Dorset Schools Orienteering League

The WIM Committee  decided with regret to suspend the Dorset Schools Orienteering League with effect from the end of the 2014-15 school year.

The League began in the 1998-99 school year and  continued until 2014-15, a span of some 17 years. However in recent years, as the pressure on teacher's hours has increased exponentially and paperwork, Risk Assessments, etc. have proliferated, schools no longer attend weekend events in minibuses, or weekdays outside of school hours. Most of our competitors in the last few years have in reality been junior members of WIM, WSX & SARUM, competing under their school name, rather than for a club. In 2014-15 we only had about 20 children competing regularly, although the informal events themselves have continued to be popular and well attended by adults and juniors alike.

So we decided to discontinue the schools league events as such, and replace them with a series of Saturday afternoon informal events during Autumn and Spring, starting around lunchtime and held in our smaller local areas, parks etc.

These events are aimed at juniors’ members, novices and families. School groups are also very welcome if they wish to take part. Each session  will combine a coaching element, followed by a short informal event with courses from White to Light Green, with a relatively short start window, say between 2.00 & 2.30 pm.

We hope that this will be more beneficial to our membership, offering the chance of proper coaching together with the opportunity to put new ideas into practice with a run immediately afterwards.

The current Club League competition will continue, and use mainly the bigger, Sunday events for its scores.

The Dorset Schools Score Championships, which has run annually at the beginning of May since we held the first event at Hyde House in 1997, will continue to be held. This event has regularly attracted decent numbers, usually around 100 or so and we hope that it will continue to flourish in future years.