PO Box 3, Newsletter Number 53, November 1999
Central Park,
3145, Victoria.
neil.phillips@bigpond.com, 61-3-95721784 fax
President: Neil Phillips4th World Rogaining Championships update
There are over 160 teams entered now including rogainers from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Canada, USA, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. Pre-event information has been forwarded to entrants and some details are repeated here for interest.
The location of the World Rogaining Championships, to be run on January 15-16, 2000 in New Zeland, has been announced in a bulletin to competitors. Although it was known to be within two hours drive of Christchurch, the South Island's largest city, the precise location has been a secret.
The 24-hour event will be held near the small town of Waiau in North Canterbury. The terrain is believed to contain limestone outcrops and some steep gorges which are to be out-of-bounds. However, limestone country can be relied upon to contain surprising landforms, and should make for an interesting challenge. For a look at another limestone area in Canterbury (Castle Hill) try your library for the October-December issue of NZ Geographic magazine.
The event is also a round of the IOF World Marathon Orienteering Trophy for 2000, the others being the Raid IGN / Francital in June in France, and the Slovenian Orienteering Marathon event in October.
For more details including the entry list see the championships website, and the NZ rogaining website, both via www.nzorienteering.com .
Michael Wood
ARA President
At the recent Australian Rogaining Championships, Phillip Holman was elected President of the Australian Rogaining Association
This ends nearly six years of ARA leadership under Peter Taylor which has included several initiatives between the ARA and IRF that would not have happened without Peter's active support. The ARA has underpinned every World Rogaining Championships through both financial and non-financial assistance, financially backed Rod Costigan's Organizers Manual, provided leadership on rogaining rules for the global rogaining community, assisted recent publication of Rogaining, and helped each new Australian state association. The ARA meeting expressed its gratitude to Peter, and we re-iterate that thanks on behalf of the international community.
4WRC IRF Meeting
Tentative plans are to hold a 2-3 hour International Rogaining Federation meeting immediately before 4WRC. This will probably be in Christchurch on the Friday afternoon.
Everyone is invited to forward ideas and agenda items for discussion - indicating also whether you intend to be present at the meeting. Further details when the 4WRC organizers finalize a place and time.
The Australian Rogaining Association through a committee led by Richard Robinson has revised the rules for rogaining and produced a set for international use. These form the basis of the rules for 4WRC, and are available from the ARA.
Forming a rogaining association
It seems that the achievements of the Northern Territory Rogaining Association have not gone un-noticed. 'First event conceived early 1999, executed mid 1999, then state associaion formed mid 1999'. The whole issue of forming a rogaining association has been addressed in the book Rogaining and there are several people who can offer help or the benefit of their own experiences.
Much of this quick success forming an NTRA can be traced back to the network of rogaining contacts now available through the Australian rogaining structure (i.e. the ARA) enabling virtually instantaneous advice on issues to do with running a rogaine in a new area, and publicizing the event to everyone who might be interested in attending a first-up rogaine.
First rogaine in Estonia
First news of an inaugural rogaine in Estonia has come through from Priit Overus: 7 October 2000 run by the TAOK club. Appears that Priit has actually translated Rod Costigan's Organizers Manual for local use.
5th World Rogaining Championships
Contact for the 5th World Rogaining Championships in the Czech Republic is Jaroslav Vavra jaroslav-tax.vavra@deloitte.cz: controller. Also Tomas Prokes as president of the Czech Rogaining Assocaition.
6th World Rogaining Championships
This will be discussed at the IRF meeting before 4WRC so make sure your association has at least addressed the issue and puts forward its opinion.
Neil Phillips, President IRF