Some 14 NOC members took part in the first forest event of 2026 at Cademan Woods, hosted by LEI.
Top honours go to Lily Robinson (W10) who won on the Yellow course and was more than five minutes ahead of her nearest rival. Hilary Palmer (W75) was the first woman back on the Short Green course and Bodie Milsom (M16) continued his progress by finishing 3rd on the Light Green course.
There were also top ten finishes for Richard Beadle, Neil Milsom and Kevin King.
The final EMOA event of 2025 was hosted by LEI in the new area of Grey Lodge Estate. Despite being staged during the festive break, the event attracted a good attendance including sixteen NOC members.
There were podium finishes for Richard Robinson (Brown), Lily Robinson (Yellow), and Christine Elliott (Short Green),
NOC members with top ten finishes included Andrew Ridgway, Richard Beadle, and Alan Blackwell.
A terrific final NOC event of the year at Strawberry Hill saw some tricky conditions with mist reducing visibility on what were some well planned courses by Kevin Lomas.
Despite the conditions, it was really pleasing to see so many good results from our most recent intake of MapActive participants! Here are the headline results.
There were wins for Richard Robinson (Brown) and Ed Eckhard (MapActive on Orange).
There were also a number of podium finishes for Hilary Hodkinson (Short Green), Jan Ellis (Very Short Green), Eleanor Eckhard (W10, MapActive on Yellow) and Evan Llewellyn (M12, Orange).
There were a good number of top ten finishes too. These included Tim Booker, Mick Lucking, Angela Lucking, Grace Robinson, Lily Robinson, Emilie Milsom, Bodie Milsom, John Palmer, and the following MapActive participants: Emma Donson, Victoria Eckhard, Alan Blackwell and Rianne Gibb.
This was a popular year-end event which also saw LOG and DVO host their club championships too, and everyone headed back to Download for refreshments, mince pies and lots of chat about the courses. Next year’s Christmas bash will be at Walesby on the 20th December. See you then!
Participants in the East Midlands League event at Wellow on the 9th of November encountered courses under a blanket of golden leaves.
On top of that, Planner Richard Robinson made good use of the contours available to create courses that provided a full-on technical difficulty 5 work-out for the experienced orienteers taking part!
There were many good NOC performances with Hilary Palmer finishing first on the Short Green course, closely followed by Jane Booker and Richard Beadle. John Palmer finished 3rd on the Very Short Green and Tim Booker came home 4th on the Blue course.
NOC members also topped the results on the Orange course (Sophie Peet – 1st ) as well as the Yellow course (Elodie Booker – 1st and Lily Robinson – 2nd).
RouteGadget is now available for this event so do take a look at the various courses that were encountered; great examples of well planned courses designed to challenge the skills of keen orienteers.
Thanks go to Richard Robinson for planning, Mick Lucking for controlling and Pat Squire for organising the event. Thanks also goes to those who provided the new map, obtained the various permissions and all those who helped-out on the day.
The next NOC event will be the pre-Christmas one at Strawberry Hill near Mansfield.
