each time, in all grades and genders. Schools unheard of before in orienteering like Green Bay, Henderson, Albany Senior High, Onehunga High, Long Bay to name a few have all become involved with smaller numbers but it's a start. So much so that the second school series event has now received 200 entries. All these newer schools have seen the info on the college sport site and made contact and it's grown from. Using sport ident has also been a good move the kids have embraced the technology and there were a huge number of hits on the club web site with them checking for their results. If the competition continues to grow, as I'm sure it will, some thought will be given to a zonal competition to cut down the travelling. A north, south, east and west arrangement on an annual basis, with a champion of champions event to cap it off. But that's in the future and we'll keep going the way we are for the moment. The comments from you Robbie saying "it would have been nice to been informed" are untrue. I did let you know that I was holding the school series. The fact that it was being held on the same day as the CMOC summer series was unfortunate, but couldn't be helped as I was unable to have free use of any of the school grounds we were using for the series on tuesday or thursday because of touch rugby. You commented back saying how you probably wouldn't have come up anyway, because of the traffic. On a lighter note, we look forward to you bringing up your charges from Puke one of these days to do battle.   Jamie Posted: 1 March 2009, 2:25 PM   That seems very well explained. Its a good tactical plan to focus some time and resources on a particular area and there is obviously a strategy there to move forward in the future. Good on you Mike   The Clem Posted: 1 March 2009, 3:37 PM   Mike, the series and the plan for it looks awesome. But I kinda wobble a bit on a couple points of supportive logic, '...80/90% of the club juniors in Auckland who live north of Kings College ...' I know numbers have changed since last years annual report, but if you are embracing the Auckland region as you say, than according to the stats its more like 64% (NW and AOC). But irrespective it makes perfect sense to focus your attention in the area you believe has the biggest chance of getting the snowball rolling. No point spreading yourself thin or increasing the potential for diluting what looks like a great competition. A purist might argue it is a little elitist and is to an extent exclusive no matter what colour you try to paint it, but I understand you've gotta start somewhere and it's a good plan if everything is able to be played out as you hope. Which leads on to '...hardly any school age children between Kings College and Drury orienteer...'. I'm thinking youre just referring to secondary schools. Otherwise there have been a lot of children having a bloody good lark at someones expense for quite a few years now when they're supposed to be orienteering. I've seen the numbers of kids and schools. They're not small. It's probably the translation of these children into significant club numbers, or lack of it, that is the ongoing concern. But fear not, this is being addressed and CMOC numbers have climbed substantially in the past year. CMOC; Counties Manukau Orienteering Club. Just in case the acronym isn't apparent. A bit of geo/ego -centric thinking maybe? We do go a little further afield than the CMOC area. In the last couple of weeks 4 CMOC members were teaching orienteering in the NW area. It happens a quite a bit. I know the people responsible pretty well. In fact some of the schools you mentioned who have entered the SS Sprint Series have had orienteering taught in them by CMOC members. Im not sure how much of this occurs on a reciprocal basis from the other clubs. It almost seems youre airing a misleading dig at the club. The main reason Ive commented. We think what youre doing is great. As for the timing, which is the only real issue, its more the fact that the timetable for the CMOC Summer Series was set last year well before its first event in October 2008. It was put forward to the other 2 Auckland clubs to work in with their dates. There were no clashes, so venues were booked and set. Thinking back to then, there didnt appear to be any dates set for the Akld SS Sprint Series. We probably could have moved our SS nights to a Thursday or something at such an early stage. This is logical as it wouldnt make sense for CMOC to set dates for their club events if it restricted or in anyway hindered our members from attending another event that could be hugely beneficial. Whether they could attend or not is irrelevant, as it is about choice. But by looks of it CMOC will get a chance to work in better for the next season, and maybe an eventual zoning competition you mention could do the trick. Ironically I met with college in west Auckland this week in regards to setting up orienteering in the school next year. Go figure. But well done, Im pretty keen to see where this leads to and I know Ill eventually be involved in some part of it somewhere along the line.   robbie Posted: 2 March 2009, 3:23 PM   Great work Mike. Nice to get some discussion going which is what I wanted in the first place.I like your ideas and wish you well with the project.Two things I would like to address are first the areas. You mention that we should move south of Dury into Manukau. Our area has a boarder which includes Howick St Kentigern Kings College St Cuthberts Epsom girls Diocesan Mangere which is basically the Counties-Manukau Sports Foundation area. I have mapped over 100 primary schools in this area several intermediate schools and Howick College St Kentigern Kings College St Cuthberts Papatoetoe College Pukekohe High Wesley College and Tuakau College. As you can see we can set up a southern zone for next year. But my concern at the moment is man power. There is a good financial income from the events so we could emply a team to run this.I will take this to the next committee meeting. Your comments on 80/90% north of Kings are strange we had 43 juniors from a club membership of 86 last year. North west have 26.We have a strong Secondary school representation in NZ Teams and at the next level we have four members in the jwoc team. I hope your membership improves dramatically with your new program.My efforts have gone into a club membership drive and from 86 we are now 170 so all is good. Looking forward to next year and I hope the communication will result in a promising future for orienteering.   Bryan Posted: 3 March 2009, 1:16 AM   Great to see such a great result. The bottom line is that it will introduce our sport to new youngsters and will promote and grow our sport whatever the teething problems or issues. I am happy that my company (Terralink) was able to provide high resolution aerial photos for free (as long as they weren't used for commercial use and only used for mapping/fieldworking) for some of the colleges and schools. The same offer goes out to other clubs willing to map or remap schools.   thomasr Posted: 4 March 2009, 12:24 PM   Event two tonight was another success, kids seem really amped. A few really talented very novice runners there too. Perhaps an end to Hawkes Bay having it easy at schools events is nigh. I think the key think to remember, which Robbie has got to, is that the man power limits the scheme at the moment. I think that viewing it as an experimental pilot scheme is a good idea until all the little things are worked out, afterwhich it can start to grow a little.   addison Posted: 4 March 2009, 12:39 PM   A bit premature to say HB reign over after 2 sprint events   valerie Posted: 4 March 2009, 1:24 PM   We know how to breed them down here.....lol   SJ Posted: 4 March 2009, 1:29 PM   We are breeding them up here! Haha