32 SYO juniors travelled to Primrose Hill near Scunthorpe for the Yvette Baker Trophy heat last Sunday.

The Hill is a bit of a misnomer as the area is very flat and fast and the SYO juniors produced some incredibly quick times. It was particularly great to see some of our younger juniors competing for the club for the 1st time. 

SYO won by 20 points over HALO in 2nd and EBOR in 3rd place. Congratulatons to everyone who ran and especially those that counted: Charlotte Chapman (Yellow Girls), Dom Dakin (Green Boys), Henry McDonald (Orange Boys), James Bryant (Yellow Boys), Freya Tryner (Orange Girls), Euan Tryner (Light Green Boys), Joe Owens (Light Green Boys), Joseph Guy (Yellow Boys), Freddie Emmett (Orange Boys) and Ryan Elliott (Green Boys). It is particularly good to see such a good spread across the different courses.

The final is in Alnwick, Northumberland on Sunday 2nd July. Keep the weekend free juniors.....

On Sunday 12th March 76 club members travelled to deepest Lincolnshire to compete in the Compass Sport Cup Heat. In the battle of the brambles we came out victorious over DVO, NOC, LEI and NOR with a comfortable margin.

Well done to everyone who competed but particularly the scorers: Jenny Peel, Dominic Dakin, Euan Tryner, Kim Baxter, Dave Peel, Paul Bradbury, Jimena Saenz, Oli Johnson, Charlie Adams, Ryan Elliott, Martin Ward, Alex Elliott, Marcia Bradbury, Sam Crawshaw, Colin Lynch, Louise Adams, Nic Barber, Imogen Pieters, Clive Wilson, Paul Taylor, Pete Tryner, Seb Mobus and Brian Shaw. It is fantastic to see some new scorers amongst the list.

The final is on Sunday 22nd October at Virtuous Lady in Devon. Please out the date in your diaries.....

Well done to all SYO members that competed in the British Night and Northern Champs this weekend in the Lake District. 

The British Night Championships was held on Saturday 25th February in the extremely technical terrain of Great Tower. Heavy rain and swirling mist made conditions particularly challenging. Congratulations to new British Night Champions Amanda Crawshaw (W45), Nick Barrable (M40) and Pippa Dakin (W20) and to silver medalists Martin Ward (M50), Peter Gorvett (M70), Tim Tett (M55) and Lucy Wiegand (W45).

There was also great success the following day at Bigland. Courses were technically and physically challenging and competitors braved heavy rain, high winds and mud galore. Well done to the 10 new SYO Northern Champions: James Bryant (M10), Freya Tryner (W10), Imogen Pieters (W12), Pippa Dakin (W20), Nick Barrable (M40), Kim Baxter (W40), Lucy Wiegand (W45), Charlie Adams (M50), Peter Gorvett (M70) and Brian Shaw (M75).

Many thanks to GBR elite athlete Graham Gristwood for presenting the prizes.

SYO members did battle with the brambles in Ecclesall Woods at the weekend with the help of the rangers.  It is going to be a long process but even the 2 hours we put in made a difference.

The next session is arranged for Saturday March 4th from 1 - 3.  You might not get a chance to run through the area we cleared this weekend but surely Colin Drury will put a control in it for the event in the autumn?

It was a great start to the year for SYO with a victory in the Robin Hood inter-club competition at The Dukeries event in Nottinghamshire on Sunday. This is the first time SYO have won the trophy since the competition began in 1998. Well done to everyone who competed, particularly the scorers: Jaimie Buckley, Lucy Wiegand, Pippa Dakin, Alex Elliott, Isobel Reuber, Jenny Lightfoot, Jill Gorvett, Megan Hill, Isabelle Groom, Andy Preston, Ryan Elliott, Seb Mobus, Euan Tryner, Jamie Lightfoot, Dom Dakin, Dave Peel, Brian Shaw, Oscar Peel and Dylan Jenkinson. It is fantastic to see some new people scoring for the club alongside our more established scorers!

Running alongside the Robin Hood Trophy was an inter-club junior competition between SYO, DVO and NOC. It was a resounding victory for SYO who scored 1198 points, with DVO in 2nd on 970 and NOC in 3rd with 670 points. Well done to all the juniors who ran - it was a fantastic team effort. Particular congratulations go to the SYO course winners:

white girls - Megan Hill
white boys - Oscar Peel
yellow girls - Isabelle Groom
yellow boys - Dylan Jenkinson
orange girls - Isobel Reuber
orange boys - Jamie Lightfoot
light green boys - Euan Tryner
green boys - Seb Mobus
short blue boys - Dom Dakin
blue girls - Yasmin Field
blue boys - Ryan Elliott

The 2016 annual club champs were held in the glorious Autumnal Ecclesall Woods on Saturday 3rd December. 54 adults and older juniors set off together on a 45 minute mass score event with the aim of collecting as many controls as possible in the time limit. This year there was a secret twist in that an additional 10 point bonus was awarded for each control collected in sequential order. Kim Baxter, Martin Ward, Andy Preston, Tim Tett and Charlie Adams collected all the controls in sequential order but it was Martin Ward who emerged first from the forest in a time of 43:21.

However, once Peter Gorvett's fiendish handicapping system had been applied it was all change at the top with the overall victory (and 1st junior male) going to Sam Doyle. Louise Adams was 1st female junior, Julian Pieters 1st senior man, Louise Preston 1st senior woman, Arun Sahni 1st vet man and Pauline Wilson 1st vet woman.

Whilst the more experienced orienteers were enjoying the score course, the younger members ran a a challenging 2.4km yellow course. Conrad Reuber flew round the course in 14:41 with James Bryant 2 minutes behind. Fastest female was Charlotte Chapman in 24:32.

Post race members adjurned to the function suite at the Abbeydale Sports Club for (very!) hot showers and a delicious buffet lunch. Lunch was followed by the very brief AGM before it was time for the annual awards ceremony, which honoured our members' best achievements:

Best Relay Team: Euan Tryner, Imogen Pieters & Jamie Lightfoot
Best Individual Relay Performance: Max Mobus
Best Male Junior Performances: Euan Tryner
Best Female Junior Performances: Freya Tryner
Best Overseas Performance: Jenny Peel
Best Senior Male Performances: Andy Preston
Best Senior Female Performances: Kim Baxter
Best Veteran Male Performances: Tim Tett
Best Veteran Female Performances: Hilary Bloor
Most improved junior: Alex Elliott
Most improved senior: Bronwen Doyle

 The final part of the day concentrated on thanking the club's volunteers for the hundreds of hours they dedicate to orienteering. All the major officials and coaches received a small prize and the club's mappers (Ian Cooper, Ray Waight and Tim Tett) were presented with a framed copy of their maps. Melinda Riley won 'offcial of the year' for organising a very successful compass sport cup final and Ian Cooper was awarded the trophy for the 'outstanding contribution to orienteering 'for all his mapping, planning, organising and coaching work.

 Finally a special presentation was made to Colin Best for his contribution to the development of orienteering in South Yorkshire and particularly his work with schools.

Thank you to Charles Hird for planning an innovative and challenging score event that made fantastic use of such a small part of Ecclesall Woods and to Emily Pieters for organising so efficiently and finding such a great venue. 

There were amazing results for many of our junior members at the British Schools Champs at Sutton Park. 70 Sheffield children competed from 16 different schools plus a contingent of home schooled children.

Nether Green Junior School won the trophy for the best overall primary school and Hunters Bar Y5 girls took team silver. In the secondary school category High Storrs Y7 boys took the victory and the Y9 girls were bronze medalists.

There were plenty of individual successes too for SYO juniors: Freya Tryner 1st Y5 girls, Imogen Pieters 1st Y6 girls, Jamie Lightfoot 1st Y6 boys, Conrad Reuber 3rd Y6 boys, Euan Tryner 1st Y7 boys and Dom Dakin 2nd Y10 boys.

Well done to everyone who competed and helped at the Compass Sport Cup Final. It was a real club effort and a tremendous success. It is particularly impressive that we managed to finish 2nd in the competition, despite many members having worked on long shifts in the early rain. Huge thanks must go to organiser Melinda Riley and planner Colin Drury, who gave up hours and hours of their time. Thanks also to Peter Guillaume who designed and built an impressive race arena, Lesley Ward for handling all the entries and Mark Dakin for co-ordinating the huge volunteer force.

It was also great to see such a mix of experienced and new members running on behalf of the club and particularly pleasing that all the juniors completed the very challenging orange and green courses. Congratulations must go in particular to the 25 members who scored for the club: Nic Barber, Dane Blomquist, Andy Preston, Nick Barrable, Al Buckley, Michael Adams, Pete Tryner, Cat Taylor, Kim Baxter, Laura Goy, Rachael Rothman, Tim Tett, Charlie Adams, Nick Lightfoot, Colin Smith, Jenny Peel, Lucy Weigand, Juliette Soulard, Peter Gorvett, Bill Hanley, Brian Shaw, Louise Adams, Yasmin Field, Alex Elliott and Euan Tryner.

You could be orienteering here on November 6th!

See Flyer for details.  Please pre enter via Fabian (to guarantee a map) or EOD (there should be enough maps for everyone to do the course they want).

A team of 19 pupils from Nether Green Junior School travelled down to Bagworth near Leicester last weekend for the ‘Score Event’ version of the British Schools Champs and came away with a haul of medals, chocolate and smiling faces. Jamie Lightfoot led the way with a comfortable win in the Year 6 Boys class but it was the results of his less experienced team mates that secured overall first place in the Boys Primary and second place in the Girls Primary, with standout performances from Connie Watton and Annabelle Maltby 3rd, Dan Richardson 4th and Ellen Hartog 5th in their respective classes.

In the secondary competition there was a small team of SYO juniors from Tapton School including Max and Seb Mobus and Hamish Mill.

Nether Green’s success says a lot about the impact of SYOs junior development led by Pauline and Colin, with the majority of the team getting their first taste of orienteering at the excellent South Yorkshire Games before moving on to compete in the highly competitive Schools League, and some of the team have also benefited from the occasional SYO coaching session.

SYO are organising a coach (or two) to the main British Schools Champs at Sutton Park near Birmingham on 20th November. Any schools or individuals interested in joining in the fun contact Pauline.