To inaugurate our new Permanent Orienteering Course (POC) we held an informal event. This event was part of National Outdoor Week 2003. Despite cloudy weather, twenty-eight people turned up and ran.

The format was a 30-minute score event. As well as the 24 permanent course posts, there were four hidden bonus controls to find. Map fragments detailing their location were attached to various posts. Controls 1 to 8, the controls on the easy course, were worth 10 points each, numbers 9 to 15 (medium) 20 points each, numbers 16 to 24 (hard) 30 points each, and the four bonus controls were each worth 40 points. Unfortunately, one of these bonus controls was stolen, to the chagrin of many people, so it was decided that at most three of them were to count. Even if you managed to visit all four, you would only score 120 points from them.

Your score was deducted one point for every 3 seconds you were late back, but you gained an 'early-bird' bonus point for every 10 seconds you had left.

Results are as follows:

Thanks to Matt, Jeanne, Christine, Becky, Luke M and Julian for helping out on the day. Apologies for one of the bonus controls getting nicked, and for one of the map fragments being hard to read. Well done to Neil, Ed and Rob for leading the table. Finally, a special mention goes to John McKeane who didn't realise this was a score event and proceeded to find all 24 controls in order!

For orienteers who didn't make it to the event, our POC Maps are now available for purchase by emailing our secretary at: secretary at ouoc.org.uk.

Oxford University Orienteering Club are grateful to Jesus Orienteering Klubb (JOK) for the financing of the POC. For more information about the POC, please see our page here. JOK's webpages are here.

Thames Valley Orienteering Club (TVOC) held a colour-coded event at Shotover Park, East Oxford, the following morning. Results for this event are here.