3ROC News 9th March 2016

Where did all the scouts come from? We had almost 200 people at our come-and-try-it event in the Phoenix Park last Sunday, including a huge number of beavers, cubs and scouts, who were all very welcome. It was a grand day for orienteering, in contrast to some of the days we have had for our events recently, so it was nice not to have to hang all the controls and banners and everything on the washing line afterwards to dry! Planners Aidan and John McCullough had three courses of 2.5, 5 and 8.2 km, bringing the longer courses onto the slippery slopes around the Furry Glen. Unfortunately two controls got switched around when they were being put out, affecting the long and medium courses and the organisers offer their abject apology for this. We did our best to rectify the situation but some people were undoubtedly delayed. The lesson is, check everything twice, even for a small event like this. The results are on the Results page of this site, here.

A number of people didn’t run the course they had entered for, which caused some confusion in the results; others didn’t seem to punch the finish and some others didn’t seem to have cleared their SI card’s memory at the start, so there are some DNF’s in the results who probably did finish only we can’t prove it. Anyway, most of you seem to have enjoyed the run.

Thanks to the helpers: Aidan, John, Emma, Gerry, Kevin, Ger, Clíona, Nora, Deirdre and to Gavin who offered to help but was turned down!

Next Sunday (March 13th) there’s bound to be sunshine, as Ajax are running a League event on the Bull Island, starts 11 to 1. Details here. Ajax always have good weather for their events! This will be good preparation for the League event on the dunes at Kilmore Quay, Co. Wexford on April 4th, incorporating the Irish Student Championships.

If you’d like to travel, there are two sprint events in Limerick on Saturday 12th. Sprint-O is great fun, even if it’s over quickly and you don’t get all cold and wet and muddy! The first is at Mary Immaculate College (“Mary I”) and the finals at University of Limerick. Details here.

Only about 6 weeks to the Leinster Championships at Carrick Mountain, Glenealy, on April 17th: you have to enter or volunteer, or both! Look at the home page of the www.3roc.net site for details.

Remember the Irish Championships on the May Bank Holiday weekend and the Leinster 3-Day on the June Bank Holiday weekend. Details of all of these are at www.orienteering.ie under “Fixtures”.

That’s all for now!