JROS

Junior Regional
Orienteering
Squads

Junior Regional
Orienteering Squads

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Generic information about Stockholm

Location

The Stockholm training camp is based the club ‘hut’ of OK Ravinen (one of the orienteering clubs based around Stockholm  www4.idrottonline.se/OKRavinen-Orientering). The club hut is in Hellasgården in the Nacka district to the south east and in the suburbs of Stockholm.
It is in the middle of Stockholm’s nearest ‘real forest’ and is easily accessible by public transport. 

Accommodation

Accommodation is in the OK Ravinen club hut. The participants will sleep on the floor in one of two rooms in the building.
The hut is equipped with toilets and showers.
The tour chef prepares all the meals on site and specific dietary needs are catered for. Athletes will be expected to assist with chores during the camp.
There is plenty of space around the hut for outdoor games.

Background

Since the late 1990’s a number of training tours have taken place in Scandinavia with popular venues such as Halden and Uppsalla. These catered for the older age groups and were aimed at providing experience of training and competing in Scandinavian terrain.
With the loss of all junior overseas training tours organised by British Orienteering it was decided in 2011 to organise a camp for M/W17’s based on the OK Ravinen club, thanks to the assistance of Nick Barrable who is a member of that club.
All attendees join OK Ravinen which brings a number of benefits both short and long term. In the short term there is a reduction in the cost of staying in the hut, entry to local races and a free ‘O’ top. In the longer term, many past attendees have used their membership of OK Ravinen to compete in top class Scandinavian competition.

Terrain

As you would expect there is an abundance of top class orienteering terrain within easy access of the hut. The tour makes use of the extensive Stockholm public transport system to get to training areas and competitions in the Stockholm area.

Attendees

The camp is aimed at M/W17’s who have achieved the required standard in the nominated selection races (See Stockholm Selection criteria). It is expected that up to 20 M/W17’s will attend. If insufficient M/W17’s qualify the selectors may add suitable M/W16’s.
In support of the camp there is a Tour Manager (TM) who has responsibility for such things as travel, accommodation, food etc.
The TM is supported by a chef and a Lead Coach. The Lead Coach has a team of up to 6 coaches.

Report

This year’s tour was obviously very different to those running to Stockholm and no doubt this report will be as well…

Back in March JROS identified that we should have plan Bs in place for the tours if restrictions meant that they could not go ahead in their normal format. I volunteered to help do the planning for that and in discussions with Mark Saunders decided that the best option would be to try and locate the Stockholm and Gothenburg tours in the same vicinity somewhere in the UK. Mark started looking in Wales and I in Scotland. Fortunately we found a hostel in Findhorn, village hall with showers in Duffus a few miles away and another hall in Glenlivet that the YHJS squad could use who were also looking to base a tour in the UK.

We let the athletes know that there was a plan B if we couldn’t go to Stockholm and unfortunately had to switch to that towards the end of July when it became evident that Sweden were not going to relax their ban on travel from the UK in time.

The aim of plan B was to provide those selected with a week of training bringing in as many aspects of the Stockholm camp as possible given the restrictions. So the tour was more relaxed than Deeside, giving the juniors more freedom during down time, we would be planning and organising an event midweek and there would be a number of races.

Thanks

Before getting into the main report, I would like to take this opportunity to thanks those involved.

We had 55 juniors training in and around the Moray & Inverness area on the Stockholm, Gothenburg and Yorkshire tours. They had an amazing time but this wouldn’t have happened without the help of a lot of people and organisations who I would like to thank on their behalf for making it happen.

Thanks to:

The Cawdor, Darnaway and Coulmony estates and Forestry and Land Scotland for giving permission to train on top quality orienteering terrain.

Findhorn Village Hostel and Duffus Village Hall for providing accommodation for the tour, they were great locations and had all the facilities we needed for the camps.

Inverness & Moravian orienteering clubs for allowing us to use their maps and especially Mairi and Nikki, the permissions officers for each club who worked with us and the landowners to sort out access and permissions and Laurence Cload for advice on INVOC areas.

Elizabeth Furness from Moravian who did lots in advance of the tour and was our local ‘lady in the know’ who suggested areas, possible accommodation, visited the Findhorn marina multiple times to confirm we would be able to get a boat over to Culbin, ferried kit around and was an all-round star.

Carol Young, the ‘Not Stockholm’ camp cook for feeding us and generally keeping us all on the straight and narrow, your experience of multiple camps was invaluable.

Roger Goddard, Julie Emmerson, Pippa Dakin and Louise Adams for giving up a week to coach the ‘Not Stockholm’ trip plus Chris Smithard for his guest appearance in the second half of the week to keep the speed merchants honest and run ‘interference’ at the Darnaway Middle.

Alison Matheson for transporting Sam to the airport and picking up a car load of bags to take down to the Tentsmuir event and Jon Shepherd for picking Ben up from the airport and bringing him to Findhorn.

Staff

TM: Pete Tryner

Coaches: Roger Goddard, Julie Emmerson, Pippa Dakin, Louise Adams, Chris Smithard

Chef: Carol Young

Local Crew: Mairi Nicolson (INVOC Permissions), Nikki Howard (MOR Permissions), Elizabeth Furness (MOR) Not staff on the tour but without their help we could not have pulled it off.

When planning for a UK based tour I hoped that we would have plenty of offers of help, whilst it doesn’t quite have the attraction of 10 days in Stockholm orienteering around Moray is about as good as it gets in the UK but a number of requests were met with an uncomfortable silence with the exception of Carol who responded to the call to action that JROS sent out. Roger offered to help a couple of weeks before the 6-days, taking on the head coach role with Pippa joining around the same time. With GBs participation at EYOC cancelled Julie offered. With Pippa and Julie both signed up it was an easier job getting Louise to transfer from the Yorkshire tour. Chris Smithard joined us for the last few days to help out as well.

Given that neither Roger or I have coached on any of the JROS tours (although I have done a couple of YHJS tours to Stockholm) we were reliant on Julie, Pippa, Louise and Carol to make sure the programme was about right for a Stockholm level camp. Both Roger and I had a vested interest in the tour going ahead with both Euan and Jamie on the tour, but I can’t thank the others enough for stepping up and giving up their time to help on the tour.

I think we worked pretty well as a team, I’m not sure we totally pulled of the ‘Swan like’ organisation but I don’t think we could have ended up the week with a more motivated bunch of juniors and it is thanks to everyone involved that it happened. We worked well as a team with all of us fairly down-to earth / laid back which I think the juniors appreciated.

Athletes

18 athletes were originally selected with 4 reserves. One moved to the Gothenburg tour and another dropped out due to a work experience placement, we also had 2 athletes that could only do half of the camp, although they did complement each other. To make the cost of the accommodation viable all 4 reserves were invited to attend. This brought the final number up to 19 at any one time.

The camp was rather boy dominated but I think the girls kept them in order. The 2004 year have always been boy dominant and of the girls that attended Lagganlia only 1 is still orienteering that I am aware of. I don’t think that this is an isolated example and think it is imperative that we look at how we motivate girls to continue in the sport. There was quite a wide range in ability and experience but the training exercises were planned so that the juniors could pick the appropriate level (e.g. paths removed, windows, corridors).

Everyone seemed to get on very well during the week with lots of socialising.

Athletes:

Maya Hampshire Wright

Ewan Musgrave

Finlay Raynor

Lizzie Horsler

Max Mobus

Matt Morris

Alex Elliot

Ben Squire

Jamie Goddard

Aimee Darley

Oscar Shepherd

Barney Steventon-Barnes

Fiona Eades

Tom Perry

Sam Crawshaw

Euan Tryner

Dominic Green

Alex Matthew

Sam Griffin

Emils Ummers

 

Travel & Transport

Obviously very different from usual, unlike Stockholm there was no chance we could do the tour with public transport. A 17-seater minibus hired from Leeds was used for the tour and transported juniors from the British Sprints and then back down at the end. This along with Julie and Roger’s cars was enough to transport 19 juniors and 5 coaches. We did need help from Alison Matheson and some of the Gothenburg tour to transport bags etc. to the Tentsmuir event.

Those not travelling to / from the tour in the minibus took trains / flights to Inverness or were dropped off at Findhorn.

Covid

I guess I have to include something about this. After assessing the risks we identified that the biggest risk was someone bringing the virus into the camp. All on the camp were asked to minimise contact in the week leading up to the tour and were required to do 2 lateral flow tests in the 48 hours before the camp. Fortunately all were negative. Whilst on the tour if anyone showed symptoms they would be isolated and do a lateral flow test. If positive then they would be taken to do a PCR test and parent contacted. If positive then their parents would need to pick them up within 24 hours, if the PCR was negative they could re-join the tour.

Accommodation & Catering

We used the Village Centre in Findhorn on the Moray coast, this has previously been used by ScotJos for training weekends and made a good base for us. The boy / girl ratio did present a few problems as the two main rooms sleep 10 each but with some jiggling around we managed to make everyone fit.

Findhorn as a location for a camp was fabulous. Roseisle 10 mins away, Culbin a 10 min boat trip away, Darnaway 20 mins… need I go on? Given the restrictions on many of the areas in Speyside due to Capercaillies I would give serious consideration to using it for Lagganlia although appreciate that the village setting is probably less ideal for that tour.

Catering was provided by Carol Young who did a great job of keeping the budget down and the juniors fed - especially tricky with a number of allergies. I can’t thank Carol and others that have catered on these tours in the past enough, as coaches you generally get a chance to get out and go running in forests enjoying the sport you love, as camp chef you give up a week or more to spend most of your time cooking or shopping.

Maps

INVOC and MOR provided OCAD files for all the areas. The first couple of days exercises were planned in advance and printed by BML for us. We took an A3 laser printer with us which gave us the ability to modify exercises and plans to fit during the week. For the event we used A4 printers in Inverness which also worked well, especially as we could pick the maps up from a cottage on the Darnaway map!

Equipment

We brought most of the kit we would need for the event – SI equipment, kites, stakes etc. which meant we could use them for other exercises. As Kris Jones said a few years back - any training exercise is enhanced by using SI.

Programme & Logistics

It seemed to make sense to keep similar dates as the original tour especially as it gave as long as possible for restrictions to be eased. With the rescheduled British Sprint Champs and Mixed Relay set for the 21/22 August it made sense to use that as a meeting point as start the tour on the evening of Sunday 22nd. 10 juniors took advantage of the minibus travelling from the sprints to Finhorn, arriving just after midnight.

Monday 23rd

We planned to have an easy first day training in Roseisle in the morning and then plan & organise the Findhorn event in the afternoon. Given the travel the previous day we decided to have a late start and switch the sessions around.

The juniors did a great job of identifying what needed to be done for the event, splitting up into the teams and getting on with the tasks with minimal input from the coaches. This was a great ice-breaker exercise as a number of the juniors new to the JROS camps and from smaller squads.

We ended up starting training in Roseisle at 3pm - probably the latest start to orienteering on any tour ever! But that meant that the Gothenburg tour (who had planned and hung the tapes) had just about finished when we arrived and were heading the beach. Exercises were focusing on direction and picture.

Tuesday 24th

A full day of training on Culbin. We took the water taxi across from Findhorn to the beach at Culbin which had the benefit of being in what is probably the best bit of Culbin without needing to do the 3 – 4km walk plus the boat was good fun, especially when Oscar left his O shoes on the pontoon…

The morning courses had been planned by the Yorkshire tour and our coaches hung. The sessions focussed on the picture in the circle and plan for the leg.

After lunch on the beach with swimming with seals for company and a bit of beach rounders the afternoon session was a set of head-to-head Peter Palmer challenges with the tie for the next round based on the results. We managed 3 out of the 5 planned ties before a quick jog back to the beach and the boat home.

Wednesday 25th

Easier day training, Keppanach in the morning with the session planned by Pippa. Gothenburg then used the controls later in the day for their sessions. This time we were focussing on distance and direction with corridor and window exercises.

After lunch back the hostel it was time to setup for the event. All the juniors worked well together to get the controls out, assembly, start and finish setup and results system ready. The Yorkshire & Gothenburg tours were starting earlier than the public event to spread people out. We had 92 competitors with lots of complements on the course and organisation. The proceeds from the event went to Moravian as a thank you for using their areas and helping us with the organisation.

This was also the time when we said goodbye to Sam and welcomed Ben to the tour, thank you to Alison Matheson and Jon Sheppard for ferrying them to and from the airport.

Thursday 26th

So this was always going to be the big day. Glen Affric. Part of the theme for the week was to revisit some of the areas used during WOC 2015, as it was 6 years ago most of the athletes would have run the Orange course so wouldn’t have had a chance to experience the areas.

Affric North is not an easy place to get to, once you are there it is a trek from any of the parking areas. But we had a cunning plan, some said it wouldn’t work, others said the risk assessment would be horrendous… as it turned out it worked a treat. The best way to get to Affric is just like Culbin, by boat. This time 2 inflatable 3-man kayaks. Parking partway along the loch to the north of the area there is only a short stretch of water until you get to an ‘almost island’ almost on the map. So split the juniors into 2 teams, give each team a kayak, pump, paddles, buoyancy aids and some rope and sit back and watch the mayhem. We got to the other side and only Ewan M got wet.

The actual orienteering training was great. The focus was route choice on long legs so we had a course with a number of l 1.5 – 2.5 km legs including one of the long legs from WOC. The juniors rarely get courses with long legs like this so it was a great opportunity to practice techniques to execute them. We had looked at longer legs the night before and discussed how to plan the route and execute it by breaking it into chunks. Each coach had 2 pairs of athletes with each pair picking a different route for a leg and executing it, regrouping at the end of the leg to discuss the leg and plan the next. Fortunately Chris Smithard joined the camp so could take the fastest group (although I think both Rog and Julie were adamant they could have managed). Affric is a tough place to orienteer but an inspiring place and the juniors did a great job out there. We were blessed with a perfect blue-sky day (although we could have also gone on Tuesday if the weather looked better). After re-grouping and getting back to the kayaks most chose to take the swimming option back to shore. No one drowned. Hopefully the day will live long in everyone’s memories.

Friday 27th

Into the racing part of the tour. We had set the last 3 days up to be various tour champs continuing with the WOC theme. Today was the middle race so that had to be Darnaway.

Unfortunately Capercaillie are currently nesting in the middle side so we couldn’t re-run the course but instead Roger planned courses in the area used for the relay. The Gothenburg and Yorkshire tours were invited along to give some more competition and of courses the coaches ran to see how many scalps they could get. Chris was a running camera man to help the juniors get used to having cameras following them out in the forest, the footage was also great for feeding back to the juniors. Results are here: https://www.syo.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#225.

We used route-gadget for both the middle and sprint, with the juniors uploading or plotting routes which we could then use in the review sessions.

After a relaxing afternoon and early dinner, we headed over to Roseisle for some night-O. But not just any old night O, oh no, this was a ‘night, fancy dress, non-peg, non-relay, peg relay’. Basically, the Lagganlia peg race with gopping clothes instead of pegs, at night with a spectator control with ‘refreshments’ as we wouldn’t like our athletes to dehydrate or be malnourished. Jamie won.

Saturday 28th

Sprint day, so Forres, but this was scheduled as another easier day so in the morning we had review of the middle race and a look at tactics for sprint orienteering. An England vs everyone else rounders match followed; England lost…

Chris planned great courses based on the WOC sprint. Afterwards the juniors re-ran some or all of the course to see how much quicker they might could be with smooth navigation and picking optimal routes. Results are here: https://www.syo.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#226.

Sunday 29th

That was it… an early start for everyone meant we left Findhorn by 8am. Sad to leave really but we had the classic race to do at the Scottish Junior Cup at Tentsmuir a good 3 ½ hours away.

Then it was just the small matter of everyone getting lift, trains and planes home and the minibus trundled down the A1 dropping juniors at the side of the road until finally back in Sheffield.

Accounts

Again, very different to previous years, the biggest costs being the accommodation and minibus hire, accounting for 2/3 of the budget. The juniors contributed £280 with JROS £70 per athlete, this paid for the tour and Ravinen O top (which the juniors voted to have rather than their own designed one). Thank you to Sue Roome for handling the payments etc.

Tour Kit

Before tour I’d sent out a google form to collect various bit of information. One of choices was to decide if they wanted a Ravinen top or a tour designed one. It was a close-run thing but the Ravinen top won 12:7. Unfortunately they couldn’t get here in time for the tour but Nick brought them to BOC and handed them over.

Next Year

Hopefully back to normal - the Ravinen hut is already booked for us: 16th - 28th August.

Selections

Euan Tryner M17 2004 SYO
Ben Squire M17 2004 NOC
Dominic Green M18 2003 CLOK
Emils Ummers M17 2004 SO
Ewan Musgrave M17 2004 MAROC
Finlay Raynor M17 2004 INVOC
Matt Morris M17 2004 SYO
Max Mobus M17 2004 SYO
Oscar Shepherd M17 2004 INVOC
Sam Griffin M17 2004 GRAMP
Tom Perry M17 2004 DEVON
       
Aimee Darley W18 2003 GO
Alex Elliot W18 2003 SYO
Fiona Eades W17 2004 INT
Lizzie Horsler W18 2003 WIM
Maya Hampshire Wright W17 2004 NN
Rebecca Ward W18 2003 NGOC
Scarlett Heap W18 2003 SO


We still have not confirmed where this tour will take place. We will make a decision when the next Government review is made in mid-July. Currently Sweden is an amber country.
Pete Tryner SYO is developing Plan B options in the UK.

Selection Policy

With the possible lack of selection races and with the hope that the camp will be able to go ahead, the Selector for the camp has asked the athletes to self nominate by 14th June 2021.

Nomination should be accompanied by a supporting statement by the athlete.

The selector will at his discretion consider;

a) previous performances in major races in 2019 and 2020 and major races in 2021 (up to 6th June 2021).

b) evidence that athletes may provide of their current form and/or fitness.

c) intention to compete in major races during the summer.

If a further update to the policy is required, then this will be communicated as soon as feasible, in order to give athletes the best chance to plan and prepare.

Please note that no nominations received after 14th June 2021 will be considered.

Nominations should be sent to;

Nick Barrable  &

Susan Marsden 

Eligibility

The camp is predominantly for M/W17s born in 2004 and some M/W18s born in 2003 will also be selected. The makeup of the camp will ensure that at least 50% of the athletes will be M/W17.

Athletes will not be selected who have previously attended the Stockholm camp.

Numbers

The camp will be for a maximum of 20 athletes

Selection process

The Selector may choose not to fill all available places if there are insufficient suitable athletes.

The tour selector

The tour athletes will be selected by Nick Barrable (SYO and OK Ravinen) and the selections will be reviewed by the Chairman of Selectors of Junior Regional Orienteering Squads (JROS).