EMEWS 183

Chairman's spot

We are now well into the summer and unfortunately our programmes are still being decimated by foot and mouth restrictions.

Clubs are making great efforts to put on some sort of events and members are encouraged to keep making enquiries of their clubs as often arrangements are made too last-minute to allow for normal communication channels.

LOG have some evening events, NOC have a programme of low key Sunday Events, LEI are running their summer league and have not yet had to resort to any street Os and DVO have had a programme of Urban Events and are starting a programme of evening training events.

The annual competition for a development grant is now closed and the only bid was from DVO and was to extend their Urban Events project which complies with the guidelines of bringing the sport to new areas and populations and has already attracted participation from what were previously non orienteers. Other clubs now have details and may wish to try something similar.

DVO have been asked to cost their project and the EMOA committee will judge the project at it's next meeting with a view to awarding a grant to assist with their costs up to the ceiling previously agreed.

Last years award was to assist Mike Luxton of LEI in promoting the sport to services groups and was envisaged to be a fairly long term project but it has been held up somewhat by the lack of events to which groups with which he has established contact, could be invited. An award of £500 was made towards the projected costs.

Mike will be invited to give a brief report of progress to date which will be published in a subsequent edition of EMEWS and similarly DVO will be asked to keep us periodically updated as to the progress of their project.

To assist communications within EMOA especially in these difficult times when cancellations are unfortunately common we have set up two avenues which should assist. Elsewhere in this edition you will see full details of a YAHOO Group which will enable email messages to be posted to every member who wishes to subscribe to this free service. In addition our fixtures secretary is now organising a notice board on answer-phone for last minute information on events.

It will only be as good as the information sent to Ian Whitehead either by phone or Email but access can be had on 0906 270 3419 at a cost of 25p per minute.

You may recall that we have reviewed the roles required to effectively run your association and propose recommending to the membership at the AGM a change of constitution to create two new positions.

We do not at present have a Development Officer and we will be seeking approval to create this role which has previously been shared amongst other members of committee. We have co-opted Mike Godfree on to the committee as our mapping representative but we seek to formally create this position.

We will therefore be seeking to appoint someone to the development role and as our Treasurer will have completed his three years tour of duty we will also need a new Treasurer at the next AGM and I would ask you whether you would like to put yourselves forward. I would also point out that we are still looking for a news letter compiler and editor. John Cooke is doing an excellent job as a stop gap and anybody interested can speak to John to see what is entailed. The editor does have a seat on the EMOA committee giving an opportunity to have a say in how we manage the affairs of the region.

Looking further ahead, we are to run day 2 of the 2004 JK all such events having been put back one year. We have appointed an organiser, Chris Philips of LEI, but still require a planner. Those members sufficiently experienced to take on this role have a great opportunity to have a go at this prestigious event and numerous members have offered to assist in either putting out controls or actually planning some of the courses. It can in fact be very much a team effort but we do need o volunteer to take the lead role.

We have a number of night events in the calendar and to prevent problems like last year when we had to drop the night league clubs are asked to finalise such arrangements by the August committee meeting and let Ian Whitehead have them to publicise a league before the events actually begin. He needs details such as car park location and contact telephone number if he is to produce a flyer for the competition.

Finally turning to the Galoppen, your committee have decided that as only 7 of the proposed 11 events took place the best 5 originally envisaged should be reduced to best 4 which is in line with the approximate 50% as is normally the case. The results are published elsewhere and I should like to congratulate the winners of this rather truncated season. The awards will be presented at the first Galoppen event of the new season.

Roy Denney

Congratulations to the 12 East Midlands juniors who have been selected for representative competitions and training camps this summer:

Junior World Champs in Hungary and U21 Training in Finland: Liz Day (NUOC & NOC) and Helen Palmer (NOC)

U20 Training in Spain: David Hodkinson (NOC)

M/W16s to Sweden: Tom Billam (NOC), Matt Dickinson (DVO), Nick James (NOC), Colin Olivant (NOC) and Alison O'Neil (NOC)

M/W15s to Scotland: Sarah O'Neil (NOC) and Sian Roberts (NOC)

M/W14s to Scotland: Rosemary Hodkinson (NOC) and Chris Williamson (LEI)

Hilary Palmer

BRITISH SCHOOLS ORIENTEERING CHAMPIONSHIPS - 17/18 November 2001

Despite the Foot and Mouth outbreak, preparations for this event are in hand.

The main championship is planned to take place at Sherwood Pines and this area is now out of bounds for anyone wishing to take part in the competition.

We are very lucky to have the support of the Forestry Commission staff at Sherwood Pines and the start and finish areas are now being finalised. As there are likely to be three starts we will be needing a lot of helpers so please put the date in your diaries and offer your services so we can help over 1 000 school children have a weekend to remember.

DVO have kindly offered to organise the training and selection race scheduled to take place the day before and we hope to be able to announce more information about this event in the near future.

Finally, juniors, don't forget to send your anti-litter posters to us at 6 Long Lane, Attenborough, Beeston, Nottingham NG9 6BG by August 31st. Don't forget there is a small prize for every design we use.

Mick Lucking

(tel. (0115) 922 5578)

mick@lucking.co.uk

Itching to Help?

Anyone looking for the complete Fort William experience this summer might be interested in contacting Dr Alison Blackwell at Edinburgh University. Using a £50,000 grant from the Wellcome Trust, Dr Blackwell is using bird swarm filming techniques to investigate the attack patterns of the Highland Midge. Volunteers are required who are prepared to be bitten by the wee beasties. The project, called Midge Bait, will also test the effectiveness of various repellants, in a project with particular significance to the West Coast of Scotland Tourism industry.

(from Daily Telegraph, 30/3/01)

What do you do on Sundays when there is no orienteering?

I have no doubt that the answers to the above question are many and various. I imagine that many folk have taken the opportunity to have a lie in and then catch up with the sunday papers. I don't imagine too many orienteers will have succumbed to those traditional sunday past-times of cleaning the car and/or Car Boot sales. We have taken the opportunity to get out on our bikes a bit more, most of the trails based on disused railway lines seem to be open now.

Andy Jackson (DVO) kindly allowed us to combine our cycling with orienteering by arranging a (Road) Bike 'O' event starting in Alderwasley. The competition used a score format and Judith and I probably scored negative points as we were rather late back. This was largely due to my insistence that we circumnavigated Carsington Water when we really should have turned back. We were rather luckier than Graham Johnson however, who apparently returned with not only his brand new DVO pertex top in tatters but several parts of his body as well, having failed to negotiate a particularly tricky corner on a steep downhill section of road. I can sympathise with Graham as I nearly came to grief on the same bend, only being saved by being on a mountain bike with excellent brakes.

John Cooke

SEARCHING FOR THE W10A

EAST MIDLANDS TROPHY

Can anyone help me out there? No orienteering with F & M, so those cupboards must be cleaned out by now. I am searching for the W10A East Midlands Trophy. My daughter won it at the Championships at Blidworth in February and every week she asks whether I have located her trophy.

The previous prize winner, won I believe at Bradgate Park in 2000, did not return it for the presentation. The organisers kindly provided an interim substitute trophy, but my Mairead wants the real thing.

Anyone who knows the whereabouts of this trophy or can tell me how I can track it down, please contact me on 01536 510696 or email at elizaabethrocke@yahoo.com.

Many thanks for any help you can give and good hunting.

Elizabeth Rocke

Sports Personality of the Month

I could not think how to fill this spot at first as there has not been a lot of orienteering since the last EMEWS came out. However, there has been some and I dedicate this month's title to all those members of the various clubs in the region who have worked hard to provide something, albeit on a somewhat limited scale, for those who cannot get by without their regular 'fix'.

Most clubs have managed to keep their 'Summer League' type events going by various means such as using City Parks or by organising street 'O' events.

As you can see from the article on page 7 DVO ran a (Road) bike 'O' event. This worked well in the area of Derbyshire concerned as there are numerous small, quiet lanes. I am not sure that you could put on such a successful event in other parts of the East Midlands (although it would be a bit flatter).

Well done to everyone who helped to keep things going through a difficult time.

EMOA starts an eMail group service

Whilst the F&M crisis has been upon us, there has been various attempts to publicise events by eMail 'trees'. This is fine if you have made your latest eMail address available to 'someone in the know', otherwise you probably missed out.

There is a 'Pull' technology availability which requires you to check round all the club websites on a daily basis to see if there is any late breaking news.

But now the EMOA has started a 'Push' service. By joining the free Yahoo groups service, you will be sent an eMail every time a message is posted to the EMOA group. Now all you have to do is check your eMail regularly.

Joining this service is very simple. Just send an eMail (from the address to be subscribed) to
UK_EMOA-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
- it needs no subject or body.

Once you are a subscriber, you can post messages to the group by sending eMail to UK_EMOA@yahoogroups.com - but it should have a subject and body this time!

To leave the group send an eMail (from the address to be deleted) to UK_EMOA-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com - again, it needs no subject or body.

If you change your eMail address, unsubscribe from the old address, and then subscribe from the new address.

Topics that the group might discuss might include:

Fixtures (e.g. late changes)
Meetings
Car Sharing
The whereabouts of the Overprinter
Anything that is local in nature that you might have discussed in the car-park anyway!

At the moment it is an unmoderated group, so every subscriber will see anything you write!

Finally a note for those of you without eMail. The only requirements for taking part in Orienteering should be full body cover, a pair of shoes and a compass. If you don't have access to eMail, you should not be disadvantaged. Everything will still be published by the traditional channels. However, the methods of using flyers and newsletters left a gap for urgent news which was filled by the telephone. It is suggested that you ask one of your friends who is on eMail to call you
when something relevant it posted to the group. If you are new to the sport, and don't know anyone yet, ask your club secretary to suggest a contact.

Please contact Ray Barnes (ray.barnes@ntlworld.com) 0115 974 6044 if you need help.

Notice is hereby given of the Annual General Meeting of the The East Midlands Orienteering Association to be held at 19.30 on Monday September 10th 2001 at Red Lion, Kegworth

1 Apologies for absence
2 Approval of minutes of the last AGM
3 Chairman's report
4 Secretary's report including activity statistics
5 Treasurers report including membership numbers and presentation of accounts.
6 Approval of Balance Sheet and Income & Expenditure Statement
7 Amendments to the Constitution
8 Election of principal officers
- Chairman
- Vice Chairman
- Secretary
- Treasurer
9 Election of other officers
- BOF Council
- BOF Technical Committee
- BOF Coaching Committee
- Development Officer
- Fixtures Secretary
- Mapping Adviser
10 Appointment of Independent Financial Examiner
11 Appointment of EMEWS Editor
12 Budget projections for coming year to 30.6.2002 (Treasurer)
- Proposals for membership fees, equipment rental fees and event levies
13 Fixing of charges:-
- Membership Fees
- Event Levies
- Electronic Equipment Rental Fees
14 Plans for the coming year (Chairman)
15 Close of formal meeting followed by open forum.

Proposed alterations to the constitution

(Proposed by Roy Denney: Seconded by Chris Phillips)

A) Make up of committee

Our constitution identifies 4 principal officers the Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary & Treasurer two of whom must be present for the executive committee to be quorate.

It also lays out which additional officers are on the executive, namely the BOF council representative, the fixtures secretary, the emews editor and any BOF committee representatives.

In January your committee discussed several anomalies which we agreed in principal to clarify. The final make up of BOF committees is still unfolding but our representatives on BOF council, the technical committee by whatever name it is to be called and the coaching committee are committee representatives and are therefor full voting members of our executive. Similarly the position of Fixtures Secretary and Newsletter Editor are covered within our existing constitution.

Pauline Olivant and our Vice Chair have in the past dealt with some development matters but we agreed to propose our constitution be amended to create the position of Development Officer, formally to be elected to the committee with full voting rights.

Similarly we co-opted Mike Godfree as our mapping adviser as under the constitution, unless he is a representative on a BOF committee, he is not an additional official with voting rights and again we wish this role to be formalised at the next AGM.

We therefore offer the following formal amendment for approval by the membership at the next AGM.

That rule 2.2 (B) Additional Officers- be amended by adding Mapping Adviser and Development Officer to the list.

B) Timings of AGM

A few years ago we changed the financial year of the association bringing the financial year end forward one month. As we have a rule requiring our AGM to be within 90 days of the financial year end this effectively brought that forward from our traditional October date. In addition we normally send out EMEWS during September to inform members of events as the new season starts.

This unfortunately leaves very little time for the editor to get it out and contributors to produce their material and you will recall that last year insufficient formal notice was given and the AGM had to be cancelled and rearranged.

It also means that this year we are having to give formal notice of the AGM in this edition to ensure you receive it in time. The three amendments proposed herein are given sufficient formal notice but if anyone else submits further suggestions we will have to write to every member giving details.

We therefore propose that in future the rule should be that the AGM be held within 120 days of the Financial Year end to allow us to revert to our tradition time of year and prevent similar timescale problems arising again.

Rule 6.1 (General Meetings) should therefore read "The Association shall hold an AGM within 120 days of the end of the financial year"

In addition in studying the constitution there is no proper provision for deadlines for proposed amendments. It merely states that details of all such propositions should accompany notice of the AGM which must be given 14 days prior to the meeting but there is no rule as to how long before a meeting this notice can be given.

In order that members shall know by when any such submissions are to be made we suggest the following additional rule amendments :-

Rule 6.3 which previously read " Notice of the AGM or an EGM must reach voting members 14 days before the meeting. Included with the notice should be an agenda and any proposed amendments to the constitution. A quorum at a general meeting shall be 15 voting members" will now read "Notice of the AGM or an EGM must reach voting members 14 days before the meeting. Included with the notice should be an agenda and any proposed amendments to the constitution. In the case of an AGM all proposed amendments must be received before August 31st and notice may only be given after September 1st each year. A quorum at a general meeting shall be 15 voting members"

New Services for EMOA

Answerphone service for last minute information on events.

0906 270 3419

(at a cost of 25p per minute.)

E-Mail group service

See article on page 11 for details