The last race of Bendigo’s 2010 SpaceRacing season has been run, and won. Creek Street Christian College Gold team retained the trophy in what turned out to be a close finish — Girton College just failed in the charge to the post.
During the 2010 series we brought over 50 primary school students into contact with orienteering, with a average of about 34 competitors at each race (except for one very wet day – even then eighteen or twenty braved the elements). It was most heartening to watch each day as the teams developed their team-building and course planning skills; it was exciting to listen to them joining in the count-down to the mass start, as it was to listen to the shouted encouragement given by the teams that finished to the other teams from their college.
One interesting off-shoot was seeing some SpaceRacing parents starting to try orienteering, two or three of whom are competing at C and B course levels at our Local Bush-O Event Series. The success of our SpaceRacing program is due in no small part to the efforts of five or six Bendigo orienteers who give up a lot of Saturday mornings, and in particular to Jim Russell who prepares the maps, sets the courses and puts out and picks up controls. All in all, a great team doing a great job for orienteering in Victoria.
