On Wednesday 11 May, 12 club members assembled in grey overcast conditions at Victoria Park, to participate in a special event around the permanent Trim Course controls to mark the inaugural World Orienteering Day.  An International Orienteering Federation initiative, World O Day aims to raise the profile of Orienteering as an accessible and healthy sport, particularly for school-aged kids, but suitable for all ages, skill levels and abilities.  World O Day will be held again next year on May 24th 2017, and increased participation each year, particularly from schools, is the goal.

The IOF also has a vision with this event to set a new Guinness World Record.  The current record is from WOC 2003 in Switzerland, when 207,979 young people at 1381 locations ran an orienteering course.  With well over 2000 events registered worldwide, a target of 250,000 people is today’s ambitious but reachable target.  As I write this at 10pm, 24,108 participants have already been registered at worldorienteeringday.com, and Scandinavia and Europe has just started into their school day…

The inaugural participants for Eureka’s event were:  Blake Gordon, Geoff and Jenny Lawford, Warwick and Eleanor Williams, Roch and Judy Prendergast, Peter Jones, Monica and Jordan Dickson, Garry Buchan and Ian Chennell.