Peter Palmer Junior Team RelaysCall Out to All Junior Club Members

The Peter Palmer Junior Relay is an annual September Night event comprising of teams made up of juniors from M/W12 to M/W18. The main event itself takes place during the night from the early hours through to daybreak with the more experienced senior juniors running first through to the younger members as the morning gets lighter. Unfortunately, under BOF rules, this event is not open to M/W10s even if they would wish to run up as a M/W12.

The relay itself consists of 6 laps and each team must have at least two laps run by boys and two laps run by girls. However, lap 5 may have up to three runners per team. Each team’s runners all start together when their lap 4 runner finishes. The first lap runner to finish hands over to the lap 6 runner. This therefore means that a team can comprise of 6-8 members.

SOS has been approached by Norfolk Orienteering Club (NOR) to see if we can make up a combined team to enter the Peter Palmer Junior Relays this year as they have some juniors that would like to enter but fall short of enough eligible juniors to make a team of their own. BOF rules allow small clubs to enter combined teams providing they are in the same orienteering association, in our case East Anglian Orienteering Association EAOA).

The Junior Captain for SOS - Oliver Prince, will be putting out an email shortly to all Junior Club members inviting them to take part and to gather interest on those juniors who would like to take part? So please look out for this email from SOS arriving in your inbox if you are a parent of an eligible junior.

The event this year is being hosted by South Midlands Orienteering Club (SMOC) on National Trust Land in Stowe, Buckinghamshire. The event centre is normally a school or hall where the juniors’ bed down for the night until they need to get ready for their runs in the early hours. The logistics will all be worked out once we have an idea of numbers and those that wish to participate. Do note essential bits of kit to consider are Head Torches, Sleeping Bags and Sleeping Mats/Beds in addition to the normal orienteering equipment and clothing. We will also be looking for the appropriate number of adults to junior ratio to support when we know who wishes to attend.

Kind regards,

MR J.P.Carraud

Club Captain