The winter MapMates competition wound up with a presentation BBQ on 25 June. Special thanks goes to our volunteer trainers: Nathan, David, Andrew and Edith who gave their time to provide two sessions of training each week, covering topics from orientating the map, to sprint map techniques and contouring. Well done to all the MapMates who completed the busy five week program! Our trainers reported that the enthusiastic teams were fantastic to coach.

The seven  MapMates teams came up with some terrifically imaginative names:  The Dazzling Duo, HawkHikers, Map-leys, The Dukes of Hackett, Terminators, Mountain Climbers and M&Ms. All team improved significantly over the competition and in the final weeks, four of the seven teams challenged themselves further by stepping up a level in course difficulty - we even had teams that ran Orange courses! On the last week of competition, MapMates took out 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th on the Blue course in Mens Junior (MJ), ably assisted by their team mates. In a close competition, the HawkHikers were the MapMates victors by only five points. When interviewed, the HawkHikers thanked their parents for helping them achieve consistent results by bringing them to Orienteering each week and by ensuring they completed their homework for extra points!

The MapMates registration fee entitled competitors to attend the rest of the Saturday Metro events for free! It has been great to see MapMates continuing to attend Saturday Metro events and taking advantage of the Blue Sparks training sessions run each Saturday from 10:15am. A few MapMates parents, who have 'caught the bug', have also been seen running their own courses. In short, the MapMates competition was a great success again this winter.