Parawanga News - February 2012

Sunday, 26 February 2012

Parawanga Paragraphs

Some highlights from the last few months:

Ø  Xmas BBQ – Fun gathering and BBQ at Uriarra Crossing for 30 Parawangans who enjoyed the fact that we’d organised it on one of the few summer afternoons when rain didn’t arrive. Parawangan yearly awards announced-see reports below.

Ø  Club dinner at the Guinness’ after the Xmas 5 days–enjoyed by all except one club member who apparently got lost finding his way there. We know he can navigate as he managed to finish all days of the men’s B class.

Ø  AGM – thanks again to the Pywells for their regular hosting of this. Club executive were all renominated unopposed.

Ø  Four Wednesday Summer series events successfully organised and set by PO members.

Ø  Chris Helliwell, Phil Walker & Geoff Stacey are all currently placed in the top 10 runners for the Summer Series, with Ann Ingwersen & Geoff Wood not far off the pace.

Snail Award 2011 – by Graham Atkins

As the Blue Snail recipient for 2010, it was my task to find a worthy ‘winner’ on whom I could offload it.  There are only two criteria for being considered for the Blue Snail: you have to do one or more spectacularly slow legs on a course; and you have to be mad/stubborn/determined enough to finish the course.  Being a previous recipient was no obstacle to being considered, although my preference was against a repeat winner.  What I was looking for were leg times that were much longer than the average of the other competitors, and long relative to a person’s usual pace.  They didn’t have to be long in absolute terms.  On this basis then, Phil Walker receives a nomination for the Oceania Sprint at Badja, taking 5 minutes and 7 minutes for two 1 minute legs.

Some other notable performances during the year were:

Ø  Colleen Mock at ACT Long Distance, Awoonga, taking 15:00 for the first control compared with a 4:30 average, and 16:10 for the eighth control compared with a 6 minute average.

Ø  Frank Ingwersen at Australian Middle Distance, WA, taking 22:43 for the first control compared a 6 minute average, and 26:48 for the sixth control compared with a 5:15 average.

Ø  Sue Garr at Australian Long Distance, Badja, taking 25:57 for the eighth control compared with a 5:45 average, and 12:53 for the 14^th control compared with a 6:40 average.  However Sue was event organiser so she probably had other things on her mind.

Ø  Myself at Oceania Long Distance, Warby Ranges, taking 20:33 for the ninth control compared with a 6 minute average, a classic case of leaving the previous control without a plan.

Ø  The Oceania Middle Distance championships at Yackandandah produced several notable results, with Pat Miethke, Rohan Hyslop and Geoff Wood all finishing with more than double the winning time for their class.

Having trawled through loads of results and split times, it came down to two possible winners: Sue Garr for a spectacular effort of 130 minutes on a 2.9km course at Yackandandah, including five controls in excess of 13 minutes, and Frank Ingwersen at Easter Day 1 in Western Australia, with a 49 minute effort on a control (3^rd) where the average time was 6 minutes.  Tough decision, but in the end I was guided by the fact that Sue was a previous recipient, and by a sense of tradition (Easter Day 1 was my downfall last year), and decided that the Blue Snail Award for 2011 should go to Frank Ingwersen.

Most Improved Award 2011 –by Darryl Erbacher

"The Parawanga Most Improved award is for the most improved orienteer relative to their previous year’s performance. 
At each event, each orienteer scores 100 points for coming first in their class/course in ACTL (Sunday) events and lesser points otherwise.  Provided the orienteer completes 40% of the runs on offer they receive a score for the year. 

Each orienteer's improvement if judged on the % improvement between last year's score and the current year's score.  The highest % improvement wins.
For example (say), Liz Abbott had a score of 98 last year and 99 this year, then she has improved 50%:  (99-98)/(100-98)*100.  Now Darryl Erbacher on the other hand went from 50 to 75.  His % improvement is also 50%:  (75-50)/(100-50)*100.  Both improved half of the possible improvement they could make.

If a runner fails to record a score in a year their score carries forward in case they record a score subsequently.

To avoid injured runners recovering and making great strides, taking out the Most Improved, an orienteer's score can't be more than 5 less than the previous year."

2011 winner is Ann Ingwersen with an improvement of 67.24%

                                      % Improvement              2011 Points  2010 Points

Ann Ingwersen    67.24                                           94.93            84.53

Barbara Martin    62.81                                           75.37            33.76

Rohan Hyslop       55.83                                           89.26            75.69

Colleen Mock       39.51                                           68.47            47.89

David Hogg          38.98                                           86.23            77.43

Kris Nash             36.42                                           65.92            46.4

Geoff Wood         36.4                                             69.78            52.49

Tony Garr            30.62                                           75.18            64.23

Pat Miethke          20.95                                           67.32            58.66

Phil Walker           7.83                                             82.24            80.73

Richard Hyslop     7.74                                             66.32            63.49

Frank Ingwersen 3.49                                             51.06            49.29

Blue Man Award for Services to the Club 2011 – by Sue Garr

Awarded to Ann Ingwersen (pictured below)

Ann has been president of the club for 2 years and club representative to the OACT Council, a job she has done willingly and skilfully, but is not alone the main reason for her nomination. In her role as president, she has encouraged mentoring of new organisers and course setters within the membership. Ann is an incredibly dedicated club member who helps out at every Parawanga-run club event she attends, has been a course setter for many events and has organised events. She is the friendly welcoming face to orienteering newcomers, going out of her way to make sure new members are included, informed and feel they belong. Ann also encourages them to learn not only new orienteering skills but also to become involved in helping out at events and learn how to become organisers and course setters. Ann's many years of service to Parawanga Orienteers is recognised with this award.

Club website

The website lists the club events for 2012. If you don’t have your name against anything yet for this year please have a look and let us know which of the events you might like to organise or set. There are always mentors available if you haven’t done these tasks previously.

Story by Jill Walker