Australian Rogaining Association

This thread is for feadback to the organisers (NSW Rogaine Association) of the NSW 2008 Rogaine Workshop held at Rydal.

Please let the organisers know if:
*the workshop increased your confidence and skill base for Rogaining?
*you are more motivated to enter a Rogaine in the near future due to attending the workshop?

Also, please comment on any aspect of the workshop that you consider important. For example, was there something absent from the progam that you think should have been included? Was the progam too busy or not busy enough? Was the third navigation session (Sunday morning) worthwhile?

Thank you to everybody who made the Rogaine Workshop such a success.

In addition, to learning how to plan a realistic and efficient course, the most challenging aspect (for me) was making the transition to a 1:25000 map (I am a keen orienteer and used to 1:10000 or 1:15000 maps).

The night rogaine was an enjoyable challenge too (wish I hadn't eaten so much of the delicious food supplied by our hosts beforehand tho')

I felt that the course design was excellent. Plenty of variety, plenty of field experience.

I met some great people (Hi! everybody!!) and was humbled by the extraordinary generosity of spirit of our instructors and guides. Thank you.

I will certainly recomend the course to others, if you choose to repeat it. And have already spread the word about what a great sport rogaining is.

Fantastic.

I concur with all that Karen has said.

The workshop has provided greater confidence and I am certainly more motivated to attend future events.

For me, an improvement would be to have all the maps in 1:25000 rather than just the last 3hr exercise,as I think it is easier to navigate with the orienteering type maps.

The approach of learning through DOING was JUST BRILLIANT!

The weekend was an introduction to Rogaining for my 16 year-old step-son and his two mates....and the approach kept them engaged throughout which is no mean achievement for that age group.

After the weekend, they are super keen and all 5 of us plan to do the Lake Macquarie 6 hour and have roped in another parent and an older brother!
Having seen the teenagers newly acquired navigational skills in action during the 3 hour rogaine, I would be confident for them to form their own team.

I was so impressed that we went straight out into the bush for the first exercise as soon as we arrived. And handing out previous rogaine maps to use as practice during the "Planning a Rogaine" session worked really well.
Even the "What to take/wear session" was made really fun by having the three people up front showing what they pack by emptying their backpacks.

The biggest thing I learnt was pacing to judge distance and how to navigate with a compass and was MOST IMPRESSED at how well the combination worked for locating the checkpoints (and not getting lost) at night when visual features are harder to navigate by. I feel so much more confident in my own ability.

A big thanks to our group leaders Belinda and Paul who were brilliant in asking leading questions thoughout encouraging us to figure things out for ourselves without just telling us.

The overall organisation was superb from the pre-workshop info provided, to the course setting, materials provided, ration of leaders to participants and the catering (I loved having so much salad and the choice of soup).

It was really an excellent weekend! Congratulation for the organisers
I took some tips home and could boost my experience.
I could say many good thinks about the workshop:
Well choosen diverse areas.
Great idea to take off the contures for advanced groups!
Great idea for pacing excersice at tea time
Great 3 hour rogain

My suggestions to make it even better would be as follows
1)Drive to start in cars together with your team mates if possible, so that you don't have to wait for other groups if they are late.
2)Maybe include second night excersice for advance group or who ever wants. Maybe in flat area with 25000 map instead of orienteering map.
3)Coaches should suggest that one person takes the lead and other team mebers should be checking only, assisting or preparing for next CP. This makes it more time efficent for groups where everbody has an opinion.
4)Allow some time for debriefing, to determine which route we actualy took.

Michael Weller wrote:
For me, an improvement would be to have all the maps in 1:25000 rather than just the last 3hr exercise,as I think it is easier to navigate with the orienteering type maps.

The map scale is a tricky question on which a lot of thought was put into prior to the workshop. It is very easy for us to change the scale of the maps. For this workshop, the training exercises were deliberately printed at the larger 1:15000 scale for several reasons. The major reason being that a substantial proportion of Rogainers have not orienteered, nor have they previously been exposed to the large scale maps - I hoped that the large scale maps would encourage people to look at the features and attempt to navigate via features as opposed to bearings and pace counting. It is true that the large scale makes navigation by features easier, but that was also the intention. Other reasons for the large scale include the necessity for the check points to be close together for navigation exercises that last about 1 and a half hours, and, it makes it easy for the groups to discuss aspects of the map. Perhaps an improvement would be to start on the large scale maps for the first session, and then reduce scale to the 1:25000 maps for the remaining sessions?

It is probably worth pointing out that none of the maps were to orienteering standard. Most of the small features like termite mounds and form lines had been removed. Also, they maps contained many errors that would be unacceptable to orienteering - for example some of the watercourse junctions and roads were not marked properly - as many groups discovered.