Australian Rogaining Association

The fact that we are focussing on only one aspect of the course ie the scale of the maps, certainly speaks heaps for the success of the course overall.

I appreciated the night rogaine course being on a larger scale map because I had never tried to navigate through the bush at night before.

Perhaps the second day could be entirely on 1:25000 maps. I find it hard to change scales. I think that is a bit of intellectual laziness on my part but if anybody can think of some good exercises to help me get into "the zone" of a smaller scaller map I would love to hear from them.

Another aspect I would like to develop are my teamwork skills. I am a keen orienteer, and orienteering is by its nature, an individual sport. I felt that there was a tendancy in the earlier exercises (not the 3hr Rogaine) for the orienteers to compete against each other rather than work together.

There are some specific teamwork skills in rogaining that I feel that I didn't truly grasp.

However, I am examining the minutiae and as I said earlier, this is in itself evidence of the success fo the course.


Congratulations again to all those involved!!! and thanks.

The weekend was enjoyable, and a learning experience as well.

Particularly:
- Learning about how to work as a team better - it make you go faster
- Always thumb the bloody map, especially at night! It's good to know where you are
- How much you can actually "see" at night
- Don't lose your control punch card, it's like holding a cheque.

I think the swapping of the maps halfway through the exercises in the advanced group was an excellent idea, it helps you to focus on particular features/methods

The scale of the maps wasn't an issue, in fact I found it kept you on the ball, but we were focusing on pace counting and time distances anyway.

It's good to see a few folk sit around in the "hash house" and have a few beers and have a chat after the night exercise, I think this is also part of rogaining.

Thanks everyone

Hi
The training weekend was outstanding. Special thanks to the volunteer trainers and the hash house crew. My only suggestion would be to perhaps rotate the trainers and team members a little more to widen exposure to the different viewpoints about how to approach rogaining. I am always delighted at the laid back but highly professional standards of the rogaining volunteers and organisers.
Paul Shea

I have suggestions:

1. When several teams were told to train on the same set of control points, every team did the control points in the same sequence.
I suggest a better alternative would be for some to start with the lower numbers, and others to start with the upper numbers.

2. When I did the course, I had never rogained.
Therefore, I was put with a novice group.
However, I had mapreading and navigation experience, therefore the person leading our group indicated I should be put in a more advanced group for the rest of the weekend.
A friend of mine who had been to ~20 rogaines was assigned to an intermediate group and felt he didn't learn much.
I suggest that the skills which are expected to be taught at each skill-level are documented so
a) a proper assessment can me made to determine the correct group a person should be in and
b) an instructor is more likely to ensure each skill is taught for the level they are assigned to teach.

3. When discussing the training weekend and rogaining with the friend who has done ~20 rogaines, we agreed that at the higher level it might actually be strategies, tactics and "social" coordination between team members necessary to implement them which are more important in obtaining points than mapreading and compass reading basics.

Overall, it was an excellent training weekend.