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BASIL & JEAN BALDWIN AWARDED
Quiet Achievers in Australian Orienteering: Basil and Jean Baldwin
MARY JANE MAHONY (ONSW)
The story of Orienteering in Australia is full of quiet achievers. Orienteering Australia does its best and so does ONSW, but those who should be recognised are often ‘under the radar’. On June 17th last, Sport NSW presented Basil and Jean Baldwin (Goldseekers Orienteering, Orange, NSW) with the Distinguished Long Service Award for Orienteering at its annual NSW Community Sport Awards. Their contributions to Orienteering – not only in NSW but over nearly 50 years in Tasmania, South Australia and finally New South Wales – were fittingly acknowledged. Basil and Jean have organised, coached, course-set and provided club leadership in Orienteering since 1975. They have been key in establishing Orienteering as a community sport for all ages and provide pathways to elite competition. They have also ‘walked the talk’ winning numerous State and National Championships in their age classes and both have represented Australia at the Oceania Championships, not to mention participating in events in Slovenia (BUBO Cup), the French 5 Days, the Lakes and Welsh 5 Days, the Scottish 6 Days, the Fin 5 Days and Kainuu Week in Finland, and the World Masters in New Zealand, Latvia, Denmark and Lithuania, receiving awards in many of those events. Their life in Orienteering commenced south of Hobart in Tasmania in June 1975 on a black and white map (Tinderbox). They started their first Orienteering club as part of the Runners club in Burnie in November 1975, the second in South Australia and the third in NSW. They are still going strong in 2021. Basil and Jean have promoted Orienteering to newcomers and developed the orienteering skills of the inexperienced from their first days in Orienteering in Tasmania. Their methods have ranged from informal and formal club-based coaching sessions to structured programs for both senior and junior age groups within and beyond the Orienteering community. Basil and Jean continue to make a sustained effort towards ensuring there are many Orienteering events suitable for all ages and abilities through Goldseekers Orienteers. This has required not only their direct involvement but also mentoring of other club members to extend the range and depth of skills associated with providing Orienteering events.
Basil and Jean have worked together not only in Orienteering but in their other major endeavour as farmers and horticulturists. They say that working together as a couple has been the most satisfying aspect of their lives.
Tinderbox event map 1975.
47 Years of Orienteering in Australia
BASIL BALDWIN & JEAN BALDWIN (with Mary Jane Mahony to ensure they weren’t being too modest).
The earliest days in Tasmania
We came from England to Australia in 1964 with a brief time in Victoria before Basil took up a position as an agronomist in Tasmania. There we discovered Orienteering. 1975: First event at Tinderbox, South of Hobart. Basil was hooked! 1975: Tasmanian Championships ‑ I [Basil] ran off the map and finished the course as the organisers packed up. Jean did the Easy course with our four young children. When the organisers were worried about me, Jean told them I would turn up. I did eventually, when they had packed up and were ready to leave. 1975: Organising an event in the Oldina Forest on the NW Coast included Basil drawing the map. Base map was probably 1 inch to a mile (1:63,360 scale) government map. Hand drawn at a scale of 4 inches to the mile (1:15,840). There were three colour layers, black, brown and blue. It was printed on a Roneo machine at Burnie High School on green paper going through the machine three times. The registration was remarkably good for a machine of that type. The event was held in November 1975, 40 people participated. People drew their own courses from master maps. Buckets and pencils were used as control markers. It rained a lot during the event, the maps got very wet as we did not have plastic bags. Basil and Jean moved to South Australia in 1976 for Basil to take up a position at Roseworthy Agricultural College.
Starting again in South Australia
1976: Founding members of the Tintookies Orienteering Club, north of Adelaide. With a young family, Jean gave informal support to Orienteering but later was club secretary and treasurer (1977‑1979). 1977: Basil made the first colour map of Para Wirra. He also became Secretary of the Orienteering Association of South Australia. (At that time, OASA did not belong to the national orienteering association.) 1978: Mt Gawler, SA Championships. Basil was the organiser with Bob Smith. Made the third colour map in SA. (NB. several colour maps had been made in Victoria, ACT and NSW by that time). Courses were drawn on maps by hand with a red pen, putting them in plastic bags with name, start time and course on the back of the map. One person drew
Oldina State Forest.
the course, the other checked them, very time‑consuming. There were over 200 competitors, 40 from interstate. By that time SA was in the Orienteering Federation of Australia. 1981 First time SA organised the Easter 3 Day Carnival, at Wirrabara in the Southern Flinders Ranges. Basil was Coordinator, involved in organising, mapping and course setting. Mapmaking used photogrammetry produced by the Army mapping Corps and letraset symbols for features such as boulders and termite mounds. Jean was Event Secretary and had all (600+) entries handwritten in an exercise book which she still has. In those days, a booklet was produced with details of the event and start lists. It was mailed out to all entrants before the event. (It was the forerunner of the current Bulletin that is produced for major events and now goes on the event website). After the event, a booklet with the results was also mailed out, a lot of work. On Day 3 of the Easter Carnival, I [Basil] found a termite mound in the wrong place on an over‑printed course. It was subsequently covered with branches and a new termite mound ‘made’ for the control site. We ran the SA O Shop for several years and made and sold O gear as well as hot soup to cold wet orienteers at events in the Adelaide Hills. Our daughter Carolyn made gaiters and cooked cakes to sell. In those days there were tariffs on the importation of O equipment, especially shoes. 1985 World Orienteering Championships in Victoria ‑ Staffed radio controls were used for split times and runner positions in the individual WOC event at Mt Kooyoora. The radios were made by Ron Larsson (Tintookies). Jean co‑ordinated the information sent from the individual radio controls to give reports for the event commentator. (NB this was before SI timing. Radio controls were only at some selected sites). Basil was on the last radio control. 1986 J150 Carnival which included the National Championships. We catered for a mid‑week event in the Flinders Ranges with 800 entries. We bought food and drinks from a bulk food store in Adelaide and hired a van to cart it all to the Flinders. After the event, Basil lost the van keys and had to hotwire the van to drive it back to Adelaide. There was course setting for the Nationals at Kaiser Stuhl Conservation Park and helping fieldwork part of the event area. Two German orienteers were hosted to map the granite area. 1987 Wilpena Spurs in the Flinders Ranges near Wilpena Pound remains arguably the most complex spur/gully terrain of any Orienteering map made in South Australia according to the Tintookies history webpage 2021. We field‑worked the area in four days, thanks to excellent Chris Wilmott photogrammetry and a good aerial photo of vegetation. The map was used for the SA State Championships later that year.
Contour Interval 5m
WILPENA SPURS
1990 Basil finished the Merridee map (for the 1990 Easter Three Days held near Burra) in an empty house, all belongings and furniture packed, handing over the drawings on the evening that we left SA and moved to NSW (where Basil took up a position at Orange Agricultural College). After 13 years of orienteering in South Australia and helping to develop a progressive, supportive Orienteering family, it was a great honour to be made Life Members of Tintookies Club.
And so to NSW
There was no local Orienteering club in the NSW Central Tablelands so we joined Mountain Devils, a Blue Mountains club (since defunct). We met and became friends with Nick Dent and Hilary Wood. 1994 Started Goldseekers, after Jean was invited to organise a 6‑week course on Orienteering through the Orange Community College. Jean was founding president (and has continued as president or secretary ever since). Basil has been the technical backbone of the club, concerned with map‑ making, course setting and controlling. Our first map, Lake Canobolas, made by Dave Lotty, was used for Goldseekers’ first event. Our first bush map was Rocky Falls in Mullion State Forest. 1996 Easter Carnival at Orange. Eric Andrews stayed with us for over 3 months while he made two of the maps for Easter. Kahli’s Rocks was his first OCAD map and his first use of a computer! Eric asked endless computer‑related questions every evening. Unfortunately, Eric’s mapping companion, his dog, Kahli, was bitten by a snake and died at the gate as Eric headed for the vet. Hence the map name, Kahli’s Rocks. Kahli was ceremoniously buried on the farm near our house. Macquarie Woods was the first OCAD map we drew. It was used for the Family Relays that year. And so it has continued - Map making, organising events, setting courses, coaching, controlling for many events including international (2006 Junior World Orienteering Championships in Dubbo, NSW), national (2021 Australian 3‑Days in Orange, NSW) as well as State and local. Working to develop and extend Orienteering in the Central West (helping the Western Plains club, trying to establish Orienteering in Bathurst). There has been a sustained effort with schools and young people. Goldseekers, under Basil and Jean’s leadership, first held a formal Orienteering Gala Day for school students in 2013. They have provided Orienteering programs to schools for many years, continuing to do so in 2021. Running O events in schools and having the thrill of seeing kids running enthusiastically on courses. When ONSW introduced the Orienteering Scholar scheme, bringing young overseas orienteers to NSW, they hosted all of these scholars for periods of 3‑4 weeks. 2017 Awarded the ONSW Encouragement Award. 2021 Awarded the NSW Sport Distinguished Long Service Award. We’ve made lots of friends in Australia and across the world through Orienteering. We never expected any award for these things. They all had their own rewards, but we are honoured that we were recognised with a Sport NSW, Distinguished Long Service Award.
2021 Sport NSW awards Basil and Jean Baldwin.
