With the new season upon us, and fresh from tacking half the Scottish Six Day, Harry Goldingay extols small, local, and simple-to-organise events - an unexpected lesson from foot & mouth.

Welcome back everybody to Orienteering. After the last six months, during which the majority of events have been cancelled, the BOF fixtures list is looking decidedly healthy again. Happy Herts is organising a series of events that we are hoping will appeal both to regular, committed orienteers and to those who would like to do a bit more but don't really want to drive for a couple of hours to get to an event. These events will take place on Saturdays, once a month, with the first one being at Balls Park (Hertford) on the 29th September. They are low key events, which means that if you haven't orienteered for a while they will be ideal to get you back into form, see page 22. Give it a try and bring some friends - there will be help available for those that want it.

The Happy Herts Annual General Meeting takes place on Friday 21st at the Bill Everett Centre in Watford. In spite of a bad year for orienteering in general, the club has managed to progress this year with the mapping of a number of new areas under the millennium grant scheme (thanks to Hedley Calderbank for driving this) and with David Saunders taking a leading role in setting up a consortium with LOK and CHIG for the management of our bit of the SEOA SportIdent punching equipment. Come along, give your support to the committee and take the opportunity to have your say. The Centre has a bar where a post AGM 'Happy Huddle' usually occurs.

I ventured up to Fort William for the last three days of the Scottish Six Days in early August. Although I have orienteered in Scotland before, it does come as a bit of a shock compared to the south-east. Day five was particularly challenging, being on fairly high ground with loads of rock and contour features but almost no hope of re-locating if you got lost. Although very different terrain, I usually have the same problems in parts of Epping Forest where there are loads of features but many of them are identical, such as the streams that run between the small hills, and its easy to mistake one for another. It really makes you concentrate and punishes any lapses. The big difference however is that in Epping you only have to go a short distance to find a road. In Scotland, the weather was good when I was running but I did wonder how many people would have got extremely lost if the cloud had come down so that even the gross features would have been invisible.

The responsibilities of organising a major event in that kind of terrain are enormous but I suppose in the end come back to having experience of the terrain and the weather and having adequate contingency plans in place. Speaking from experience however, the satisfaction of having organised a successful event, either large or small, more than compensates for the stress leading up to the day. Going back to my introduction and the Happy Herts Saturday orienteering, why not give organising or helping a try if you have not done it before? There is plenty of help and advice available and, a bit like hitting yourself on the head, it feels great when it's over. Give me, or any other committee member, a call or email if you are interested; details on page two.

Happy orienteering

Harry