The Youth League is back!

The 2018-2019 Youth League will be restarting at Fairlands on October 6th.  This basic structure and rules are the same as last year, but there have been a few small changes:

• you need to supply your School Year when you enter or reserve your map and also record the school or group as your “O Club”
• (with permission) juniors can now run up (or down) a class and get a 15% time reduction (or an 18% increment)
• we have introduced parental / teacher competitions on orange and light green

See below for more details on the above.

Youth League Events (provisional)
6th October, Fairlands Valley Park, Stevenage
3rd November, Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School, Elstree
1st December, Verulamium Park, St Albans
2nd February, Chipperfield Common, Kings Langley
2nd March, Sherrardspark Wood, Welwyn Garden City

Entering Events
Your School Year is essential for the results processing. We’ve changed the Map Reservation system so that you can record this:  for an unsaved runner first being registered on the web system, this is straight forward, an extra field will appear once you enter a junior age class. However, if you have any saved runners you need to update their records FIRST by going to the “My Runners” page and editing their records to add a school year.

It is also important that Youth league competitors use their group abbreviation (i.e. SAHS, BWP etc) in the club field even if they are HH members, so we can score their points for you with minimal effort. They will still run free as Junior members of the club.

Running Up or Down
With permission, juniors can now run up (or down) a class and get a 15% time reduction (or 18% increment). Youth League Points will be allocated based on the adjusted times.
The idea is to allow experienced juniors to tackle harder courses (important for their development) without suffering a competitive disadvantage. We have also allowed the running down because Orange is too hard for older juniors starting off and they can benefit from running Yellow a couple of times in the beginning.

Permission to run out class can be obtained from Jacob, the training co-ordinator (Keith Marsden) or Youth co-ordinator (Frances Goldingay) and can be obtained retrospectively for running down. The reason for asking permission, is so that orienteers who are not ready to run up do not do so and that older competitors do not start regularly winning Yellow. To run up, it is expected the juniors can competently finish their standard age class without assistance.

Parental / Teacher competitions
We are introducing parent / teacher competitions on the Orange and Light Green courses. Please encourage any parent attending to run in these categories. This year it is an individual league, with 3 events to score (like the juniors).  While the adults runs will not count in the main Schools League, they will score points for the school in the Maureen Webster Memorial Trophy which is for participation. It is only through parental participation we can get the family memberships essential to the club. Parents will also need to use the club abbreviation when they enter, but if they are HH members will still qualify for the HH discount.

and finally,
The committee would appreciate it if Schools and Groups could gently promote junior membership of HH, especially for those keen to orienteer more and improve. The cost is modest at £9.00, gives Junior’s free entry to Saturday series events and allows them to attend the club’s junior training sessions most holidays.
The website link is https://www.herts-orienteering.club/membership/
Any questions, or suggestions for improvements, please email me at youth.league@herts-orienteering.club.
Thanks Jacob