2023 was a big year for our club multi-tasking across many event types.

Kicking off early on 18 January we joined forces with the successful Sydney Summer Series that runs from October through to March on Wednesday afternoon/evenings.  Our Rushcutter’s Bay map did us and 189 competitors proud, this being the second time the map had been used for a SSS event.

In February/March we continued to run our popular summer Illawarra Map Running Series showcasing many runnable areas around the Illawarra region.  The competition is aimed at newbies and regular orienteers alike to spend an hour or so getting to know the local area.  It’s a low key fun event for all and our first event kicked off with a “banger ” – with every competitor receiving a sausage sandwich bbq’d by Chef Ian Froude. For newcomers we continued to offer a free club membership if they participated in any 2 out of 3 events.  Three newcomers took up the offer.

At the first event of the series President Ken Mills presented Stephen Holloway with the 2022 ONSW Volunteer of the Year award in recognition of his meritorious service to the sport of orienteering in NSW. 

Atrocious wet weather impacted on our middle distance State League event at Belanglo State Forest in April but as always, as organisers, we kept smiling and grew webbed feet for the day.  Competitors who took part were keen to compete no matter the cold wet weather and finished their courses literally singing in the rain.

June saw us return to Yeramba Lagoon for #3 in the Metroleague competition.  With the map having been extensively updated and re-mapped since 2022, the eastern part of the map was included in the longer courses. Unlike our May event it was a beautiful sunny morning.

In September we hosted an event in the SHOO Forest Series using their Appin map.  Again the area was fieldworked by our club members and the map updated.  With a good rollup on father’s day many families and groups took the opportunity to stretch their legs.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the experience on this warm spring day.  Cake for everyone was the reward at the finish desk – a real winner. 

Later in September the RFS Cadets Championships was held on the same map.  Cadets from all over Australia came to compete against each other in this fun activity.  IKO, SHOO and GO members helped to set up and showcase our sport to the 120 keen cadets who took part.

As a joint venture each year in October/November we co-host the River & Bay Orienteering Series with Uringa and Stingers using maps around the Cooks River and Bays in the southeastern suburbs.  This year IKO conducted two events in the series at Yarra Bay and Monterey.   Our course setters Ewan and Natalya did a sterling job in providing both score and line courses giving seasoned and newcomer orienteers alike a choice in their orienteering experience. We hope to continue participating in this series to help promote orienteering as a fun sport and raise awareness in our local communities.

We also ran local events in March, May, July, August and October in the Illawarra and Sutherland areas.  There are many club members to thank for their enthusiasm and volunteer work keeping up with the demands of mapping, course setting, organising and last but not least the important role of coaching in our local schools and other organisations, introducing newcomers to participate in the joy of orienteering. 

Club members also took the opportunity to compete at International, Regional and State events including Easter, Kings Birthday and Xmas 5 days.

Metro league 2023 – Club members again joined forces with SHOO in entering five teams in the annual inter-club competition for greater Sydney metropolitan clubs. The best result was runner up by the Division 3 team.

Six members were place getters in their classes in the ONSW Orienteer of the year awards – Elizabeth Leung (3rd W Open B), Natalya Filippova (2nd W35A), Vicki Wilmott (1st W65AS), Julie Shepherd (3rd W65AS), Margaret Duguid (3rd W75A) and Peter Shepherd (3rd M65AS)