Southern Series - 'The Warren'

Uringa's event for the inaugural Sydney Southern Series was 'The Warren'. Assembly was in Gough Whitlam Park (in Wolli Creek, or Undercliff, or ... the GPS's and the street directories seemed uncertain), a lovely location alongside Cook's River.

Dave Lotty did the mapping, course setting, control putting out, and is seen here on the registration table (he's wearing one of the new club shirts, by the way). (Michael Tompkins and Dave picked the controls up the next day.)

Several other club members were on hand as usual to do what needed to be done - the Southern Series being a much more low key event than the Sydney Series, there was lots of time for talk.

Ron Pallas, of course, sat in the technology seat. It's amazing what you can do with one of those little netbooks and the SportIdent software.

A photographer for the Bankstown-Canterbury Torch came to photograph the event (anyone who gets this paper, please watch out for the photo!), and was well briefed by Maggie Jones.

And there's always something special at a Uringa orienteering event. This time it was spotting a pair of grass parrots on the lawn (tentatively identified as turquoise parrots).

Uringa Christmas Party

Hope you enjoy the photos, courtesy of Aldo's paparazzi service!!

I think next year we need to add some other awards to the President's cup:

- the person with the best finish pose

- the best dessert

Ok, not quite the Uringa eagle watching over us at the start!!

what the.....

chief, cook and bottle washer

Postmortum Urban Max

A sunny and warm day greeted us last Saturday at the Sydney Entertainment quarters for the start of this years Urban Max race.

As there were over a 1000 runners to be managed, the teams of 2 were split , with one group standing way away from the start, and with the other group with the other team member now at the starting point. Ready, set, go and you had 500+ running over the oval towards an embankment to pick up the clue sheet, and then having to run back to find their other team mate...it was a mad scramble, but once the teams found each other it was heads down, iPhones on to solve the 20 clues on where to find the checkpoints and figure out a route, for example:

Named after the 13th Premier of NSW, travel to the park in the Eastern suburbs where a game of hoop de loop awaits.

Shipped from the Motherland. This shop will satisfy even the most demanding sweet tooth in the red light district.

Solve the Anagram: HET LSTAIUANRA TOEHL.

So activities at check points included a long & high jump (hadn't done that for over 30 years!!), gaming at Time Zone, swimming, hops and kayaking in the Rose Bay area, burlesquing in New Town, answering questions at a pub and in a bike store, stacking 3 golf balls on top of each other, some bike activity in Centennial Park.....it was really all fun and games.

After clocking up more or less miles (public transport is permitted) it was back to the EQ for some much needed food, and perhaps some shopping at the markets.

Congratulations to Clare and Catherine who came 3rd in the Female racing category !! Here are the results of the Uringa contingent:

Female Racing (14 checkpoints):

3rd Murphys Law Clare and Catherine Murphy 4:34:19

Mixed Racing (14 checkpoints):

20th Amazing Race Wannabees Hannah Watts & Michael Weiner 5:01:11

Female Social (10 checkpoints):

54th Uringa FastFeet Maggie & Jane McK 5:09:47

Mixed Social (10 checkpoints):

9th Team Hangover Chris Barazza & Kerryn 3:29:10

36th Dynamic Duo Linda & Ald0 4:38:59

Next years date has already been announced, so if you want to try something different and have some fun along the way, and do as much walking or running as you want, why not pencil in 17th November 2012 !!

Urban Max

Quite a few Uringa members are taking part in the Urban Max race tomorrow starting from Moore Park. It's based loosely on the "Amazing Race", and can involve anything from eating toasted grubs and raw eggs to doing zumba dancing or diving for things in the pool, or finding a clue at the archaeological site in the Rocks (Sydney YHA). Wonder what they will have in store for us this year !!

Maggie has teamed up with Jane McK as team Uringa FastFeet, our new member Chris is running in a team called Hangover, Linda and Aldo are the Dynamic Duo, and Catherine and Clare are using Murphy's Law to get around. They came 2nd in the female racing division last year and are surely looking to go one better this year......Good luck everyone and be sure to have fun !!

Follow up Award night

My apologies, I did forget to mention an award which was handed out to the first place getters in each class of the Summer Series 2010/2011.

Congratulations to our new member Chris Brown who came 1st in the age class "Walking, Men" .

OANSW Award night

A small group of Uringa members ventured to Dundas for the annual award night. Our club once again took home many trophies and badges !! Creative director Maggie went out of her way to create a replication of the Uringa eagle and while she got a mention for her creativity, unfortunately Uringa missed out on the "Best decorated table" trophy. The Uringa decoration will be on display from about 5pm on 26 November at the Gayle and Ron Gallery !!!

Awards:

Wattle award: Sophie and Georgia Jones, Jarred McKenna

W10A 1st Sophie Jones

W14A 1st Georgia Jones

W40A 1st Linda Sesta

W65A 1st Angela Murray

W70A 1st Maureen Ogilvie

M45A 1st Ian Jones

M16A 2nd Lawrence Jones

W21AS 2nd Jane McKenna

W50A 2nd Lisa Lampe

M10A 3rd Jarred McKenna

M35AS 3rd Dave McKenna

M65A 3rd Dick Ogilvie

Handicap awards, based on the handicap for each participant on their specific course (for further details on the mathematical formula please refer to Gordon Wilson!):

Blue course Sophie Jones

Wombies Nick Willmott, Aldo Sesta

Congratulation to everyone - well done !!

Uringa training course - Week 2

This week saw our intrepid participants tackle some of the key orienteering techniques to make their navigation more secure. Jane and Jared McKenna came along to say hi, climb some trees (well Jared did anyway) and help talk through some of the finer points with the team in training. After a quick map matching exercise to get the blood flowing to the brain we were off looking at lots of lovely maps and spotting the handrails and catching features of past events. Then it was onto some distance estimate, an explanation of attack points and another squint at some old maps and the competition of the day - the Star Relay!

Using last week's scores we matched up the teams for the adults course - Therese and Dad Riccardo were paired with Catherine, Chris with Roslyn and Matt with dark horse Gillian. Beniamino decided to try the children's star relay by himself, and did a great job, making Ian's shadowing of him a mere formality. He was up against stiff competition with Sophie determined to show him how it was done, and Georgia on good form despite having just returned from some training with the Stingers in the morning. In the end Chris and Roslyn won the adults course by a couple of lengths ahead of Matt and Gillian (who is clearly rather good at all of this when she doesn't have to carry a pencil) with Therese, Riccardo and Catherine very close behind. Next week - contours!