Have you entered for Easter?

 Early Bird (cheaper rates to get the $ coming in)

closes on December 31^st

Please, Tintookies, please enter, think of camping on the Oval, experience big numbers

at an 0 event, help at the Registration Tent (Erica will put you on her Roster), join in the

social activities, even do the String Course!

Another good reason for entering ‑‑‑ at least for Days 1 and 2, so why not the lot? ‑‑‑ is that we have

      to defend our title of CHAMPION CLUB won at Easter in 2006 on the basis of the Day 1 and 2

      results                 (We'll have to do without Bob's result on Day 2 as he is the Course‑setter).

The Roster
is coming.
Watch your Emails.
If you want to course‑set or organize a specific TT event, let Geoff Bennett know asap.
Geoff's ph 83732911 (w) or 83367416 (h)
(Thanks, Bob, for many years of doing the roster.)

 A TT Get‑together is planned.
If you're not away on holiday, come to the Summer Series event
at
Hawthorndene
on Friday (obviously) January 12th
congregate near the Tintookie banner to eat and talk after orienteering and get to know TTs whom you didn't know before.

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 AGM Congratulations to all the existing committee on their re‑election plus the addition of another young voice, John Nieuwenhoven. In case you've forgotten, that means Alison Radford is our President for the 3rd (and last, she says, so start searching  your conscience for 2008 year). Ken Thompson is again our Secretary but keen to off‑load any part of the responsibility eg Erica Diment is happy to be the Minute Secretary. Clive Arthur is so computer literate that I believe his programme is the Treasurer rather than he himself! Other members of the committee are Bob Smith, Geoff Bennett, Mike Hicks, Maarten Nieuwenhoven, Vanessa Round, Andrew Slattery, Fi Pahor, Phil Hazell and me. The roles we concentrate on, such as being responsible for the trailer and all equipment, are confirmed or re‑allocated at the first committee meeting.

 After the AGM, I asked Clive to write a paragraph on why TT was $5000 worse off at the end of the year than at the beginning... Mapping costs, Active Club grant lack of success in 2006?... But I haven't been able to remind him. He and Marian have gone to Melbourne to help with the family as Bruce's 3rd child a daughter, has arrived. Congratulations to Bruce and Anne

 After the elections there were presentations of a few awards, notably to Fi for winning the W50 OY Orienteer of the Year. I thought she'd drop it she was so excited. I'd say the secret of her success was to go to as many OY events as she could so that she could afford to drop out her lowest scores. Other contenders were unable to drop their worst scores as 6 have to be included before any can be dropped. Then we all ate everyone's offerings of salad to go with Fi's offerings of BBQed meats ( thanks to the Hazells and to East Adelaide Primary School for use of the venue and BBC) . After that we enjoyed listening to 4 speakers on the general subject of Orienteering Overseas.

Firstly, Vanessa Round talked about her time in Lithuania as part of the Australian JWOC team. That seemed insignificant in comparison to the technical sophistication of the WOC competition with individual runners' progress in the forest being displayed on a giant TV screen (Could be embarrassing, couldn't it?) and the sheer numbers (17,000?) involved in the Swedish 5‑Day.

 Then we heard Kirsten Moller's outline of her 0 club's routine in Denmark. Think of a country where the highest elevation is only 300m. No effort to keep the climb for any course below 4%. More enviable than that was the existence of a 2‑storey club house and someone who sets courses in the surrounding forest several times a week. We fondly think of Para Wirra as "our" area but it is some way away for many of us and we certainly cannot boast of a club house.

 Then John, with the odd interpolation by me, set about persuading those Tintookies who are 35+ that they should think about going to a World Masters . It isn't only the elite who go but all abilities, and one is so well looked after that it is not difficult nor all that expensive eg our experiences in Austria this year. Fancy Finland in 2007? We have some entry forms.

 

                                                                        Past Members

At AGMs, there is always a list of apologies. One doesn't expect to find non‑members on that list!
It must mean the Northcotes are planning to come back soon!

 Remember Tony and Helen Vincent?
We caught up with them recently and realized how long ago they switched from 0 to cycling
when they said their "children" were 26 and 24..
I was amazed to get a phone call from Kris Mosher. I knew she'd been battling cancer and thought she'd returned to USA to be with her family.
But she reappeared a couple of months ago to clear out her house before going back to USA for good. She had a small TT windcheater to leave behind‑just about Christopher M‑‑‑F's size.

Also in the winter months,
Peter Young re‑appeared. In the days before he had a family he was on the TT committee. Now he has a daughter at East Adelaide P.S...

 

 

Is Julie Schofield passing on her navigational skills learnt while she was a TT junior? I hardly think this person needs help in finding his way.

David Attenborough gets to the most remote places.

 

 

 

 

How the West was lost ... TTs didn't do very well over there except Helen M‑F who had a scorcher and came 2^nd  in the National Championships and Vanessa who dominated W 17‑20 throughout.. Both Rachel Sampson and I learnt a lesson the hard way. We had high hopes for Rachel but she got confused in the Schools Individuals , mistaking a line on the map for a fence when in fact it was a power line. So she ran hard to the catching feature but of course she ran under it and away till she realized something was wrong. I talked to our mapping co‑ordinator, Adrian Uppill, about any rules re putting not only the pylons but also the power lines on the map. He said there is no rule. If the mapper considers that there would be a multiplicity of lines , then he leaves them out. If he thinks some extra handrails would help, he puts them in. But he did go on to say that it would probably be a good idea if the legend which shows a pylon but no power line symbol should highlight that omission. Did you get a chance to see the legend beforehand, Rachel? We all know what to check up on in future. I paid dearly for conserving my energy at the WA Champs. Where our car was parked, it was 1 km in one direction to the Assembly area/Finish and l km. in the opposite direction to the Start. So I didn't go and look at the last control etc before I went out on my course. When I got near the Finish with 4 minutes to spare I don't know what happened but I looked at that control and thought it was part of the Finish set up and went away searching for the last control for the next 5  minutes! If only I had sussed out the layout beforehand! ....... The other lesson both John and I learnt is just how much we can use the other orienteers around us while out on a course. We could not stay for the Nationals so the WA organizers let us run unofficially the day before. How I wished some‑one would pop up when I knew I was somewhere near "my" boulder. I usually look at the running order of all the people running my course so, if I see them, I can get that adrenalin rush as I've caught them up (or the opposite..) This time it really was just us and the terrain. (Talking of reasons for losing out, ask George Reeves how well he is going to tie up his laces in future. It took him more than 5 seconds to retie them at Oakden Wetlands and that was the margin he was beaten by.)

Congratulations, Vanessa
For being awarded a SASI Scholarship.
This means use of their facilities as well as some handy

 

The Last Control Inc. or Lyon Retrieval Services Inc. This year more than ever before John and I have had the time and/or the appropriate location to retrieve that last not collected, control after an event. 3 times this year? We all know we should make a graveyard as the controls come in as a way of checking they have all been collected, but by then it's usually late, you're tired so you just think they're all accounted for. We aren't always able to oblige so I really recommend that graveyard technique. Bruce Greenhaugh, you're not the only one!

 Matters Arising from the December Committee Meeting.

 ###1### Maarten Nieuwenhoven would like his shed back. That is, he would like someone else to give a home to all TT equipment. Please consider if you have space for the trailer and assorted gear which course‑setters and organizers can arrange to pick up.

 ###2### A Working Bee is planned for some time later in January. This means assembling at Maarten's shed to check that the flags are OK and that the stands are in working order (especially that the number plates both come to horizontal and back up again. They are stored UP to protect the numbers and to store compactly) Also there are 20 SI Unit holders on order which need to be put on spare stands. Watch your Emails for further details and use the opportunity for a sociable day's work and a chance to find out whether your shed is big enough for you to be the next Equipment Officer.

 ###3### The mapping committee is to look at the question of map corrections. Who does them? What then? Now that I am not on the mapping committee, I'll put in my "two bob's worth" here. When we keep on making corrections ‑‑‑ and with an old map like Pewsey Vale especially‑‑‑ we need to prevent a large history being catalogued somewhere round the frame of the map. All that we need to know, in my view, is when the map was made and when it was last updated, not all the intervening history, what and by whom. That might be kept in a mapping archive if it is valuable, not round the map.

 ###4### TT's delegates to OASA Council meetings will be Barry Wheeler and John Nieuwenhoven this year, with Vanessa Round as a Reserve so that we are always fully represented. We have asked them to take to OASA our view that results should be posted on the day at the Summer Series events. They are posted on the web and at the following event but that lacks the immediacy of comparing yourself with your close rivals and, in the case of the juniors, prevents them from lapsing into the bad habit of walking, not running!

 We have also made the suggestion that, on future Entry Forms, it become the practice for interstate entrants to be asked for their mobile phone numbers. When the SA MTBO Championships had to be postponed recently because of a Total Fireban, several Victorians didn't know till they got there what had happened. Even if they were out of range when a ban was announced, an SMS would perhaps allow them to turn round and go home before they go much further!

 Editorial... Apologies for a 4 month silence. I have been stacking up things to write about but have never had the time to "put pen to paper". After x years of producing the newsletter, I wonder if someone else would be more reliable, have a less gossipy bent, a different style??? All offers considered!

Meanwhile Happy Christmas everyone and a successful New Year.

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