Park Street-O

WORDS & PHOTOS DEBBIE DODD

The 2019 Park Street report was written as Covid was really making its presence felt, with the end of the Summer Series cut short, and no idea what the 2020 year would hold in store. While Victoria, and particularly Melbourne, experienced one of the world’s harshest lockdowns and our Winter Series consisted of only a few weeks, we came out the other side of it in good shape, and able to hold most of our Summer Series events, albeit with a slightly different approach.

Winter Series (April-September 2020)

The first lockdown saw the series put on hold until late May; we resumed with six weeks of free “training” events (as permitted under Victorian government directives). These gave us an opportunity to become familiar with online signup, staggered start times, virtual controls and MapRun. Demand exceeded available places, and we offered extra daytime sessions on Tuesday mornings.

In July, community sport was permitted to resume competitively, and we fitted in two official events, before the so-called second wave hit, and we were back to individual exercise again. As we know all too well, this dragged on until October, and no more Winter events took place.

Summer Series (October 2020-March 2021)

Sport was finally given the go-ahead to resume in late October, four weeks after the planned beginning of Summer Series. We quickly swung into action, introducing some new measures which kept us safe and compliant with the OV Covid Safe Plan. Initially, all participants had to pre-enter online. We offered numerous timeslots for groups of 10 (many oversubscribed, with enough demand to fill extra sessions on Thursdays). QR codes were used to check in. A new “MultiPass” was offered to allow people to pay upfront for 10 events; we sold 208 MultiPasses during summer; about triple our expectations! This was in addition to over 250 Season Passes sold; as a result, very few people were paying with cash.

We held our usual Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday series in Melbourne, and regional series in Geelong, Macedon Ranges, and the Surf Coast. A new Sunday morning series was held on the Mornington Peninsula, with a small but enthusiastic team of mappers, course planners and organisers, giving us a great excuse to head to this popular destination and enjoy Park Street orienteering in new locations. Our thanks to Mel Smith, Mike Hubbert, and Bayside Kangaroos for creating and running this series, which expands in 2021.

By December, things were in full swing. Numbers were increasing as gathering restrictions eased. In January, we could accept 100 people at one time, and online signup was no longer needed. In March, that was doubled to 200 people. Our current mode of operation is to offer anytime starts within a 30 minute window; QR code checkin is mandatory for all attendees; and MapRun is used at all events, with maps posted online for anytime use after each event concludes.

In February, our Schools competitions resumed and numbers were swelled by 30-40 students on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We also held the Park Street Championships, with many challenges overcome to ensure all finalists could take part in a mass start, without maps, courses or results being available for “sneak peeks”, and whilst complying with covid safe requirements.

The 2021 Winter Series has resumed, with expectations high for a full season. Only time will tell, but we will take every opportunity to continue Park Street orienteering in Melbourne. Measures introduced for Summer Series will continue throughout Winter.

Participation: Despite an understandably slow start, numbers grew steadily, and removing the online signup requirement gave participation a boost. All Melbourne series attendance numbers were only slightly lower than the previous year. Macedon Ranges had a good season with a lot of local promotion boosting the numbers to record levels. The Surf Coast series goes from strength to strength. The Mornington Peninsula series had mixed results, as some events clashed with others, but local support was generally quite good. The Geelong series allowed participants to complete courses up to three days after each event, which resulted on numbers on the night being low, but good takeup of the “anytime” offer.

6087 participants competed in 101 events. 22 events were cancelled due to Covid restrictions.

Park Street Championships

The Championship Final was held in Wantirna on the Cavills Corner map. The course planner was Pamela King (DRV) with advice and support from Peter Dalwood (DRV). Dandenong Ranges Orienteering Club hosted the event, which was attended by 57 Finalists from nearly every series. It was a true test of decision making and a great challenge for all participants. With Melbourne’s “snap lockdown” causing cancellation of several Qualifying events, Finalists were instead able to nominate themselves online, and the Final was an exciting occasion for all.