It’s a perfect time to join NGOC, or renew your membership. Join now and your membership will run until the end of 2020, our 50th anniversary year. We have a host of events planned to celebrate the occasion!
You can join or renew via the British Orienteering website; 2020 membership costs £19 for adults and £5 for juniors.
When you join, you’ll become a member of British Orienteering as well as a member of NGOC. If you’re already a member of another club, you can join NGOC as a second club for just £4.
To join (new members)
To join NGOC, go to the British Orienteering Join Online Page. This will automatically select NGOC as the club from the drop-down list – fill in the form to complete the registration process.
If you’d like to find out more, please contact the club’s membership secretary, Simon Denman, at membership@ngoc.org.uk.
To renew (existing members)
You can renew your membership via the British Orienteering website:
- Log in using your username and password
- Click on “My Settings” on the left
- Click on the “Renew” button
Membership gives you discounts at our events, and those of other clubs. It also gives you the chance to join in our social events, represent NGOC and purchase club kit (we have shirts, running vests and jackets).
Events
You can now see all the events we have planned for 2020, as well as the events remaining in 2019! And the map of areas where we orienteer might be useful. Some highlights:
Birthday weekend in the Forest of Dean
On the weekend of 18-19 January we’ll mark NGOC’s 50th birthday with a weekend of top-quality Forest orienteering. It includes a return to Lightning Tree Hill, which hosted the 1989 British Championships but hasn’t been used for orienteering in the last 20 years.
Newly-mapped areas
We’ll be visiting eight areas that are either new to orienteering, or newly re-mapped after a long time dormant:
- Lightning Tree Hill is the venue for our Birthday event (as mentioned above)
- Soudley Ponds in the Forest of Dean holds an NGOC League event in December 2019, after around a 20 year break.
- Cheltenham and Stroud towns will host Urban events on full (ISSprOM) orienteering maps.
- Selsley Common near Stroud will be the venue for our Relay event in June.
- Barrow Wake & Witcombe Woods, near Birdlip on the Cotswold Edge, hosts an NGOC League event in April.
- Towards the end of 2020, the NGOC League visits the area around Symonds Yat.
- And we’ll have a Sprint event at Cheltenham Racecourse: this will be the Southwest Sprint Champs and part of the UK Urban League
Maprun
Our Maprun series has developed over the last couple of years: these fun street-orienteering events use a mobile phone app to record visits to checkpoints on a simplified map.
- The winter night series hits the streets of towns around Gloucestershire.
- The summer series explores a mixture of urban and rural areas through the lighter evenings.
A lot of the areas haven’t been used before for any kind of orienteering, so it’s a good chance to explore new areas.
CompassSport Cup
In March 2020, NGOC hosts the regional heat of the CompassSport Cup, the main inter-club orienteering competition. We’ll be trying to put together as big a team as possible: stay tuned.
NGOC League
This remains the cornerstone of our schedule, featuring events around the region in a variety of formats:
- In Autumn and Winter the focus is on the Forest of Dean.
- In the spring, we shift attention to the Cotswolds.
- Then in the Summer the League includes Urban events in the towns of Gloucestershire.
These events are suitable for all, from beginners to experts, including the family-friendly Mr Men String Courses.
Night events
Last but not least, a growing band of club members tackle night orienteering in the Western Night League. There’s nothing quite like navigating through the woods with a headtorch!