ORIENTEERING AUSTRALIA

Bushfire toll rises

Several orienteering families have been hit by the Victorian bushfires. The thoughts of all Australian orienteers are with the families of those who perished. • Mountain Bike orienteer – Rob Davey, and his family. • Park & Street orienteer –

Carolyn O’Gorman and her family. • David and Kate

Whittington – parents of

Tasmanian orienteer John

Whittington.

Vale Alec MacKelden

Our first sponsor of Orienteering back in 1971 was Cerebos with their product “Refresh” - a concentrated powder orange drink mix. The Managing Director, Alec MacKelden, was impressed with this new sport and advanced something like $5,000 towards the cost of running the inaugural Australia v New Zealand Challenge held near Puckapunyal, in central Victoria. Part of the sponsorship paid for the production of a quantity of car stickers bearing the message “Up with Orienteering, down with Refresh”. Alec retired some ten years ago and settled on the Gold Coast whilst taking up voluntary duties as Chairman of the Board of the Skin & Cancer Foundation Australia. He was also awarded with the Medal of the Order of Australia. Alec passed away in November and will be remembered as our sport’s first commercial sponsor.

Tom Andrews

Executive Matters

Kay Grzadka – OA Executive Officer

Orienteering Australia will continue to receive Federal Government funding for its High Performance program until 2010 but the situation beyond that is not assured. The Federal Government awaits the findings of the Independent Sport Review to finalise its policy for funding sport in Australia. Given this climate of uncertainty, long term strategic planning is high on the Board’s agenda and was the topic of a workshop at the 2008 Annual Conference. Under the invaluable direction of Ian Dodd (President, VOA) the Board and Council members broke into defined groups to each discuss a particular aspect of long term strategic planning. The outcome of the workshop was the appointment by the Board of a Working Group tasked with preparing a strategic direction framework for Orienteering Australia. The Working Group is to have a brief prepared by February 2009 for consideration by the Board. The framework would then be distributed to State Associations for comment before presentation at the OA Annual General Meeting to be held in Launceston on 11 April 2009.

Attendees at OA Conference – December 2008

Back row: Eric Morris, John Toomey , Blair Trewin, Ben Rattray, Craig Steffens, Dave Meyer, Ian Dalton, Liz Bourne, Nick Dent. Middle row: Robert Spry, Miriam Whittington, Ian Dodd, Paul Prudhoe, Andy Hogg, Reid Moran, Hugh Cameron, Robin Uppill, Bob Allison. Front row: Bill Jones (OA President), Geoff Wood, Bruce Arthur, Jenny Casanova, Kay Grzadka (OA Executive Officer). Absent from the photo: Mike Dowling, Ann Scown, Christine Brown.

Embargoes:

VICTORIA

The areas covered by the following maps are embargoed until after the 2009 Australian Orienteering Championships Carnival; September 26th - October 4th. • Chewton Diggings (Castlemaine) • Castlemaine Goldfields (Castlemaine) • Crocodile Reservoir (Castlemaine) • Browns Reef (Bendigo) • Warby Range (Wangaratta) • Jubilee Creek (Wangaratta) • Triptera (Wangaratta) The following area in Benalla is embargoed to intending participants in the 2009 Australian Sprint Orienteering Championships: The area bounded on the north by Bridge Street (the main street through town), on the east by Coster Street and the Benalla-Tatong Road (C517), on the west by Thomas Street, and on the south by the town boundary. Shops and accommodation on the south side of the road along Bridge Street are not included in the embargo, but parks and the Showgrounds are.

Jim Russell – Carnival Coordinator

QUEENSLAND

The area north of the Biggenden to Maryborough Road, including in the orienteering maps North of Aramara, Aramara State Forest and Hidden Glen, is embargoed from 1 October 2008 to all orienteers and rogainers. This embargo will gradually be lifted between 2010 and 2012.

Eric Andrews

Vale

Brian Johnson

Brian Johnson, aged 78, a member of Garingal Orienteers competing in M75, passed away in December 2008 after 33 years of Orienteering. Brian loved every aspect of Orienteering: he liked the challenges of orienteering courses and he liked winning (which he did often because he was a first-rate competitor). But within Garingal he will be remembered for his enthusiasm in helping others enjoy Orienteering. Brian and his family began Orienteering in 1975. As a chemical engineer, Orienteering suited Brian’s very scientific and analytical ways of thinking. He shared his early Orienteering years not only with wife Beverley but also his children Carolyne and Chris, and at the 1981 Australian Club Relays the team of Johnson, Johnson and Johnson represented Garingal. In national events, Brian’s climb up the results board was relentless. At the Australian 3-Days in Tasmania in 1984, Brian won his class of M50A. After that Brian had many successes at national level. Records show he was 1st at the Australian 3-Days on three occasions (’84, ’95, ‘02), 1st in the Australian Championships twice (’91 and ’03) and nationally ranked 1st on four occasions (’91, ’95, ’00 and ’03). As would be expected, Brian soon represented Australia at international competitions (for over 15 years). An early event that he often talked about was the 1987 Australia-New Zealand Challenge at Kapamahunga. The terrain is one of the most infamous in Orienteering history. The M55 course was just 3.3km and as explained by Brian, as well as an extremely vertical terrain, New Zealand had added a lashing of rain. One aspect of Brian’s orienteering was that he also competed determinedly against himself with a formula to calculate how long he should take if he made no errors. It was based on length and climb. He was always pleased if he beat his own best time. Brian’s success as an orienteer is only half of the story of his orienteering. He enthusiastically devoted thousands of hours to helping others to enjoy Orienteering. He particularly helped newcomers. At minor events he talked with people who were not participating in the usual Orienteering conversations and introduced them to: what to do, what to look for, how to think about the map and the course, etc. He would watch for their return to ask “how had they gone?” Many people graduated to country events with his coaching on the differences between city maps and country maps and the techniques required. He helped them make the final step to the most difficult navigation courses, with explanations of the techniques and insights that had made him a successful orienteer. He organised countless coaching activities at all levels: map walks to relocation exercises, map memory courses, map corridor courses and his favourite, the contours only map. A particularly fiendish map was the ‘contour only’ map of Belangalo State Forest. No doubt Brian would have read this map with ease, but many Garingal members were lost for a long time. There were many Garingal training weekends, but the most memorable was that organised by Brian on Milson Island in the Hawkesbury River. Along with some other Garingal members, he mapped the island for the Department of Sport and Recreation. The weekend was magnificent: great location, great training activities, great company, great memories. Brian’s huge contribution to helping other orienteers was recognised by the OANSW a few years ago, when he was awarded the Cox Silver Cup for providing encouragement to new orienteers. Brian also greatly enhanced friendships across Garingal. His excellent memory was a great source of “do you remember when” stories. But these are not his only contributions to Orienteering. Orienteering needs course planners, event organisers, controllers. Brian enthusiastically accepted all of these roles. He played a major role at major events on nearly every one of Garingal’s country maps: controller at Culoul Creek, controller at Baal Bone Gap (twice), organiser at Sooley Valley, and course planner at Kahli’s Rocks. Brian not only planned courses, organised, and vetted countless minor events, but he also enjoyed helping Garingal members new to course planning gain the skills. Brian’s contribution to Garingal Orienteers was enormous. At different periods of time he served on Garingal’s Committee in a variety of roles. In recent years he printed the maps for most local events for a number of clubs. Garingal formally recognised Brian’s contribution twice: first with Garingal’s Silver Hare in 1989 and again in 2007 with a Garingal Medal for service. However, Brian’s life was fascinating in other ways. Brought up under the family motto “Living is Trying” he developed a strong sense of community. He had early interests in the Christian faith and met Beverley at a Victorian Christian Youth Camp, marrying her for just short of 50 years ago. Despite his training as a chemical engineer and work with CIG gases (now BOC), social reform became his focus and he left work to develop residential conferences by the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Australian Frontier to bring about changes in society. After three years of moving the family and much travelling, he returned to CIG as plant engineer and then manager, developing Australia’s first liquefied natural gas industry and later was involved in establishing the pyrethrum industry in Tasmania. In the 1990s he became Director of Cryofab Industries which designed and manufactured ultra-low temperature storage vessels. Throughout these times his interest in social reform continued with bids for both State and Federal seats for the Australia Party (later the Democrats). Brian was a volunteer until recently for Vision Australia, recording technical books for vision impaired high school and university students, including describing the charts, figures and graphs. He also read extracts from the Sydney Morning Herald live to air for 2RPH (Radio for the Print Handicapped) until July this year when Alzheimer’s finally caught up with him. Additionally, Brian was actively involved at various times with Rotary, Australian Institute of Management, Royal Australian Chemical Institute, Mensa, and the Australian Shareholders Association. At his Memorial Service, Brian was recognised as one who never went backwards. If a mountain was in his way, he, with Bev, walked over it. One of life’s greatest lateral thinkers, his broad knowledge of all things was extraordinary, he never stopped learning (he even did his best to learn everything he could about his dementia!). Brian’s contribution to Orienteering in New South Wales, and therefore Australia, was immense. We will all miss him, his helpful hints and most of all, his friendship.

[Compiled by Ron and Barbara Junghans from the presentations of Carol Jacobson, Ron Hardwick, Rendell and other members of Brian’s family at the Memorial Service held 22nd December 2008.]