Here is the latest issue of the club newsletter - April 2026 with an introduction from club chairman, Graham Batty, a roundup of events and other activities in the last month, and a preview of next month.

Also, the updated version of our Orienteering spreadsheet with details of our HAVOC and participation leagues, as well as team orienteering results.

Previous editions

March 2026 Newsletter

February 2026 Newsletter

January 2026 Newsletter

December 2025 Newsletter

November 2025 Newsletter

October 2025 Newsletter

September 2025 Newsletter

July 2025 Newsletter

June 2025 Newsletter

May 2025 Newsletter

The SWELL season for 2025/26 concluded with the HAVOC event at Weald Park.  Several of the categories were still up for grabs before the event, and some tough courses and massive start field made for some exciting competitions.

The final Roll of Honour is as follows :-

WHITE - Olivia Muggeridge (HAVOC) had already secured this title and her 391 points was good enough for 2nd in the overall GIRLS category.  Top boy on the White course was Wilfred Tate (Barnadiston).

YELLOW - Sienna Muggeridge (HAVOC) had also already won the Yellow course title and is a double winner, as she has pipped her Sister to the GIRLS overall title.  Top boy on the Yellow course was Maks Petrovs.

ORANGE - Tunde Farago (HH) took an early lead and won the ORANGE course title.  Top male on the Orange course was Roger Pring (SAX).

As mentioned, Sienna Muggeridge (HAVOC) was the top Girl, and Hugo Maule-Lidbury (HAVOC) won the top Boy's title, running Light Green.

LIGHT GREEN - this was won by Hugo Maule-Lidbury (HAVOC) more than 100 points clear of the next best - Elysia Cowe (WAOC) who was the top girl on the Light Green.

SHORT GREEN - Noreen Ives (WAOC) pipped Francis Ronnau-Bradbeer (DFOK), as her best 6 finishes were slighter better.

GREEN - Just seven points separated the top two on the Green course.  Louise Walker (SUFFOC) just pipping Gavin Avey-Hebditch (WSX) who takes top male.

BLUE - David Dixon's (HH) 100 point run in the last event, saw him overhaul Ian Byford for the Blue course title.  Top female was Kerria Lines (HH).  

BROWN - Antoine Pesenti (DFOK), with a win and 3 other top ten finishes, secured the BROWN category.  Top female was Kezia Studd (SLOW).

OVERALL SWELL - BLUE winner, David Dixon (HH), becomes SWELL Champion with 589 points, 4 individual event wins and the best 6 event total. Antoine Pesenti (DFOK) is the gallant runner-up.

SWELL TOP FEMALE was Noreen Ives (WAOC) with 559 pts and a very creditable 3rd overall.

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone for supporting the series.

Full scoring details can be found on the SWELL homepage.

The new season will kick off in the autumn.  

A full series commentary, along with results for each race and the series can be found here.

That's also the place to go for maps and instructions to allow you to run any of the courses on MapRun.  

Once again, SOS and HAVOC are proud to be running a joint Summer series, throughout Essex, over the spring/summer season.  This will consist of 8 races, every couple of weeks, monstly on a Wednesday, from mid April 2026 to mid July 2026 2026.

These will mostly be line events, based on streets, parks, woods and footpaths.  Specific scoring methods may vary based on location, and will be described on the event flyers.

Full details of the series can be found here.

Check out the Marketing Flyer, which will be posted to Facebook here.

Entries to all events, and the Golden Ticket option (for reduced entry fee, and automatic entry into all races in the series) will be open soon on Racesignup.

Defending champions for the Summer series are:

Long Course

Short Course

HAVOC competed in the Compass Sport Trophy qualifying heat at Brandon Country Park, on 22nd February.  

Results didn't go totally our way, and we failed to qualify for the final.  However, we had some excellent runs:

Hugo Maule-Lidbury - 100 points in class 10M

Andrew Welsh - 97 points in class 6

Gillian Edgar - 97 points in class 7

Barbara Beckett - 96 points in class 8

Amelie Maule-Lidbury - 96 points in class 10W

We showed some remarkable club spirit.  We had people running injured (or recovering from injuries).  We had people running who hadn't run for ages but still gave their all for the club.  We had people running harder courses than they should have to, just to ensure we got scorers on all courses needed for the trophy.
We are a small club, and so every runner who can't make it due to injury, or other commitments, makes it more difficult for the team to score well, as we have to have runners running up, and therefore are against people younger than them who are more suited to the courses they are running.  And, of course we lose that person from scoring well on the course they are supposed to run!

Despite this, despite the fact that we had the smallest team of all the competing clubs, despite the fact that we were facing higher ranked runners in all cases, we held our own.  We were 57 points off qualifying for the final.  Sounds a lot, but that is less than 5 places for each of our top 13.  When you look at times, that is only around 5 mins in a lot of cases.

Thanks to all runners who had to run up a class or two - Paul, Jenny, Guy, Mike, Zbig, Colin.  

And, finally, thanks to ALL who ran for the club.
 

Series flyer

Points will be awarded based on finishing times adjusted using an age/gender handicap system.  Each missed or incorrect control will incur a 5 minutes penalty.  Best 6 results from the series will count.   On-the-night bonus of 15 points per event for those running on the night, opposed to MapRun catchup.  5 min penalty for Anytime.  A second run on any particular course will not count for scoring purposes.

Full results will be emailed and published on the SOS and HAVOC websites. 

Entry fees, per event Senior (member) £4, Senior (non-member) £5, Junior £2

Golden Ticket (entry to all events in the series) - Senior (member) £22, Senior (non-member) £27.5,  Junior £11

Note:  This series will be using the latest version of the MapRun software, to enable use of features and scoring that have been introduced.  Therefore, if you are not using the latest version of the software, please update to ensure that there are no issues when it comes to the event.

Links to details/results for the events are shown in the table below.

Essex Summer Midweek Series 2026

Guidelines for each event:

- Short (c3-3.5km straight line) and Long (c5-6km straight line) or another format if it works better for an area (e.g. Short and Long or Combined Score)
- Starts from 6.30pm to 7.30pm, courses close 9pm
- Start location should be a pub or similar
- If possible, events are set up on MapRun to allow for on the night analysis, as well as Anytime Catch up for those not able to attend on the night
- As the events will take place in the light summer evenings, more use of parks, woods, footpaths and trails are anticipated, alongside sections of urban street running.
- Usual format of fire hydrants, supplemented by other road furniture, and/or homemade hydrant signs where courses would benefit from not only using hydrants (to increase route choice for example).

Defending champions from 2025 are:

Short Course

Long Course

The New Year is an excellent time to take up a new sport, and orienteering is a perfect choice!  Orienteering is an exciting adventure sport that exercises both the mind and the body and is suitable for all ages and fitness levels.

As a special offer for 2026, we are giving new members FREE forest orienteering for the whole year.  So, if you join HAVOC then you will get a code to remove entry fees from Racesignup for all our events (5 currently scheduled) in 2026.

As you may want to try orienteering first, before committing to joining the club, if you subsequently join HAVOC after running in the Langdon Hills event, then we will refund your entry fee!  Just contact the membership secretary (membership@orienteering-havoc.co.uk) to take advantage of this offer.

Happy New Year from HAVOC

We hope you all have a very Happy New Year.

Please find our review of 2025 here

If you have yet to renew your membership then please do so as soon as possible.

If you are a prospective member then please see the Membership page for details.

Good luck for 2026.

Participants who are not members of British Orienteering are not covered by British Orienteering’s public liability insurance. By entering this event, you acknowledge that you are taking part at your own risk. For example, if you were to accidentally injure a member of the public or damage property during the event, you would not be covered.

If you become a member of HAVOC, and therefore BOF, your insurance cover at events will not change.  Membership details can be found here.

A full series commentary, along with results for each race and the series can be found here.

That's also the place to go for maps and instructions to allow you to run any of the courses on MapRun.  

Once again, SOS and HAVOC are proud to be running a joint Winter Street series, throughout Essex, over the winter season.  This will consist of 10 races, every couple of weeks, on a Wednesday, from end October 2025 to early March 2026.

These will be score events, based on street, or using lit paths, with two time limits (60, or 40 minutes).  Specific scoring methods may vary based on location, and will be described on the event flyers.

Full details of the series can be found here.

Check out the Marketing Flyer, which will be posted to Facebook here.

Entries to all events, and the Golden Ticket option (for reduced entry fee, and automatic entry into all races in the series) are already open on Racesignup.

Defending champions for the Winter series are:

Long Course

Short Course

The meeting featured reports from the Chairman, Captain, Treasurer and Membership Secretary, detailing club activities and status for the year.

Colin Jackson stepped down as Chairman after completing his three years in post.  Paul Beckett stepped down as Secretary, after completing his three years in post.

The committee thanked both for their dedication and service.

The new Committee elected for 2024/25 is:

• Graham Batty (Chairman)
• Colin Jackson (Secretary)
• Janet Biggs (Treasurer)
• David Float (Captain)
• Dale Bennett
• Guy Lidbury
• Paul Beckett
• Zbig Gebka

It was agreed to maintain the Club’s annual subscriptions for 2026 at 2025 levels.  These are £5 for Seniors & Families, and £0 (nil) for Juniors.  We will not make a distinction for the BOF membership category of Young Adult.

The British Orienteering Federation fees for 2026 are £39 for families, £17 for seniors, £11 for Young Adults and £5 for juniors. There are part year memberships, at reduced fees, for people joining after May 1st, and October 1st.

The first meeting of the new Committee is scheduled as an Open Talk video conference, on Monday November 10, 2025.

You can find photos from the event on our Facebook page.

Full results can be found here, along with lins to RouteGadget and WinSplits.

The event was also the first event in this season's SWELL league.  Full results can be found on the SWELL page, here.

Full results, and race report can be found here.

Pictures, on our Facebok page.

The next event will be a Snooker O, in South Woodham Ferrers, on 24th September.  Details, here.

For the second year, we are running a Twilight series between the Summer and Winter midweek series. As we wait for the clocks to go back so we can run the winter series in the dark, we are filling the gap with some additional midweek orienteering events through September and October.

The series this year will consist of three events, each with a slightly different scoring algorithm.  We have a "traditional" score, with mutiple control values in South Ockendon, a Snooker O in South Woodham Ferrers, and a Spiral O in Brentwood.

Full details of the series can be found here.

Entries to all events are already open on Racesignup.

Defending champions for the Twilight series are:

Another successful series, with ten events spread over Essex.  Thanks to all the organisers: Lyn West, Simon Fowler, Dean Pepper, Dale Bennett, Tim Hull, Chris Childs, John Allen, Chloe Fowler, Mark Owen, Kevin Machin, Chris Prince, Jackie Sibthorp and Graham Batty, without whom we wouldn't be able to run the series.  Thanks also to SOS co-ordinator, Dean Pepper, for getting organisers and ensuring the SOS events ran smoothly.  It is no trivial task, so thanks for heling to put on the series.

We used MapRun again obviously.  The benefits of this outweigh the monor problems we sometimes face I think.  Being able to instantly compare routes in the pub after your run, the fact that the planner doesn't (normally) have to put out controls and collect them back in again, the fact that results are compiled on the app, all help to make the effort of staging the events a little less onerous.

Originally our aim for the series was to have score events, as the planning of these is sometimes easier in an urban enviroment, as getting adequate route choice and decision points into a line course can sometimes be tricky, especially if we are limiting ourselves to fire hydrant signs.  We ended up with a variety of different event types - standard score, multiple control value score, dumbbell score, and traditional log and short line.  For the score events we had two time limits to cater for those who wanted longer or shorter runs.

The planning guidelines call for these winter series events to make use of lit paths and alleys, as well as streets, and there was the ocassional bit of park or open ground to be visited.  We saw some interesting local sights, including windmills, stone circles, historical buildings and obviously an array of different town signs.

As for previous series, we allowed a catchup for people who were unable to make the run on the night to still score points for the league.  We did give a bonus to those attending on the night though, to help drive attendance and thus reward the planners.  Although attendance was slightly down across the series, compared to previous years, we still managed a reasonably healthy average, and had 40 runners on the short courses, and 62 on the long course.  Of these, Dean Pepper, Keith Bennett and Colin Jackson ran in all 10 races, on the night, to grab the full bonus of 150 points avaiable.  14 runners managed to run in six or more events, so had the best chance of grabbing series honours.

In the short course, Chris Childs had an up and down series, recording two scores of zero after he finished late and lost all his points in penalties.  But with two top scores and an organiser score, he still had a chance to take series honours with a good score in the last event.  But, he couldn't make it to the race, and so finishes in third.

It was a battle for most of the season between Colin Jackson and Rachel Read.  They swapped top spot multiple times.  Colin took a full bonus for on the night runs, and so held the edge there, but Rachel won the head to head between then 6 to 3.  It came down to the final race, and with a win, her third of the series, Rachel took top spot, 16 points clear of Colin in second.

Onto the Long course. Seb Parris was defending champ, but he had to miss most of the season with injury, so a new name would take his place.  Allen Smalls set the early pace, and with three wins out of the first five events could have pushed home his advantage, but he didn't make any of the HAVOC events, and so finished well down the field.  The race for third place went down to the wire, with 20 points separating third from sixth. In the end it was on the night bonuses that clinched thrid place for Dean Pepper - holding on by 3 points from Roy Read in fourth.  It was equally close for the top two positions.  Keith Bennett and Jackie Sibthorp locked in a battle.  Keith won 4 of the first 5 head to heads, but then Jackie hit back with two race wins and an organiser bonus.  It was all to play for.  15 points separated the two at the end - and it was a missing 15 point on the night bonus that eventually cost Jackie!  Congratulations to Keith, who adds the Winter series title to the Twilight title he won in the autumn!

Final leaderboards were:

Short course

Long course 

Thank you all rof running in the series.  Hope to see you for the Summer series, starting in April!

David

Winter Series 2025/26

The Essex Winter Midweek Series will again be run over the winter of 2025/26.  This will consist of 10 night street O events.

Series flyer.

Points will be awarded based on finishing times adjusted using an age/gender handicap system.  Best 6 results from the series will count.   On-the-night bonus of 15 points per event for those running on the night, opposed to MapRun catchup.  7 min penalty for Anytime.  A second run on any particular course will not count for scoring purposes.

Full results will be emailed and published on the SOS and HAVOC websites. 

Entry fees, per event Senior (member) £4, Senior (non-member) £5, junior £2

Golden Ticket (entry to all events in the series) - Senior (member) £30, Senior (non-member) £40,  junior £15

Links to details/results for the events are shown in the table below.

Note that for certain events we will also produce a Line course map, that you can run on Anytime.  This will not count for the league, but will use some of the score course controls.

Essex Winter Midweek Series 2025/26

Guidelines for each event:

- For this year we are using a Score based format.  This will have one map, but two time limits - Short (40 mins), Long (60 mins)

- However, if for a particular area a different format works better (Line, sprint etc) then that is fine

- Starts from 6.30pm to 7.30pm, courses close 9pm

- Start location should be a pub or similar

- Events are set up on MapRun to allow for on the night analysis, as well as Anytime Catch up for thise not able to attend on the night

- Mainly street based, although can offer off road route choice, if considered safe in the dark

- Usual format of fire hydrants, supplemented by other road furniture, and/or homemade hydrant signs where courses would benefit from not only using hydrants (to increase route choice for example).

- In order to retain the ability for competitors to run a line course, it may be practical, for some events, to suggest a suitable line alternative route through the score controls.

Note:  As some events may use scoring rules or other mechanisms that are only available in MapRun, competitive manual scoring is not offered, although you are still welcome to run under manual timing, and control visits will be checked using a control card.

Defending champions from 2024/25 are:

Short Course

Long Course

HAVOC have won the GLOSS series, 2025.  That is our eigth win in a row.  We have held the trophy since we first won in 2017.

The series, which looked tough when it was announced, with three events in the West, some fast park style runs, and featuring six races for only the second time in recent history, ended up being handsomely won by HAVOC, even with a race to spare.  We ran hosts SLOW close at Northala, took our home event at Hornchurch, just got pipped by the massive team from HH at Haileybury, prevailed in the heat of Fairlop Waters and then sealed victory at Nonsuch, upsetting hosts, MV, and seeing off the challenge of HH who were the only team who could catch us. 

The final scoreboard looks like this:

HAVOC           98

HH                  94

DFOK              88

We had runs from 22 club members.  15 of those runners were in our top 6 in at least one event.  We had a full team at all six events, and made double figures at four of them (14 each for the last two Western events!).  We totalled 66 runs overall (an average team size of 11 per event).  Colin, Jenny and Zbig made all six events.  Colin scored in five of those, to take our top scorer for the year, with 432 points.  Andrew, Chris P, Seb and Chloe scored in all the events they entered.  Seb and Simon top scored 100 points at Northala and Fairlop respectively.  We had a different runner top scoring for us at each event!  As a club we had 17 runs in the top 10 throughout the series. 

As a club we were never out of the top two places at every event, scoring three firsts and three seconds.  And, as equally important, we had six post race drinks gatherings – showing that our club spirit may be more prevalent than any other orienteering club in London. 

So, once again, we can call ourselves the best club in London!

Go HAVOC!

Our final participation figures were:

Series Commentary:

This series fitted in between the summer series finishing (and then the summer holiday period) and the winter series starting once it is dark enough to run the races fairly.

We thought it was worth keeping orienteering opportunities available during this lengthy gap.  However, as entries were fairly low, we may have to consider this for next year.  To be fair, once the races actually happened we had got some decent numbers, despite some unrelated issues, so at least it made the efforts to plan the series and stage the events somewhat worthwhile.

With the winter series moving to a score format this year, and the line format being more difficult to plan on urban streets where it is sometimes difficult to introduce route choice, we decided to go with a score format with tweaks for this twilight series.  It is meant as a low key series to help develop some skills and keep us fit as we head into the autumn and winter, so this year we had a Traditional multi value score course, a Snooker O course, and a Spiral O course.

The first one was a Traditional score in South Ockendon.  Although we had put this as far south as we could to attract runners from over the river, this effort was thwarted when DFOK hosted their own event the night before!  Add to that a tube strike costing us some runners from London, and a low turnout from SOS and MEC, and we struggled with a low attendance.  Those that did run tended to enjoy it though – the flat lands of Essex allowing for some longer runs, and a wide range of different routes were taken on the courses.

It was a Snooker O next in South Woodham Ferrers.  We have staged a couple of events there in the past, and this time took the pub next to the station for a start/finish.  This successfully encouraged at least two runners to venture up by train.  The rules were necessarily complex, but pretty much everyone managed to “pot” the controls in the right order, and from comments after the event, the format was very well received.

Finally, on to Brentwood, and our biggest starting field of the series.  This time a spiral O, and with the big penalties for going over time, we had some very early finishers!  No-one got round the whole spiral (it was deliberately planned to be too long for that), and the roadworks on the high street added a bit of a decision point!

So, I hope you enjoyed the different formats on offer.  If you have a particular favourite, dislike, or just wanted to make any comments or suggestions, then would be great to hear from you.

Jackie Sibthorp took full points in both of the first two races, and looked to have set up victory for the series.  But, she had to miss the final event, and the subsequent loss of bonus points proved critical.  Marc Owen went to all three events and secured high scores at South Ockendon and Brentwood, but couldn’t quite get the score at South Woodham he needed.  Keith Bennett ran the catch up on a Saturday morning in South Ockendon, and even with the anytime penalty of 10% of time, managed over 10km and ran Jackie close for the win.  With a solid score in the snooker O, as he was one of only two runners to get a full break, it was set up for the final run.  Keith got furthest round the spiral, and even after handicaps were applied he scored well enough to take the title for this year, ahead of Marc.

Congratulations Keith!

I combined the results from both courses again into one table.  With the different formats there could have been some tactical running to take advantage of the time limits for each event, but as you couldn’t see the courses beforehand this would have been quite difficult to judge!  I hope you enjoyed the extra stats, including “efficiency” for the first two races!

Overall, we had 45 runners in the end, and of those, 5 came to all three events – thank you!  HAVOC, SOS, MEC, DFOK, CHIG, BOF, SLOW, WSX and HWRC were all represented.  We had just over a third female, and two thirds male runners, ranging from M18 to M75.  With BOF removing their public liability insurance for non-members in the New Year, and reduced fees available for orienteering club members for future series/races, if you are not a member of an orienteering club yet, then you might want to consider it!  Details of how to join HAVOC are here. 

Full results of every race can be found below.  The results of the last event show the final table standings.  

You will (hopefully) have seen a flyer for the Winter series which starts next week in Bocking, Braintree.  All the details can be found here.  We have 10 races (5 HAVOC, 5 SOS) all over Essex, every two weeks on a Wednesday (with a break for Christmas).

If you have any comments on the series then please let me know (streeto@orienteering-havoc.co.uk).  As mentioned before; all of these series cannot run without the efforts of volunteers to organise and plan individual events; so please consider that for the next series.  Let me or Dean know so that we can fit you into the schedule.

Thanks again for running in the events this Twilight – I sincerely hope you enjoyed them. 

David

2025 Twilight series Roll of Honour

With a gap between the summer series finishing (July) and the Winter series starting (October), we are again going to run a Twilight series in the intervening months.

The series will consist of three score events, each with a specific format, every two weeks from mid September.  Terrain will be mostly on streets and footpaths, but may venture into local parks and woods for some route choice.

Series flyer.

Points will be awarded based on scores achieved adjusted using an age/gender handicap system.  On-the-night bonus of 15 points per event for those running on the night, opposed to MapRun catchup.  6 (long)/4 (short) min penalty for Anytime.  A second run will not count for scoring purposes.

Entry fees, per event Senior (member) £4, Senior (non-member) £5, Junior £2

Note:  This series will be using the latest version of the MapRun software, to enable use of features and scoring that have been introduced.  Therefore, if you are not using the latest version of the software, please update to ensure that there are no issues when it comes to the event.  Competitive manual timing is not available for this series.

Links to details/results for the events are shown in the table below.

Essex Midweek Twilight Series 2025

Guidelines for each event:

- Short (40 mins) and Long (60 mins) score courses, using the same map
- Starts from 6.30pm to 7.30pm, courses close 9pm
- Start location in a local pub
- All events are set up on MapRun to allow for on the night analysis, as well as Anytime Catch up for those not able to attend on the night
- Due to some scoring methods, and requirements to know order of controls visited, competitive manual timing is not available for this series.
- Usual format of fire hydrants, supplemented by other road furniture, and/or homemade hydrant signs where courses would benefit from not only using hydrants (to increase route choice for example).

Defending Twilight champions from 2024 are: