A0040409P

Newsletter Number 77, August 2002

PO Box 3,
Central Park,
3145, Victoria.
61-3-95721784 fax
E-mail: Neil Phillips

IRF Team

President: Neil Phillips
Secretary/Treasurer: Rod Phillips
Promotions and Development: David Stephens
World Rogaining Championships Manager: Gordon Birch

Czech Republic: Tomáš Prokeš, Jaroslav Vavra
Finland: Iiro Kakko
Canada: Alan Stradeski
United States of America: Eric Smith, Clinton Morse, Bob Reddick
Australia: David Stephens, Rod Phillips, Gordon Birch, John Berwick, Neil Phillips
Founders Representative: Bob Reddick

Observer status
Estonia: Andres Kaar
Sweden: Lars-Åke Svenk
New Zealand: Peter Squires, Michael Wood
Russia: German Shestakov
China: Jianping Zhang
6th WRC: Peg Davis

North American Rogaining Championships

Murray Foubister
The North American Rogaining Championships were held on 20-21 July 2002 in a rugged 120 square km area just west of Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. Both the terrain and the weather were somewhat challenging (35o Celsius) and the top team managed 42 of the 60 controls whilst traveling approximately 70 km. The North American Rogaining Champions are Pam James from Nova Scotia and Catherine Hagen from British Columbia. More details on the Sage Orienteering Club website at www.oabc.bc.ca/sage/

US Rogaining Championships

Bob Reddick
Tamarack Spring Rogaine, the first U.S. Championship, takes place in the Cascade Mountains south of Cle Elum in mid-state Washington on Sept 14-15, 2002. More info at: http://www.rogainingusa.org ]

The American Bushwhacking Club invites you to join them for A Midsummer Night's Rogaine upside-down rogaine on August 24, 2002 at beautiful Tar Hollow State Park and Forest in the Hocking Hills area of southern Ohio.
americanbushwhackingclub.org, or contact Brad Hunt (event coordinator) bradhunt@att.net.

6th World Rogaining Championships

April-May period, 2004, Mogollon Rim, Arizona, USA. Co-ordinator: Peg Davis.

International rogaining weekend, 2002

Chris Solnordal, President of the Victorian Rogaining Association, reports that 1562 people were rogaining in southeast Australia on the weekend of 15-16 July 2002.
NSWRA: 593 competitors on 16/6
SARA: 243 competitors on 15/6
VRA: 317 competitors on 15/6
VRA: 283 regular competitors on 16/6
VRA: 74 schools competitors on 16/6
VRA: 52 scout/venturer competitors on 16/6
Total participation over the weekend = 1562.
This tops the record of 1447 in 2001.

Rogaining administration software

From Peter Brooks, also of the VRA: “The VRA are now happy with their software for memberships and running events. Would it be possible to inform all the other rogaining clubs around the world about the availability of this software. They can download it from www.membershipadmin.com.

Reddick's Rules of Rogaining:

You will forget the driving directions and spend the first six hours of competition trying to find the Hash House.

The local density of mosquitoes is inversely proportional to your remaining repellant.

Your double-tied, mud-encrusted shoelaces will come untied during the steep descent.

Contouring around a hill, you will come to the end of the contour line on the map!

Your navigationally superior partner will convince you that the re-entrant you are searching is the right one, but it will be one short of the control.

After your thumb compass disappears from your thumb, you will find that your backup compass didn’t get repacked last night.

The tape keeping your flashlight switch off in your backpack will come off.

Partner’s headlamp will wipe out your night vision (several times).

The spare batteries you packed will be the dead ones from the last rogaine.

Your invaluable hiking sticks will be confiscated as weapons by the airline.

Your younger and fitter partner will collapse from severe leg cramps within the first few hours.

The two bear cubs coming down your trail won't tell you where their mother is.

The mapped huge swamp you just went around will turn out, on close inspection, to be totally dry and crossable.

The promised full moon will make its appearance for approximately 15 minutes.

The highly recommended hot chili will be finished by the team that checked in at 11:23 PM, just ahead of you. Other teams will tell you that they even had seconds - it was so good.

You will misread the map and return to the Start, thinking it was also the Finish.