Presentations at Strawberry Hill by our Chair, Jane Kayley-Burgess
Club Championships trophies
First of all some thank yous.
Thank you to NOC, especially Kevin, Robert, Ant and Hilary, for allowing us to use this traditional Christmas event for our club championships this year. For being so accommodating and helpful in all respects, allowing us to run our event in our own way, but on their courses. For designing a special start so that we can use Andrew’s ‘accurate to the second’ start times to ensure the fairest results. To Andrew Ridgway for adapting The Start Kite for our entries. Thank you to Ursula from LEI, our EML results powerhouse, for offering to merge our times in with the EML course times to ensure that those running a Club Champs course did not lose out on EML points. To LOG for allowing us to share the event which is traditionally their Club Champs. Huge thanks to Andrew Middleton who has not only slaved over the handicap for hours, if not days, but also sorted out arrangements with NOC to allow us to run our Championships with least impact upon their event. To John Hurley for making sure we had all bases covered and agreed and for bringing his super brain along to calculate our winners. And of course thank you to all of you for coming.
So this is what you want to know.
Now we move on to the Annual Awards for 2025
Orienteer of the Year: Judith Holt
The orienteer of the year doesn’t have to be the best or the fastest or the most podium places. The orienteer of the year can be someone who is just astounding. Many of you will remember Judith Holt coming back from hip surgery with a careful recovery plan which all went pear shaped when she trotted downhill at the New Year’s Day event in 2024. But because she is Judith, she didn’t give up and, because she takes training more seriously than most mortals, she is back in contention. Not content with her improvements on the Short Green course, Judith has, this autumn and winter, switched back to Green courses and is a force to be reckoned with. Judith, your recovery is an inspiration to us all and a message to never give up. Congratulations.
Most enthusiastic newcomer: Lester and Judith Evans
This couple joined DVO from a West Midlands club a couple of years ago. They carefully selected us from a choice of three clubs which are local to them. They sat quietly in the background as they recovered their energies from their previous WM roles then burst onto the DVO volunteering scene last year with ideas for a welcome team, before joining the development group. Not only did they have the ideas, they have put them into action, recruiting their son to design the new welcome banner in perfect DVO colours and really pushing us to make orienteering an event that isn’t scary for newcomers to try. Their piece de resistance was Hardwick’s Navigation Festival but they haven’t stopped there. I get at least one call a week from Lester that starts ‘Have you got a minute. I have an idea…’ Oh, I have given the game away as we only have one Lester. But actually, we could do with a whole club full of Lester and Judith Evan’s, the proud winners of Most Enthusiastic Newcomer award 2025
Junior Orienteer of the Year: Ben
I remember this young man coming with his granny and trotting around a white course. Soon granny had to step aside whilst granddad or mummy ran with him, because he was getting a bit speedy. This season he has gone off on his own. He has competed in various forest, urban, sand dune and parkland events, been training with the juniors, including a weekend in Wales with Ann-Marie and Dai, where he clearly learnt a lot. He seems to have taken to orienteering like a duck to water and is now the nominated map reader on all family journeys. He always says it makes him happy, even when it’s a difficult course and he comes to the finish with a beaming smile whatever the weather or course. Surely these are the key attributes of a potentially great orienteer. He has learnt that, if he has a bad control but he perseveres, he can still get a good result. His family are all super proud of him. Our junior orienteer of the year is Ben.
Most improved orienteer of the year: Jake Warwick
Jake came to orienteering through MapRun and what a talent he is proving to be. We are usually gentle with our newcomers and at least try to encourage them to go through the ranks of technical difficulties. Not so Jake. He was straight on to the Blue and course 2 events and bold and unintimidated as he thrashed around in the undergrowth and thundered round towns and cities. Keep it going Jake. You have some great role models and mentors in the club and we all hope you will make use of them in your journey to greatness.
Newstrack Contributor of the Year: Stuart Swalwell
The Club still travels well … with Sally having doing a great article about the Antalya O Festival while at Portugal O Meet. Sustainable travel continues to be a theme, with John, Ann-Marie and Stuart cycling to the Irish Champs in May. The winner of this year’s Newstrack Contributor award is Stuart Swalwell for his idea of anonymous contributions to the article on Royal Deeside. Editor Sal thought this is a great way to write up multi-day events!
David Parkin trophy for Outstanding Services to the Club: Richard Parkin
The winner of this trophy is someone who pops up everywhere. Richard Parkin just gets on with whatever needs doing. This year he planned two huge events. The Midlands Championship, on a difficult area, was more work than anyone could have guessed but again, he just got on with it. At Fixtures Committee over the past few years we have talked endlessly about the issues with the paucity of areas to run in. Richard has not only found new ones, he has resurrected areas we haven’t used for years and he has got on and mapped them to his usual high standard. Richard is the true planner’s friend. His advice on use of the map is hugely valuable, but he will also be forthright when he thinks you’re talking nonsense, and tell you why from a large knowledge base. He will offer to run courses to test them and help with putting out controls if his map-making has eliminated him from competition. He is generous and kind spirited and an extremely valuable club member, making useful contributions both in Fixtures committee and in the Start team. He manages the club’s map archive and liaises with the printers (old and new) turning planners’ Purplepen files into maps of beauty that we, as a club, can be proud of. I think you’ll all agree he is a very worthy recipient of the trophy. Thank you, Richard, for everything you do for the club.
Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY)
Sal will try and revive this as a feature in the Club News posts 5x a year, even though this year they have been somewhat overlooked!
Competition to name the O map that our new banner contours were taken from: John Duckworth
Our Welcome Team Leaders comissioned a new banner, using a contour background from a DVO map, and Lester launched a competition to name the area. John Duckworth correctly identified the area as Allestree Park, with the snippet being near the centre of the map. The prize was collected by Ann-Marie, as John is only just back to running following his ankle break at the November Classic.
Our 2026 DVO Championships will be on a new area for orienteering – Solomon’s Temple, near Buxton!
