Volunteers needed for international orienteering event at Whiteknights

Friday, 22 March 2013

On Friday 29 March, the University will welcome over 2,000 people to Whiteknights as the campus is serving as a venue for the UK's largest orienteering event - the Jan Kjellström International Festival of Orienteering. 

The organisers are looking for volunteers for the day and would be interested to hear from University staff and students. People are needed to stand at designated points on the course to ensure that markers remain in the correct location (no prior knowledge of the sport is needed). There are two shifts available - from 12.00 until 14.00 and from 14.00 until 16.15.

The four-day Festival is held every Easter and this year it is based in the Reading area. The Festival opens with an urban sprint event before two days of more traditional individual events in forests. The Saturday event is in the woodlands at Hambledon, north of Henley, and on Easter Sunday the competition moves to Cold Ash, near Newbury. The weekend concludes with a relay event which returns to Hambledon.

Dr Jukes, who is involved with international orienteering and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences, said: "We're really pleased to be able to bring the event to the University this year. Each competitor will run a specially designed course where they have to navigate at speed to a set of control sites marked on their special orienteering map of the campus. At each control site there is a red and white marker flag and an electronic unit. Each competitor carries an electronic device which they touch against the control unit to record that they have found the control - they then have to find their way to the next one.

"To reduce the risk of following, competitors are set off at minute intervals with start times from about 12.00 until 4.00. There are however a large number of courses designed to provide suitable challenges for all competitors - from the youngest (about eight) up to the oldest (85 years old)! All competitors are timed and at the end of the day the fastest around each course is the winner."

If you would like to volunteer please email Dr David Jukes on d.j.jukes@reading.ac.uk

Full details can be found on the event's website: http://www.thejk.org.uk/jk2013/