Coaching day review Nov 2019
Credit: Lakeland Orienteering Club (LOC)
We were very pleased to support a third Orienteering Foundation coaching day in the Lake District in November 2019, kindly organised again by Derek Allison.
Derek took charge of the organisation, including securing permissions, planning exercises, and hanging and collecting controls - see details for the day here. 36 individual adult participants were coached by Derek and assistant coach Julie, and another 89 in groups from INT, PFO, WCOC, ESOC, EBOR, CLOK, and EMOA.
This was the third coaching day we have run (previously in February 2018 and November 2018). The weather was overcast but mostly dry, calm and not too cold, providing excellent conditions to practice detailed navigation in the challenging terrain at Haverthwaite.
As with previous coaching days, all the groups took advantage of the controls hung and collected by Derek, so they didn't need to worry about those logistics and could instead concentrate on delivering the best possible coaching to their group. We also listened to feedback from previous coaching days, including providing course files in Purple Pen (instead of OCAD which is not freely available) and providing risk assessment notes to assist group coaches.
Once again we ran a short survey aftewards to gather feedback, and all the comments were positive and constructive. The level of interest in the coaching days continues to grow, and we are keen to do another day in the Lakes in autumn 2020. We would also be interested in supporting days in other parts of the UK - if you might be interested in organising such a day with our support, please get in touch with Duncan Archer (email hidden; JavaScript is required), one of the Orienteering Foundation trustees.