Jargon Buster / Orienteering Dictionary

This page is intended to explain all those mysterious acronyms and phrases which leave the new (and not so new) orienteer baffled.

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• “A” course At major events, juniors usually have a choice of two age class courses, imaginatively called “A” and “B”. “A” is the more prestigious, “B” is shorter and easier.
• Activity A very minor “event” which is not regarded as a competition and for which officially no results should be produced. The advantage of “activities” is that they do not attract the British Orienteering Levy.
• Age Class The classification by age and gender used at most serious orienteering events. Also known as British Orienteering Class.
• Aiming off A technique for finding a control on a line feature by deliberately missing it! If you aim to hit the line feature at the control and don’t get it exactly right, when you reach the feature, you may not know whether to turn right or left. If you ¨aim off¨ to ensure that you hit the feature to the right (say) of the control, then you will know for sure that you have to turn left.
  
• AIRE Airienteers. A club covering Airedale and Wharfedale, Leeds and Bradford.
• Anchor lap The final lap of a relay race
• Assembly Area The place, often a corner of a field, where enquiries, registration, toilets and traders are concentrated.
• Attack point A feature near to your control which is easier to find. You may wish to run fast to your attack point, and then take more care on your approach to the control.
• AYROC Ayrshire Orienteering Club. A Scottish club.

 

• “B” course At major events, juniors usually have a choice of two age class courses, imaginatively called “A” and “B”. “B” is both shorter and easier than the more prestigious “A”.
• BADO Basingstoke Andover District Orienteers. A club.
• BAOC British Army Orienteering Club. A closed club providing military orienteering for soldiers, but most events are also open for civilians, including the Military League (South).
• Base-plate compass The traditional compass. Also known as protractor compass.

• BASOC Badenoch and Strathspey Orienteering Club centred on Aviemore.
• Beacon Mode For SportIdent punching, if the SportIdent boxes are in beacon mode, then SIAC cards will “punch” when in close proximity without physical contact. Also known as contactless punching.
• Bearing Direction determined using a compass (see video).
• Bingo control A control which cannot be reliably found by careful map reading, instead needing an element of luck. Normally caused either by an inaccurate map, or by the control being in thick vegetation a long way from any attack point.
• BKO Berkshire Orienteers. A club.
• BL Border Liners Orienteering Club, based in North Cumbria.
• Black course A less common colour-coded course, no more difficult than the Brown course, but longer.

• Blodslitet Staged annually by the Norwegian club Fredrikstad Skiklubb since the early 1970’s, Blodslitet is a mass start long distance race using several loops with competitors returning to the finish arena after each lap. The literal translation of ¨Blodslitet¨ is ¨Blood Spiller¨. This gives an idea of the original thinking behind the event, but thankfully it has been toned down a little to accommodate some of us lesser mortals! SROC introduced a British version, also intended to become an annual event, in 2002. It was renamed the Tim Watkins Trophy after the principal organiser died following a car accident in March 2005.
• Blue course The middle distance, technically hard, colour-coded course. The same standard as the shorter Green and the longer Brown. Sometimes there’s also a Short Blue course, of the same standard but shorter, while still being longer than Green.
• BMBO British Mountain Bike Orienteering. The governing body for mountain bike orienteering.
• BOC British Orienteering Championship. An annual event, held in a different region of the country each year. The most prestigious domestic event to win in the eyes of non-orienteers; but actually only roughly equal in status with the JK. There is a separate prize for each age class, so there are actually 32 British Champions! Usually held on a Saturday, and followed by the British Relay Championship on the Sunday.
• BO / BOF British Orienteering is the modern branding of British Orienteering Federation. The governing body of our sport in the United Kingdom. Makes the rules, co-ordinates the fixtures, organises publicity, and much more. The BOF web site is aptly described as a mine of information: it contains much valuable data, but some of it is hard to dig out. Officially, the term ¨BOF¨ should no longer be used, as it has been realised that it means nothing to the uninitiated, whereas the name “British Orienteering” is much clearer. However, as evidenced by this web page, old habits die hard! Membership of BOF is mildly confusing. BOF is a Federation of twelve associations, nine of them regional associations such as the SEOA, plus three national associations for Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland. However, the members with voting rights at the AGM are individual orienteers, not the associations which make up the federation. Every serious orienteer in the UK is a member of BOF, and the vast majority are also members of a club and a regional or national association. There is usually some proposal outstanding to change this system.
• BOF Class Another name for age class, more accurate (since gender counts as well as age) but less used.
• BOF Levy One of the sources of funding for BOF is a levy on the income from events organised by orienteering clubs.
• BOF Number Unique identifier issued by BOF to member orienteers. Very useful to anyone trying to capture details for results at an event, as the database will provide competitor name and other details from the number.
• BOF Rankings A British Orienteering ranking list compiled using a complex formula from the results of almost all major/national/regional events in Britain. Events where there is no set course (e.g. score events) or people start close together (e.g. relay or chasing start events) are excluded.
• BOK Bristol Orienteering Klub
• Bramble Bashers Long socks with reinforcement over the shins to give some protection from vegetation. Alternatively some prefer to wear short socks and gaiters.
• Brashings Remains of branches left on the ground after forestry work.
• Brikke The name for an Emit electronic control card in the original Norwegian. Pronounced “brick”, and occasionally spelled that way in English.
• British Orienteering The trading name of the British Orienteering Federation.
• Bronze standard The standard which you need to achieve three times on age class courses at major events in order to qualify for a Bronze badge. Details at this British Orienteering web page.
• Brown course Commonly the longest colour-coded course, although occasionally a longer Black course is available. Technically difficult, but no harder than the Blue course. The route should be cross-country as much as possible (but not if this means forcing people through unpleasant vegetation), with significant route choice. If possible, finding the controls should require careful map reading (although it must remain possible to reliably find the controls from the map without needing luck; controls should never be hidden). Sometimes there’s also a Short Brown course, of the same standard but shorter, while still being longer than Blue.
• BSOA British Schools Orienteering Association.
• BUCS British Universities & Colleges Sport. The national governing body for higher education sport in the UK.
• Bursar Mole Valley’s traditional name for the club treasurer, currently Justin Farhall. (Club founder Toby Norris liked funny names.)

 

• Caddihoe Chase Formerly an annual two-day event which could be anywhere in the South West with a chasing start for the second day. Still an annual two-day, but now always seems to be a DEVON event, with two conventional races and the “Chase” dropped from the title.
• Call-up At events for which start times are allocated in advance, you usually need to get to the start area two, three, or four minutes before your start time, in order to “called up” by the start officials.
• Captain In Mole Valley, the club captain organises relay teams and tries to persuade people to turn out for other events, such as CompassSport Trophy or South-East League events, in which their run can contribute to a club score.
• Catching feature A large feature beyond a control that, when reached, informs competitors that the control has been missed. Normally a line feature, such as a path or a stream. Not to be confused with a collecting feature!
• Catching features An orienteering game. The free demo version is pretty good, reportedly the full version is even better. Catching Features
• Championship standard The standard which you need to achieve three times in a single year at major events in order to qualify for a “Championship” badge. Details at this British Orienteering web page.
• Chasing Sprint Event format comprising two short races on the same day. The first, or prologue, would be a normal race with people starting at different times; the second a chasing start based on the times from the first. JOK organise a Chasing Sprint annually.
• Chasing Start Sometimes used on the final day of a multi-day event, with the intention of providing a race in which the first person to cross the finish line is the winner. The total time taken by each competitor during the previous day(s) is added to an arbitrary base time to give the start time for the competitor. Thus if a chasing start with a base time 8am is used on the third day of a 3-day event, and Joe has taken 60:00 and 75:00 on the previous two days, he will start at 10:15:00. If Fred has taken 65:00 and 70:01, his aggregate time over the first two days is 1 second longer, so he will start one second later at 10:15:01.
• Check At a SportIdent electronic punching event, you check your dibber is working by punching at a “check station” after you have cleared and before you start.
• CHIG Chigwell & Epping Forest Orienteering Club, based in north-east London.
• Chiltern Challenge The name TVOC give to their biggest event each year.
• Circle The map symbol for a control site is a circle, normally 7mm across. You are “in the circle” when you get within 35m of the control on a 1:10,000 scale map.
• Claro Orienteering Club for Harrogate, Ripon and surrounding areas, named after the old wapentake (Viking district).
• Class [to add]
• Classic race Term usually only used in international competitions, to distinguish a traditional “long” course distance event from a short distance event, probably held on a different day at the same meeting.
• Clear At a SportIdent electronic punching event, you must empty your dibber of previous records by punching at a “clear station” (which looks exactly like a control apart from not having a kite and being easy to find) before you start your course. The worst mistake you can make is to punch the clear unit again after finishing your course but before downloading.
• Clerk Mole Valley’s traditional name for the club secretary, currently Leianne Upton. (Club founder Toby Norris liked funny names.)
• CLOK Cleveland Orienteering Klub.
• Closed club A club not open for anybody to join, usually because membership is restricted to current or former members of some institution. Examples are university clubs and the Army club BAOC.
• Closed event An event which only certain people are allowed to enter. Examples are events for which you have to qualify by getting good results in other events; events for which you have to be selected, such as international matches; or at the other end of the scale, small events that clubs put on for their own members only.
• Closing date At events which can be entered in advance, the closing date is a deadline for advance entries. Event details should make it clear whether entries after the closing date will be rejected, or will simply cost more money.
• Clothing dump A place where you can leave coats or other clothing while you run. Likely to be provided at winter events with a significant walk from the car park to the Start. Your clothing may remain where you leave it, or there may be a clothing transfer.
• Clothing Transfer A facility sometimes provided whereby the organisers will move garments left at a clothing dump either to somewhere near the Finish or the Assembly Area.
• Clue Sheet Slang for Control Descriptions.
• CLYDE Clydeside Orienteers. A Glasgow club.
• Collecting feature A large feature before a control that, when reached, informs competitors how far they have progressed towards the control. Normally a line feature, such as a path or a stream. Not to be confused with a catching feature!
• Colour-coded course A course named after a colour, for example Yellow or Brown, open to anyone irrespective of age class. In theory a course of any given colour should be of about the same difficulty and require about the same amount of physical effort at any event anywhere in the country. Unfortunately, many South-East areas are not technically difficult enough for the harder courses, nevertheless we in the South-East normally claim to put on a full range of courses. This means that the theory breaks down, and courses of the same colour tend to be more technical in the better orienteering areas. Lengths and difficulties of colour-coded courses shown below:

• Compass A device for orientating yourself, very useful in orienteering! The red needle on a compass always points in the direction of the magnetic north pole, i.e. up the map. There are three sorts: the baseplate compass which is held in the hand; the thumb compass which is strapped on to a thumb; and the clip compass which is attached to the edge of the map.
  
•  Compass Point Vendor of orienteering equipment, sometimes brings a mobile store to events.
• CompassSport Britain’s only national orienteering magazine.
• CompassSport Cup This annual event is the most important inter-club competition. Traditionally, it was a knock-out competition with pairs of clubs competing against each other in a series of rounds, along the lines of football’s FA Cup. The current format has only two rounds, the first being regional heats at which around six clubs compete for a single place in the final. The competition was invented by CompassSport magazine but is run by BOF. A CompassSport Cup event requires eight different courses, with people from different age classes running different courses. Each competing club can provide as many runners as it likes on each course. There is no advance team selection and the “best” 25 performances from each club count, subject to some constraints to ensure that successful clubs field people in a wide variety of age classes. Competition web site.
• CompassSport Trophy Equivalent of the CompassSport Cup for smaller clubs. The rules are the same as for the Cup except that the best 13 scorers count. A change to the threshold splitting big and small clubs meant that Mole Valley competed in the Trophy for the first time in 2008.
• Concorde Chase The name BKO give to their biggest event each year.
• Condes Computer software used by many clubs for planning courses, producing control descriptions and files for printing courses.
• Contactless punching See Beacon mode
• Contour The brown lines on a map linking points of equal height. I find it more helpful to think of them as separating higher ground from lower ground. Unfortunately they are not marked on the ground!
• Contour interval The vertical height difference that you should have to climb, or descend, to move across the map from one contour line to the next. The contour interval should be printed in the “white space” around the edge of the map, probably next to the scale.
• Contouring Choosing a route which keeps to the same height, thus following a contour line on the map.
• Control A point on your course which you have to visit, marked on your map with a circle. At each control, you should see a kite, a code, and a control unit.
• Control Code A code, normally two letters or two/three numbers, displayed at each control site. If you are at the correct control, the code will also be found in your control descriptions.
• Control Descriptions A list of the controls you have to find, including for each control the code and a description of the geographical feature you are looking for. At minor events, and for young junior courses, the descriptions will be written with words; at major events, internationally-standardised pictorial control descriptions are used to ensure foreigners are not disadvantaged.
• Control Site What you are looking for when you go around an orienteering course! Each control site is at the centre of a circle marked on your map and at a feature described in your control descriptions. You know you have reached it because you see a brightly-coloured kite and you know it is the right one because a control code is displayed which agrees with the one in your control descriptions.
• Control Unit Electronic equipment found at each control site at an electronic punching event.
• Controller One of the three main officials for an orienteering event, the others being the organiser and planner. The controller should oversee the event, and is responsible for ensuring that the courses are fair, and that the whole competition is organised in accordance with the rules of the sport. The controller is usually the most experienced official, and usually comes from a club other than the organising club.
• Corridor Course Course with a modified map occasionally found at a training event or activity. Instead of the whole map being printed, only a thin strip linking the controls will be shown. This should allow you to practise “going straight” rather than diverting along paths.
• Course When you take part in an orienteering event, you usually do one course. A course comprises a start, several controls, and a finish. You have to visit them all in the right order (except on a score course).
• Croeso Welsh multi-day orienteering festival, held in the summer every four years. Usually six national events in a week.
  
• Crossing Point A specific location marked on the map at which a line feature, typically a wall or fence, may be traversed. Crossing points may be optional, in which case crossing at the marked point will normally be easier than elsewhere. Often, crossing points are “compulsory”, in which case a competitor crossing elsewhere risks disqualification. Usually, a compulsory crossing point results from the requirements of the landowner, and even a single person crossing elsewhere can lead to the loss of the area to orienteering.
• CUOC Cambridge University Orienteering Club. (I can’t be bothered to list all university orienteering clubs, which can usually be identified by the “UOC” suffix; this one is included because it occasionally organises public events which Moles may attend.)

 

• Decision point A point at which you can no longer continue in the same direction, for example being required to turn right at a path junction. A decision point on a leg does not imply a route choice. There may be only one obvious route between controls, but this could require the ability to change direction at a number of decision points.
• DEE Deeside Orienteering Club, based in Cheshire.
• Depression (1) A hole in the ground. The difference between a depression and a re-entrant is that a depression will turn into a pond if it rains enough, whereas water will flow downhill out of a re-entrant.
• Depression (2) The mental state brought on by wandering around the forest unsuccessfully looking for a small hole in the ground.
• DEVON Devon orienteering club.
• DFOK Dartford Orienteers. Orienteering club based in the Kent/London borders. The initials result from the original club name of Darwin Forest.
• Diarist Mole Valley’s traditional name for the editor of the Journal. Mike Bolton is currently assembling the twice-yearly journal. (Club founder Toby Norris liked funny names.)
• Dibber Slang term for a SportIdent electronic control card.
• DNF Did Not Finish. Normally appears by your name in the results list if you give up, or lose your electronic control card. Please do always report to the download whether you finish your course or not, otherwise it will be assumed that you have met with an accident and people will be sent out to search for you.
• Download The action of transferring information from your electronic control card to the organisers’ computer. If you don’t do this it will mean that the organisers will think you are still out in the forest, and may organise a search. Be particularly careful to ensure you are recorded if you have lost your electronic control card (since you won’t be able to download in the normal way).
• DVO Derwent Valley Orienteers. A Derbyshire club.

 

• EAOA East Anglian Orienteering Association. The regional association for East Anglia.
• EBOR Eborienteers orienteering club. A club named for the old name of York, covering York, Selby and eastern North Yorkshire.
• E-card Electronic control card, such as a SI dibber or an Emit brikke.
• ECKO Loch Eck Orienteers. A club from Dunoon, Argyll, Scotland.
• Electronic punching or E-punching Using a SportIdent dibber or an Emit brikke, instead of the traditional paper control card.
• Elephant track A path that appears during a competition due to many orienteers trampling the vegetation along the same route.
• Elite Someone with aspirations to be selected for their country’s team for major international competitions. The meaning is not as pretentious as it might sound.
• Elite course At some major events, extra long courses are provided for the best competitors at M/W18, M/W20 and M/W21 age classes. Entry is sometimes restricted by selection.
• ELO East Lothian Orienteers. A Scottish club.
• EMOA East Midlands Orienteering Association. The regional association for the East Midlands.
• EMIT One of two competing forms of electronic punching equipment. With EMIT, you carry a brikke in your hand, which you fit into a socket at the control site, or use the contactless version ’emiTag’. The rival SportIdent system is more popular in Britain, although Army and SCOA events use Emit.
• EOC English Orienteering Council. The national association for England; unlike its other British equivalents, not part of the BOF federation. Branded Orienteering England.
• EOD Entry On the Day. Meaning that you can just turn up on the day of the event, find registration, and buy your run.
• EPOC East Pennine Orienteering Club, based in Yorkshire.
• ERYRI The club for North Wales. Web site.
• ESOC Edinburgh Southern Orienteering Club.
• Event An orienteering competition, at which there will be a number of courses. The term “event” emphasises the fact that you can enjoy participating in orienteering without actually competing.

 

• Fabian4 One of several companies which event organisers may use to collect advance entries.
• Feature Anything marked on the map which might help you navigate or be used as a control site.
• Fight Slang term for thick or unpleasant vegetation represented by the darkest of the green colours on the map.
• Finish The end of your course, where your final time is recorded. Marked on your map by a pair of concentric circles. You must visit the download before departing the event after punching at the finish.
• Flag Another term for a control kite.
• Forest A technical term in orienteering, meaning the competition area. Usually accurate in layman’s terms too, but occasionally an orienteering forest may have no trees at all!
• Form line An extra contour on the map, with a dashed brown line instead of the normal solid one. Like a normal contour line, a form line links points of equal height. Unlike a normal contour line, it does not indicate a vertical separation of one contour interval from the adjacent contour lines. Form lines are used by the mapper to convey the shape of particularly small or detailed landforms to the orienteer.
• FVO Forth Valley Orienteers. A Scottish club.

 

• Gaffle At a relay event, people in different teams run more or less the same course at the same time. So that everyone has to navigate, rather than just follow the person in front, the courses are normally ¨gaffled¨ so that there are two or three controls close to each other, with each person visiting only one of them. In order that fairness is preserved, each team must collectively run the same legs by the end of the event, but in a three-person relay, any given leg may be on the first lap for some teams, the second lap for others, and the third lap for the remainder.
• Galoppen Norwegian word meaning ¨the gallop¨, popularly mistranslated by the British as ¨ranking list¨. Some series of orienteering events are called galoppens.
• George Murray Trophy A trophy presented annually to the Mole Valley member aged 40 or over who scores most points for the club in the South-East League. Presented in memory of a Mole Valley member who died around 1988. Link to MV trophies page for current and past winners.
• GLOSS Greater London Orienteering Summer Series. Annual inter-club competition, held on areas within or very close to the M25. The areas need to have an extensive path network or a large amount of mown grass, since running cross-country in the South-East in high summer is rarely pleasant. Every competitor runs the same course of Light Green standard. The GLOSS is of particular interest to new orienteers as there is a handicap system which adjusts not just for age class as usual, but also for performance record. Thus being an experienced orienteer is a substantial disadvantage. The best six handicapped times for each club at each event score points, which are totalled at the end of the season. More information on the LOK web site during the season – 2024 season website.
• GO Guildford Orienteers. A club, Mole Valley’s neighbour to the west.
• Gold standard The standard which you need to achieve three times at major events in order to qualify for a Gold badge. Details on this British Orienteering web page.
• GRAMP Grampian Orienteers. A Scottish club.
• Green Slang term for any of the less runnable forest indicated by various shades of green colour on the map.
• Green course A technically hard but not too strenuous colour-coded course. Longer and harder than Light Green, shorter but no easier than Blue. The route should be cross-country as much as possible (but not if this means forcing people through unpleasant vegetation), with significant route choice. If possible, finding the controls should require careful map reading (although it must remain possible to reliably find the controls from the map without needing luck; controls should never be hidden).
  Sometimes there’s also a Short Green course, of the same standard but shorter. Occasionally there’s even a Very Short Green. This last would probably be aimed at the oldest and most frail competitors, so the planner should attempt the difficult feat of producing a course which is technically hard but physically easy.
• Grid Reference A means of identifying any point in Great Britain with a brief code. The usual ¨six figure¨ grid reference identifies a box 100m square using only two letters and six numbers. An explanation can be found on any Ordnance Survey map or at this OS web site.

 

• HALO Humberside and Lincolnshire Orienteers.
• Handicap A handicap competition is usually one in which the results are adjusted in a predetermined way to allow people from different age classes to compete on level terms. For an individual competition, this would normally be done by multiplying time taken or points scored by a different factor for each class. For a relay, each class would be allocated a number of handicap points and each team would have to be picked to get below a handicap limit; the race would then be won by the first across the finish line as usual.
• Hand rail Another term for line feature.
• Harris relay A team event which requires planning and coordination under time pressure, originating in Germany and introduced to the UK in the late 1980’s by the then chairman of army orienteering, Lt. Col. Steve Harris. Despite the relay in the name, all team members receive identical maps and run simultaneously. It is a Spanish Score event, with two sets of controls. ¨Spine¨ controls must be visited by each and every team member. The remaining controls need be visited by only one team member. The team’s time is that of the last member to reach the finish. Failure to collectively punch each control or individually punch each spine control will be penalised, by a hefty time penalty or possibly outright disqualification. It is vital for the team to plan and agree who is going to which controls before leaving the start!
• Harvester Annual relay, held in a different region of the county each year, usually in summer. Possibly the most eccentric event in the calendar. The main event is a seven person relay, with the start timed so that the first three or four laps are run in the dark, with the remainder after dawn. Usually, this means a start soon after the pubs close for the night! There is also a five-person relay with shorter laps. The main prizes are on the seven-person course, an open class in which any combination can run, and a handicap class. Mole Valley won the Handicap class in 1999. Competition rules in a British Orienteering document. Called the ¨Harvester¨ for the obvious reason that it was invented and first organised by the now defunct Combined Harvesters orienteering club. Now, can anyone explain that name?
• HAVOC (1) Havering and South Essex Orienteering Club.
• HAVOC (2) Collective noun for a group of orienteers 30 seconds after the beginning of a mass start score event.
• HH Happy Herts orienteering club, based in Hertfordshire.
• HOC Harlequins Orienteering Club. A club based in the West Midlands conurbation.
• Home Internationals Annual contests between selected teams representing England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

 

• INT Interlopers. An Edinburgh club.
• INVOC Inverness Orienteering club. Britain’s most northerly club.
• IOF International Orienteering Federation. The world governing body of our sport.
• IOF descriptions Another name for pictorial control descriptions.

 

• Jamie Stevenson Trophy Scottish equivalent of the Yvette Baker Trophy. Named after Scotland’s 2003 World Sprint Champion.
• JIRC Junior Inter-Regional Championships. Not strictly the correct title, as it’s open to all of BOF’s constituent associations, National as well as Regional. For association teams of M/W14s, 16s and 18s. A 2-day competition with individual on first day and relays on the second, both races contributing points to overall title. Held at the end of June.
• JK Jan Kjellström festival of orienteering. The annual Easter event, equal in prestige with the British Championship, and held in a different region of the country each year. Typically after a sprint event on Good Friday, the individual competitions, for each age class, comprise separate races on Saturday and Sunday, with the aggregate time determining the result. There is then a relay competition Easter Monday. Website. The event is named for a Swede who was instrumental in introducing orienteering to this country, and died in a road accident in 1967. It is always referred to as the ¨the J K¨, possibly because no English person can pronounce Kjellström.
• Journal The Mole Valley club newsletter, circulated to members.
• Junior Orienteer who has yet to reach the year of his or her 21st birthday, i.e. age class M20, W20, or younger.
• JWOC Junior World Orienteering Championships. Held in late July, for teams of up to 6 men and 6 women under 21.

 

• Kanter Not an orienteering term, but the name given by the LDWA to an event requiring navigation between checkpoints identified by grid references. Bring your own map!
• KERNO Cornwall Orienteering Club.
• KFO Kingdom of Fife Orienteers. The club formerly known as West Fife Orienteers (WFO).
• KIMM Karrimor International Mountain Marathon. The first mountain marathon, no longer sponsored by Karrimor and now known as the OMM. Orienteering in the mountains over much longer distances, carrying your own kit over two days, generally in bad weather at the end of October.
• Kite The red and white marker hanging at every control site (and at the centre of the Start triangle).

• Klubb The word for club in both Norwegian and Swedish. Some British orienteering clubs like to emphasise the sport’s Scandinavian origins by calling themselves klubbs.
• KNC Kent Night Cup. A winter series of Thursday evening night events organised mainly by SAX and DFOK.
• Knoll A very small hill.

 

• Lakes 5-Days English multi-day event, held in August every fourth year, avoiding the years with a Scottish or Welsh equivalent. Five national events on consecutive days in the Lake District. Web site.
• Lap The section of a relay course run by a single person. Thus a three-person relay has three laps. Most people use the term ¨leg¨ rather than lap.
• LDWA Long Distance Walkers Association. Not an orienteering organisation, but they do arrange events requiring navigation through the countryside, albeit non-competitive and along public rights of way. You have to provide your own Ordnance Survey map.
• Leg (1) The section of an orienteering course between two consecutive controls (or between the start and the first control).
• Leg (2) One person’s course at a relay event. In which case, such a leg would be made up of many legs. To avoid this confusion, it has been suggested that a single course at a relay event should be called a lap, and this is the nomenclature used in this Jargon Buster. Unfortunately ¨leg¨ is still the term most people use for a lap.
• LEI Leicestershire orienteering club.
• (Event) Level. One of the key features of British orienteering organisation unfortunately seems to require the changing the nomenclature for different sizes of events every few years. The current version has been in place since 2017, dividing events into:
  • Major. The most important events, such as the major championships. Often organised by Regional Associations rather than individual clubs. Before 2017 known as Level A.
  • National. High quality events aimed at people who are prepared to travel a fair distance, as well as those living locally. Normally organised by individual clubs, but fixtures co-ordinated nationally to avoid clashes. Up to 2017 called Level B.
  • Regional. Run of the mill events allocating ranking points (as do national and major events; local events do not). Fixtures co-ordinated at regional level. Previously known as Level C before 2017.
  • Local. Minor events put on by clubs primarily for their own members (and newcomers) with little or no co-ordination with other clubs. Before 2017 known as Level D.
• Light Green course A moderately technical colour-coded course. Longer and harder than Orange, shorter and easier than Green. The route should not be (entirely) along line features, but must require cross-country navigation. However, areas of complex contours should be avoided, and controls should have a collecting feature behind them.

• Limited colour-coded A smaller range colour-coded courses than would be expected at a normal event. The area may be too small for long courses or too simple for technical courses, or the number of people running colour-coded courses may be too small to justify the effort of planning the full range. Most events offering limited colour-coded courses are minor events, but major or national events which are primarily orgainsed around age-class courses may offer them for beginners.
• Line feature Anything on the map which can be followed, such as a path, stream, or wall.
• LOC Lakeland Orienteering Club.
• Local (event) One of the functions of BOF is to periodically change the names which indicate the relative status of orienteering events. From May 2017, the lowest level of formal orienteering event was renamed to “Local” from Level D; a reversion to the name as it had two reorganisations ago. The next level up is a “Regional” event. Local events are minor events put on by clubs primarily for their own members (and newcomers) with little or no co-ordination with other clubs. They have some advantages: they tend to be cheap to enter, easy to put on, and not too crowded. Many orienteers go to more local events than any other sort.
• Local member A person who is a member of an orienteering club, but is not a member of BOF through that club. This may be because the person is not a member of BOF at all, or it may be because the person’s prime loyalty is to a different orienteering club.
• LOG Lincoln Orienteering Group. A club.
• LOK London Orienteering Klubb, based in London north of the Thames.
• Long course At major and national events and higher standard, adult competitors usually have a choice of Long and Short age class courses. These should be of equal difficulty, and in theory are of equal merit. However, almost all of the top orienteers will run Long in preference to Short. (At major events and above, there may also be an elite course for M21 and W21.)
• Loop race A loop race is a mass start event, producing head-to-head racing with the winner being the first to cross the finish line. Some requirement to navigate is preserved by the courses being gaffled, which means that, while each person eventually runs the same legs as every other, the sequence may be different. There are two different ways to achieve this. One is to have effectively a one-person relay, with the competitors running two, three, or even more (depending on the competition rules) laps consecutively, using a map which shows only one lap. Each lap would share the same start and finish, which would be adjacent, and there would be a map exchange between laps. The alternative is for the entire course to be printed on just one map. It is still necessary for the competitors to keep revisiting a single point at which the different loops start and finish, but this need no longer be the start and finish points for the entire race. A feature of this method is that the map gets a lot of overprint around the common control. If there are three loops, then the common control will be visited no less than four times, meaning that eight purple lines and four numbers have to be fitted around it. The competitor must take great care to leave the common control in the right direction each time; running a loop in the wrong sequence or in the wrong direction will result in disqualification.
• Lycras Body-hugging tights worn by many orienteers. The name comes from the material of which they are made.

 

• Major (event level) One of the functions of BOF is to periodically change the names which indicate the relative status of orienteering events. From 2017, the most important events, the main championships, were renamed to ‘Major’ from ‘Level A’. The next rung down are ‘National’ events, which was confusing for some since before two renamings ago, “National” was the top level.
• Maize Maze Some farmers have discovered that the public is willing to pay admission to wander around a maze constructed of paths mown through a maize (Indian corn) crop. Not just do they get more money than they would from selling the crop, they can still harvest most of the crop at the end of the season. Some orienteers have discovered that maze maizes make for a great orienteering challenge. Definitely worth trying at least once!
• Map The orienteer’s most important tool, we’d be lost without it (literally). Orienteering maps are larger scale and much more detailed and accurate than Ordnance Survey maps. A detailed introduction is beyond the scope of this Jargon Buster, but the thing that most confuses beginners is the colours. For a forest map, white means runnable forest, progressively darker shades of green indicate progressively thicker trees and/or undergrowth, while yellow/orange colours are used for open areas. Further information at Your First Orienteering Event – MVOC
• MapRun A smartphone app (available for android and apple platforms) used for orienteering events without needing to use physical controls. For an event, you download a course file. The phone buzzes and vibrates when it detects that you have reached a control. Results can be uploaded to a central database. Website. Further details on MV’s app-based courses webpage. Youtube video. See also Usynligo.
• MapRunG Version of MapRun for runners with Garmin watches to use the MapRun app without needing to run with the mobile phone.
• Map exchange The process of swapping one map for another in competition time. The competitor would drop the map used to find the location and pick up a new one. Sometimes used when a long course on a small area would produce too many crossing lines if printed on one copy of the map. Double sided map printing has mostly superseded this.
• Map memory A course which you have to complete without taking a map with you. Instead, each control has a little section of map showing the leg to the next. You have to study this and leave it in place when you set out for the next control. Good training, since it forces you to decide on your route and identify the key features rather than just rush off.
• MAROC Mar Orienteering Club. A Scottish club.
• Mass Start All competitors, or one competitor from each team, start simultaneously. Always used for relays, sometimes used for score events. Except in score events, one consequence of a mass start is that the first to cross the finish line is the winner (unless disqualified).
• Master Mole Valley’s traditional name for the club chairperson, currently Tim Scarbrough. (Club founder Toby Norris liked funny names.)
• Masters Another term for veterans.
• Maze A complex network of uncrossable barriers providing an intricate navigation problem. Sometimes manufactured for the event out of crowd-control barriers, sometimes created by selectively mowing a maize crop. Good fun, and surprisingly difficult at speed!
• MDOC Manchester and District Orienteering Club.
• Michael Brandon Mitre The name CHIG give to their biggest event each year.
• Middle distance An event in conventional orienteering terrain with fairly frequent controls, so that the competitor has to do a lot of fine navigation into controls. As the name implies, the course will be of shorter than usual length, but not as short as a sprint event.
• Military League (South) A series of midweek events, mostly organised by BAOC, popular with civilians who do not have to work all day every Wednesday. Events are always open to everyone, although occasionally advance notice of attendance and proof of identity may be required for security reasons. They can be anywhere in southern Britain, but tend to concentrate near the army bases near Aldershot and Salisbury Plain.
• Mini Mass Start Relays always have a mass start for the first lap, with competitors running second or subsequent laps usually starting when the previous runner in their team finishes. Mini mass starts are a device for reducing the elapsed time taken by the slowest teams. Some time after all the runners for the teams in contention have started, the remaining runners on the same lap may be started together in a mini mass start, without waiting for their previous lap runners to finish.
• Mispunch A competitor whose visit to a particular control is not recorded on their dibber or EMIT brikke is said to have ‘mispunched’. This will normally be because the competitor has accidentally missed out the control or visited the wrong control without realising. More rarely, the competitor may have failed to operate the punch correctly.
• Molasses The trophy presented to the fastest lady at the Mole Valley club championship, contested annually at a colour-coded event. Traditionally run over Blue course, but in recent years a Green course has been chosen to allow the more elderly or less fit to join in.
  Also a frequently used name for a female Mole Valley relay team.
• Momentum A common name for a Mole relay team, resulting from the scientific definition of momentum as mass x velocity, or MV.
• MOR Moravian Orienteers. A club in north-east Scotland.
• Mountain Marathon Long distance orienteering event in hills or mountains, usually two events in consecutive days with aggregate time counting. Frequently, competitors have to carry food and shelter for the overnight stop.
• MTBO Mountain Bike Orienteering. Orienteering on two wheels. An IOF web page has information, or see the BMBO web site.
• Multi-day event A series of separate orienteering events over a restricted time period, usually with some sort of combined scoring system to produce overall winners for each class. Possibly three events on consecutive days of a Bank Holiday, such as Springtime in Shropshire, or six events in seven days during a summer week, such as the Scottish 6-Days.
• MV Mole Valley. That’s us! The standard abbreviation for Mole Valley Orienteering Club.
• MVMCFRS or MVM&CFRS Mole Valley Map & Compass Foot Racing Society. The formal name of Mole Valley Orienteering Club. The official explanation for this name is that when Mole Valley was formed, the term ¨orienteering¨ was not widely understood by the general public (so no change there then!), and a name was chosen to better describe the sport. The unofficial explanation is that our founder, Toby Norris, being a scientist, was keen to have the letters FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society) after his name.
• MVOC Miami Valley Orienteering Club. Nothing to do with Mole Valley, or even Miami in Florida, this club is based in Ohio, USA. .
• M10, M12, M21, M70, etc Age classes for men.
• M10A, M12A, M18A, etc “A” courses for boys.
• M10B, M12B, M18B, etc “B” courses for boys.
• M20E, M21E “Elite” courses for men.
• M21L, M35L, M75L, etc “Long” courses for men.
• M21S, M35S, M75S, etc “Short” courses for men.

 

• National Association Three of twelve groups which make up BOF are the National Associations for Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland. Constitutionally, they have similar status to the English Regional Associations, although the Scottish Association is more independent and powerful than the others. Additionally, they are responsible for teams for the Home Internationals. Just to make matters really confusing, there is also an English national association which is not a member of BOF, and seems to have little function beyond selecting home international teams!
• National (event) One of the functions of BOF is to periodically change the names which indicate the relative status of orienteering events. From May 2017, high quality events which are not major championships, but still aimed at people prepared to travel a fair distance (as well as those living locally) have been renamed from Level B to “National”. This is especially confusing as up to two reorganisations ago, “National” events were the top level. Broadly equivalent to Regional Events two re-organisations ago, and more important than Regional events now. The appropriateness of this grade name inflation can be judged from the fact that there are often simultaneous “National” events taking place in different parts of the nation. The higher level is a “Major” event, and the next level down is a “Regional” event.
• NATO Newcastle & Tyneside Orienteers. A club.
• NEOA North-East Orienteering Association. The regional association for North-East England.
• NGOC North Gloucestershire Orienteering Club.
• Niche A small re-entrant.
• Night orienteering Yes, this does mean what you think it does! Orienteering after dark with a torch. The best night orienteers are nearly as quick at night as during the day. It’s good fun. I recommend trying it, but not until you are reasonably confident in daylight. “Night” is perhaps a misnomer, it means “after dark”, but most events are on winter evenings, and finished by 9pm. There used to be a popular league of night events in the south-east which rejoiced in the acronym SENILE! This disappeared around 2007, but there is now a Kent Night Cup series instead.
• NIOA Northern Ireland Orienteering Association. The national association for those parts of Ireland which are officially British.
• NN Northern Navigators. A club based around Durham and Wearside.
• NOC Nottinghamshire Orienteering Club.
• Non-competitive A person who runs a course, but whose result is ignored for the purpose of calculating placings, points, or scores. Normally someone who is deemed to have an unfair advantage, perhaps through familiarity with the competition area.
• Nopesport Orienteering web site with a useful discussion forum for debating ideas with other orienteers.
• NOR Norfolk Orienteering club.
• Norwegian event Another term for a map memory event.
• November Classic SOC’s annual national event in the New Forest on the first Sunday in November. Website.
• NWO North Wiltshire Orienteers. Club formed in 2005 by merging MOK (Marlborough Orienteering Klubb) and SLOG (Swindon Locality Orienteering Group).
• NWOA North-West Orienteering Association. The regional association for North-West England.

 

• OCAD Computer program used by many clubs, including Mole Valley, for drawing maps. Can also be used for planning courses, but suffers from expensive and inflexible license conditions, so many prefer to use Condes or Purple Pen instead. Web site.
• OD Octavian Droobers orienteering club. Based in Warwickshire. And you thought Map & Compass Foot Racing Society a weird name for an orienteering club? You’ll have to read the history on their web site for an explanation of this one.
• OK Nuts One of the first English orienteering clubs, founded by Olympic athlete Gordon Pirie when living at Nutfield in what is now Mole Valley territory. The club became part of SLOW, who now run an annual “OK Nuts Trophy” in memory of the club and in particular their leading member, Mike Wells-Cole, who died in 1976 after training with flu.
• OMM Original Mountain Marathon. The first mountain marathon, originally sponsored by Karrimor and known as the KIMM.
• Open club A club which anybody can join, i.e. not a closed club.
• Orange course A moderately short and not too difficult colour-coded course. Longer and harder than Yellow, shorter and easier than Light Green. The hardest course which a novice should contemplate at the first event, and then only if an experienced map reader. The route should be along line features such as paths, fences, or streams, but there may be a route choice, and cutting corners between line features will be encouraged in a well planned orange course. Controls may be on point features near to the line feature being followed, but there must a collecting feature behind them.
• Organiser One of the three main officials at an orienteering event, the others being the planner and controller. The organiser is in overall charge of everything that happens “outside the forest”, i.e. is responsible for everything except the planners tasks. A wise organiser will delegate all the tasks and perform a coordinating role.
• O-Ringen Annual Swedish 5-Days event, on a different area each day. The biggest event in the world. Web site. The name is sometimes applied to British events which involve multiple runs on different areas.
• OUOC Oxford University Orienteering Club. (I can’t be bothered to list all university orienteering clubs, which can usually be identified by the “UOC” suffix; this one is included because it occasionally organises public events which Moles may attend.) Web site.
• Out of Bounds Somewhere you are not allowed to go! Usually a part of the mapped area for which permission for orienteering has not been obtained.

 

• Pace counting A technique for estimating distance travelled by counting strides taken.
• Park orienteering Short course orienteering in a venue that could be described as a park, normally an area of mown grass and flower beds in a town.
• Permanent orienteering course A course in a public place with control markers permanently in place. The markers will probably be wooden posts rather than kites, with letters or codes to note down. Permanent courses can be used at any time; you don’t need to wait for an event. MV has several permanent courses, see here.
• Peter Burt Trophy A trophy presented annually to the most improved orienteer in the South-East League, in memory of Mole Valley member Peter Burt, who died in May 1999 after a long battle with cancer. It rewards personal achievement on the basis of a fiendishly complicated scoring system in the tradition of Peter’s long stewardship of the League. See previous recipients of this trophy at The Mole Roll.
• Peter Palmer Relays A junior version of the Harvester, open to over-10s and under-19s (i.e. M/W12’s to M/W18’s inclusive), and named after the “father of British orienteering” who died in 2003. The main race is an 8-person relay starting before dawn, with the first 3-4 legs in the dark. Laps are of varying distances and standards ranging from Yellow to Blue, with at least 2 boys and 2 girls in each team required. A handicap trophy is also available, and there is a 5-person race open to small clubs. The event is normally staged in September in the Midlands. Competition rules in a British Orienteering document.
• PFO Pendle Forest Orienteering club, based in central Lancashire.
• Pictorial Control Descriptions Symbolic control descriptions, defined by the IOF, which have the advantage that they are the same everywhere. You will be grateful if you ever orienteer in a foreign country! Normally used for most courses at events in this country, so you will still need to learn them eventually even if you have no plans to venture overseas. The official definitions can be downloaded. When you think you known them, have fun testing yourself with this game.
• Planner One of the three main officials at an orienteering event, the others being the organiser and controller. The planner is responsible for setting the courses, providing the maps and the control descriptions, and for getting the controls into the forest and in the right places.
• Platform A small level patch of ground, typically circular and about 3m in diameter. Often caused by charcoal burning.
• POC Permanent Orienteering Course.
• Point feature Anything on the map which is not a line or area feature, such as a knoll, depression, or boulder.
• POTOC Potteries Orienteering Club. Based in North Staffordshire.
• PreO The traditional form of Trail Orienteering. Well explained on this British Orienteering web page.
• Protractor compass Another name for a baseplate compass.
• Prologue Term sometimes applied to a short first event in a series of two of more. Possibly the first of the two races in a chasing sprint.
• Punch The term ‘punching’ is still used to describe the action required to record your visit to the control, despite the use of electronic equipment such as Emit or SportIdent.
• Punching start At an event with electronic punching, the actual time you start your course may be recorded by ‘punching’ at the start. This is easier and less stressful than the traditional timed start for both competitor and organisers, as it is not essential to start at a particular second.
• Purple Pen Free computer software for planning courses, producing control descriptions and files for printing courses. Web site.

 

• QO Quantock Orienteers. A Somerset club.

 

• RAFO Royal Air Force Orienteers.
• Ranking List A table which attempts to sequence orienteers in order of merit by awarding points for performances over a number of events. The best known is the BOF Rankings.
• Ranking Points Scores for the Ranking List, see previous entry.
• Red course A rare course of the same standard as Orange, but much longer. Aimed at near beginners who want a longer course. Particularly popular during the London Marathon training season.
• Re-entrant A contour feature. It is an indentation into the hillside or a valley, frequently sloping. The opposite of a spur. The difference between a re-entrant and a depression is that water can flow downhill out of a re-entrant, while a depression will turn into a pond if it rains enough.
• Regional Association Nine of twelve groups which make up BOF are the English Regional Associations. Their main function is to co-ordinate local fixtures and regional competitions. The local regional association for Mole Valley is the SEOA.
• Regional (event) Lowest level of events that leads to allocation of ranking points. The next level up is a ‘National’ event, and the lower level is a ‘Local’ event. Previously referred to as ‘Level C’ events. (Prior to that 2017 renaming by BOF, confusingly, ‘Regional’ events were the next level up, with ‘District’ being used for this level. The appropriateness of this grade name inflation can be judged from the fact that there are often simultaneous ‘Regional’ events taking place within a single BOF region.)
• Registration Also known as enquiries. The area at an event where you can register for entry on the day for the event (as opposed to online pre-entries). This is also where you’ll be able to hire a dibber and your details will be loaded on to the event computer. There will be event officials at Registration to help you; if you don’t know what to do, ask! The most important rule in orienteering is that once registered and started, you must visit the download before leaving the event, even if for some reason you do not complete the course.
• Relay event A team event, usually for three people. Each person runs a separate course, or lap. Relays always have a mass start for the first lap. Each subsequent runner starts when the previous team member finishes. Each team will collectively run the same distance, and eventually visit the same controls. However, the courses for each team will be varied, or gaffled, so that different teams visit the controls in different sequences, thus preserving some requirement to navigate rather than follow the person in front. Relay entries are usually made by one person on behalf of the whole club; in Mole Valley this would be the club captain.
• Relocation Perhaps the most important skill in orienteering, relocation means working out where you are after having got lost.
• Relocating Feature A distinct feature that may be used by competitors to identify their position both on the ground and the map.
• Ride A linear gap in trees, usually for forestry management purposes.
• Rogaine Long distance score orienteering event, usually with a 24-hour time limit. Competitors have the choice of continuing without sleeping, returning to a central base to sleep, carrying a tent, or sleeping rough.
• RR Roxburgh Reivers. A Scottish club.
• Route choice The option of taking more than one (sensible) route between two controls. This may, for example, be a direct cross-country route versus a longer path route, or going straight over the top of a hill versus contouring round it.
• Run A technical term meaning to go around a course. No particular gait is implied; you can walk for the whole of your run!
• Run Up At events where there are different courses for different age classes, it is usually permissible to ‘run up’ on the course for a class which is closer to M/W21. Thus juniors can run up in a class for older juniors or M/W21’s, and veterans can run up in a class for younger seniors. Also, ladies can run up in men’s classes.

 

• SARUM A South Wiltshire club. Web site.
• Saturday Series Any group of events on Saturdays, but in particular a regular program of limited colour-coded events run by Saxons and DFOK as a league. Other nearby clubs also have Saturday series events (SN, HH, etc.). Members of other clubs are welcome, but need to join SAX or DFOK as local members to score points in the league.
• SAX Saxons orienteering club, based in Kent. Mole Valley’s neighbours to the east.
• SBOC Swansea Bay Orienteering Club.
• Scale The ratio between distance on the map and distance on the ground. A scale of 1:10,000 means that 1cm (about the length of the nail on your little finger) on your map shows 100m on the ground (around the length of a football pitch). The scale should be printed in the ¨white space¨ around the edge of the map, probably next to the contour interval.
• SCOA South-Central Orienteering Association. The regional association for Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, and Oxfordshire.
• Score event An event in which the competitor does not have to visit all the controls! There is a time limit, instead of a set course. Points are scored for visiting controls, and deducted for finishing over the time limit. The competitor has to decide which controls to visit, in which sequence. A watch is a vital item of equipment for a score event!
• Scottish 6-Days Immensely popular biannual multi-day event held in August in odd-numbered years, comprising five national events in seven days, on different areas. Held in a different part of Scotland each time. Web site.
• SEGOL Southern England GPS Orienteering League.
• SEJS South-East Junior Squad. A group of young orienteers selected by the SEOA for coaching and representative competition.
• SELOC South-East Lancashire Orienteering Club.
• SEOA South-East Orienteering Association. Our local regional association. Member clubs, as listed on the website, are open member clubs CHIG, DFOK, GO, HAVOC, HH, LOK, MV, SAX, SLOW, SN & SO (HAVOC and SN are ‘shared’ with other regions), and closed clubs BAOC, RAFO and RNRMOC.
• SEOUL Southern England Urban Orienteering League.
• Short course At Major, and some National events, adult competitors usually have a choice of Long and Short age class courses. These should be of equal difficulty, and in theory are of equal merit. However, almost all of the top orienteers will run Long in preference to Short. (At Major Events and above, there may also be an elite course for M21 and W21.) Short races are normally only taken seriously when they do not clash with a longer course at the same event. This is often the case in international competitions, when classic and short races on different days are equally prestigious.
• SI SportIdent
• SIAC SportIdent Air Card
  
• Silva Manufacturers of orienteering equipment. Web site.
• Silver standard The standard which you need to achieve three times on age class courses at Major events in order to qualify for a Silver badge. Details on this British Orienteering web page.
• Simplification A technique to simplify complex legs to your next control. By focussing on only certain elements of the map, you’re able to concentrate on running fast to the control.

• Ski-O Ski Orienteering. Orienteering on skis. Requires more snow than normally available in the South-East of the UK. This IOF web page has information.
• SLOW South London Orienteers and Wayfarers. A club, Mole Valley’s neighbours to the north-east, based in Wimbledon. Infamous for painting their name on roads all over the country.
• SMOC South Midlands Orienteering Club.
• SN Southern Navigators orienteering club. Mole Valley’s neighbours to the north-west. Cover the far NW of Surrey, NE Hampshire, & S Berkshire. The south’s first orienteering club, formed by Chris Brasher and John Disley in 1965.
• SO Southdowns Orienteers. A club, Mole Valley’s neighbours to the south.
• SOA Scottish Orienteering Association. The national association for the far north. More powerful than its eleven ‘equals’ making up BOF; more like a mini-BOF in it’s own right.
• SOC Southampton Orienteering Club.
• SOLWAY Solway Orienteers. A club from south-west Scotland.
• SOS Essex Stragglers Orienteering Society. Believed to be the only club besides Mole Valley to call itself a Society. Web site.
• South-East Individual League The individual competition for members of clubs affiliated to the SEOA. Uses the same events as the South-East League, but unlike the [club] League, it runs over each calendar year. There is a separate competition for each course; that is, not just is each age class scored separately, but also Long and Short or A and B courses have their own ranking lists. The first member of a SEOA club on each course at each event gets 100 points, the second 99 points, and so on. The points accumulated at the various events over the year are added to give the individual’s total. It is not necessary to run absolutely every event, since the number of events which count is slightly smaller than the total. For example, if there are six SE League events during the year, the league will take the best five scores. Latest scores.
• South-East League The annual competition between the member clubs of the SEOA. The SEOA committee choose which events will form part of the League, usually picking all the National events scheduled for the region. The League is contested over each autumn / winter / spring season. Individual orienteers score points for their runs. At each event, the points scored by the members of each club are aggregated to give club scores. The clubs are then ranked in order of their scores. Finally, South-East League points are allocated to the clubs based on the club order from the event. At the end of the season, the club with most points is the winner. Anyone completing any course at any South-East League event scores at least one point. Runs on the string course, colour-coded courses, and slow completions of age class courses score one point. Faster runs on age class courses score points according to how fast the individual has done against a target speed. An SEOA web page has further details. Fortunately you do not need to memorise the scoring formulae before running at a League event!
• South-East Veterans Trophy An annual competition open to members of SEOA-affiliated clubs, held at a Mole Valley District event. Unusually, ¨veteran¨ for this competition means age classes M40 or W40 and older. The gentlemens’ competition is held on the Blue course, the ladies’ on the Green. In recent years, a ¨family¨ competition for related entrants has been held at the same event. Classes for M60+ (on Green) and W60+ (Short Green) were added in 2010. Details on this MV page.
• Southern England GPS Orienteering League A virtual orienteering league. The Southern England GPS Orienteering League (SEGOL) started in October 2020 in response to COVID-19 restrictions and the cancellation of the 2020 SEOUL. Web site (shared with SEOUL). May become defunct post-covid.
• Southern England Urban Orienteering League Annual league of urban events, mostly full-length rather than sprint. A local version of the UK Urban League. Web site.
• Spanish score event A score event at which the competitors do have to visit all the controls! The person with the fastest time wins. The difference between this and a normal orienteering event is that the controls may be visited in any order.
• Split Starts At events where start times are allocated in advance, parents may request ¨split¨ early and late starts, hopefully meaning that one of them is always available to look after the children.
• Splits A results display showing the times taken over each individual leg.
• SportIdent One of two competing forms of electronic punching equipment. With SportIdent, you carry a ‘dibber’ strapped to your index finger, which you poke into a hole in a metal box at the control site to punch. The box then bleeps and flashes to acknowledge the punch. SportIdent is more popular than the rival Emit system in Britain. If you have one of the newest SportIdent ‘Air’ cards, and the organiser has enabled the equipment to work in contactless ‘beacon’ mode, then you don’t even need to poke the dibber into the hole, just bringing it within 50cm or so should record your punch.
• Springtime in Shropshire Biannual event held over the late May Bank Holiday weekend in odd-numbered years, usually comprising three national events on different areas in Shropshire. Web site.
• Sprint orienteering Ultra-short distance orienteering, likely to be planned for a winning time of 12 minutes. Note that this is still far too long for what a track athlete would regard as a sprint. A sprint course is characterised by very short legs and changes of direction, requiring quick thinking. ‘A sprint for the mind rather than for the body’. Sprint events are usually, but not invariably, urban. University campuses often provide ideal areas.
• SROC South Ribble Orienteering Club, based in North Lancashire. England’s first orienteering club, founded 1964.
• STAG St Andrew’s Glasgow Orienteering Club. A Scottish club.
• Start The beginning of your orienteering course, the point at which your time starts. There will be event officials at the Start to help you; if you don’t know what to do, ask!
• Start Triangle The point where the course marked on your map starts, marked on the ground by a control kite with no punches. Normally, this will be very close to the real start of your course, but occasionally you will have to follow a taped route. Normally after punching at the Start you pick up your map from a box and run to the Start Triangle.
• Street Orienteering An event on public roads and footpaths, rather than in the countryside. May be anything from a World Championship short course to low-key club training. In the latter case, probably a score event, with no kites, either writing down answers to simple questions at each control or using an app relying on GPS such as MapRun.
• String course An orienteering course for children too young to read a map reliably. Although a map will normally be provided, a string or thin rope is laid out along the ground as a guide. The start of the string course will normally be in a different place to the starts of other courses, so make sure you follow the right signs.
• SUFFOC Suffolk Orienteering Club.
• SWOA South-Western Orienteering Association. The regional association for South-West England.
• SWOC South Wales Orienteering Club.
• SYO South Yorkshire Orienteers. A club.

 

• Taped route A route for you to follow, marked with lengths of plastic tape. There may be a continuous length of tape, or there may merely be fragments hung intermittently from e.g. branches or bushes. Taped routes are likely to lead you from the car park to the Start and from the Finish back to the car park. You may also have to follow a taped route as part of your course, most commonly from the last control to the Finish, and occasionally on junior courses to cross some indistinct terrain. The colour of the tapes used varies, but should not be yellow or black. Yellow or yellow/black tapes have a very specific meaning in orienteering; they indicate danger, such as the top of a cliff. It is not usually a good idea to follow them!
• TAY Tayside Orienteers. A club.
• Technical Difficulty Grading of difficulty, ranging from 1 (easy) to 5 (very hard). This British Orienteering document explains technical difficulty in more detail.
• TempO A form of Trail Orienteering decided entirely on time. Still not a race, in the sense that there is no running between controls. However, the time taken to solve each control problem is recorded, and a time penalty is added for getting the answer wrong. Fastest time (after penalties) wins, meaning that fast and nearly always right beats slow and right all the time. Further details on this British Orienteering web page.
• Thumb compass A small compass which is worn strapped on to the thumb of the hand carrying the map.
• Tim Watkins Trophy The British Blodslitet.
• Timed start A confusing term, since your time is not recorded when you start, like it would be for a punching start. Instead, your course time will be calculated on the assumption that you started at exactly the moment allocated to you by the event organiser. If you are late starting, the delay will be added to your run time. The start officials should ensure that you do not start early!
• Traders ‘Traders’ in event information indicates the presence of vendors of orienteering equipment, such as Compass Point, and/or caterers.
• Trail challenge A type of orienteering aimed at introducing road and track runners into the sport. A mass start event with control sites of technical difficulty appropriate for a yellow course, route choice problems of orange standard, but much longer than either of these; there has been a half-marathon (21km) trail challenge.
• Trail Orienteering A type of orienteering originally invented for the disabled, but equally difficult and challenging for the able-bodied. Instead of one control kite at each control, there are several and the competitor has to study the map to decide which is in the right place. The event is not a race; the winner will be the person who most often identifies the correct control flag. The competitor is not allowed right up to the control site, but has to study it from a distance. The route between the controls, or rather between the points from which the controls are viewed, must be suitable for wheelchairs. IOF web pages provide a basic introduction. Further information, in particular the difference between traditional TrailO, now called PreO, and the newer ¨sprint¨ version, called TempO, is on this British Orienteering web page. A more detailed guide to techniques (5MB) can be found here, but note that it is quite old and pre-dates TempO.
• TVOC Thames Valley Orienteering Club.

 

• UKEOL UK Elite Orienteering League
• UK Elite Orienteering League Annual series of races for elite orienteers. Web site. The Elite League usually picks courses from normal events, so novice orienteers shouldn’t avoid an event just because there’s an elite race.
• UKOL UK Orienteering League
• UK Orienteering League Annual series of races to encourage competition at major events. Around 20 events spread throughout the year and across the country, featuring a range of competition formats and terrain types. A competitor’s overall score will be their best 10 or so event scores. Separate prize for each BOF class. Web page.
• UKUL UK Urban League
• UK Urban League Annual national league of urban events, mostly full-length rather than sprint. Like the UKOL, they’ll be about 20 spread through the year and across the country, but all will be in an urban environment – usually streets but occasionally a university campus or similar park. Website.
• Ultrasprint Really short orienteering event, even shorter than a normal sprint. Usually containing a maze section made up crowd-control barriers or similar. Probably more than one race in the competition so that you do run for more than a few minutes. The normal rule about control separation does not apply, and you are likely to get controls on each side of a tree, with a time penalty rather than disqualification if you punch the wrong one.
• Urban Traditionally, orienteering events have taken place in forests, or possibly open areas such as sand dunes or moorland, but definitely in the countryside. In recent years, events in town and city streets and parks have become popular. The first urban events tended to be sprints, but now full-length urban events are quite common.
• UsynligO A mobile phone app onto which you download a course file. The phone buzzes and vibrates when it detects that you have reached a control. Website. Youtube video. See also MapRun. Usynlig means invisible in Norwegian, reflecting the fact that there is no visible trace of the O course in the terrain.

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• Velvet Flyer The trophy presented to the fastest man at the Mole Valley club championship, contested annually. Traditionally run over the longest available course, but in recent years a Blue course has been chosen to allow the more elderly or less fit to join in. Winners. Also a frequently used name for a Mole Valley relay team.
• Veteran Someone who has already reached the year of his or her 35th birthday, i.e. age class M35, W35, or older. Some competitions use different definitions, e.g. M/W40+.
• VHI Veteran Home Internationals. Annual event for teams of veterans from England, Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland. British Orienteering webpages.
• Virtual orienteering course A course with no control markers. You download the course onto your smartphone or watch using an app like Maprun or Usynligo. The phone/watch then buzzes and vibrates when it detects that you have reached a control. Virtual courses can be used at any time; you don’t need to wait for an event. They became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they permit competitions to take place without people coming close to each other or sharing physical infrastructure such as controls. The use of the supporting apps continues to be popular for low-key events, as there is no need to put out or take in controls.
• VOC Virtual Orienteering Course

 

• WAOC West Anglian Orienteering Club.
• WAROC Warrior Orienteering Club based in the Lake District.
• WCH Walton Chasers orienteering club. Based in South Staffordshire.
• WCOC West Cumberland Orienteering Club.
• White Slang term for the runnable forest indicated by the absence of any colour on the map.
• White course The shortest and easiest colour-coded course. Route should be entirely along paths and tracks, with a control at every decision point. May not always be provided, in which case the easiest course would be Yellow.
• White Rose One of the longest standing regular events in Britain, this is a three-day event organised by EBOR on the North Yorkshire Moors every August Bank Holiday since 1972. The first two days feature national events, the third some form of team event, possibly a Harris Relay. Unusually, teams are not restricted to members of the same club. In recent years, sprint, night and mountain-bike events have been added, so if you have the energy you can do six events in three days.
• WIGHTO The orienteering club for the Isle of Wight. Now almost the only club still using traditional paper control cards and pin punches. Web site.
• WIM Wimborne Orienteers. A Dorset club.
• Window Course Course with a modified map occasionally found at a training event or activity. Instead of the whole map being printed, only a small area around each control will be shown, with blank areas in between the controls. This will force you to practise navigating by following a compass bearing and keeping track of distance travelled, probably by pace-counting. It will probably help you practise relocation too!
• WMOA West Midlands Orienteering Association. The regional association for the West Midlands.
• WMOC World Masters Orienteering Championship. Annual event to find a world champion in each age class from M/W35 upwards. There is no selection, so you don’t have to be any good to enter. There are two qualifying days, and then a finals day. Although everyone gets the chance to run in a final, you may (depending on your age) have to be pretty useful to reach the ¨A¨ final, the winner of which becomes the World Champion. There are usually several Moles competing each year, although none of us has won yet.
• WOA Welsh Orienteering Association. The national association for Wales.
• WOC (1) World Orienteering Championships. An IOF event for elite orienteers selected by national federations, now held annually. Britain has had two World Champions, Yvette Baker won the short distance class in 1999, and Jamie Stevenson won the sprint class in 2003.
• WOC (2) World Orienteering Cup. Another IOF event for selected elite orienteers, this one takes place at several venues throughout the year. Less prestigious than the World Championships, but arguably harder to win.
• WRE (1) Wrekin orienteers. A Shropshire club.
• WRE (2) World Ranking Event. An event for which the results count in the international ranking list. There are just two lists, one for men and one for women, with no split between age classes. At an age class event, world ranking points are only available on the M21E and W21E courses or equivalents. An IOF web site has details.
• WSX Wessex Orienteering Club.
• W10, W12, W21, W70, etc Age classes for women.
• W10A, W12A, W18A, etc “A” courses for girls.
• W10B, W12B, W18B, etc “B” courses for girls.
• W20E, W21E “Elite” courses for women.
• W21L, W35L, W75L, etc “Long” courses for women.
• W21S, W35S, W75S, etc “Short” courses for women.

 

• Xenu Not an orienteering term, but an excellent piece of free software used (not as often as it should be) to check this web page for ¨broken links¨, i.e. out of date Internet addresses. Web site.

 

• Yellow course A fairly short and fairly easy colour-coded course. Longer and harder than White, shorter and easier than Orange. The route should be obvious, following line features such as paths, fences, or streams. Controls should be on the feature being followed.
• YHOA Yorkshire & Humberside Orienteering Association. The regional association for the old county of Yorkshire.
• Yvette Baker Trophy/Shield An annual English inter-club competition for juniors, a sort of junior CompassSport Cup. Named after Britain’s best-ever orienteer, who was World Champion in 1999. Web site including link to competition rules. Yvette Baker Trophy matches are normally held at events that are open to adults too.

 

• Zzzz Noise likely to be made by someone attempting to read this entire web page in one go!