Discussion: Manitoba Sandhills Orienteering Festival 2009

Come Play In the Sand!!!
at the...

"Manitoba Sandhills Orienteering Festival 2009" which will take place August 22-30, 2009.

The festival will include the Western Canadian Orienteering Championships (sprint, middle and long), Canadian Orienteering Championships (sprint, middle and long) as well as a goat and relay event. The most competitions of any North American orienteering festival in 2009. There will also be the Sass Peepre Junior Training camp and the COF Conference during the week.

The WCOC will take place near Hartney, Manitoba in the Lauder Sandhills.

The COCs will be at the Hog's back in
Spruce Woods Provincial Park
The Hog's Back is a new map never before used for orienteering. The sand hill terrain makes for fast, technical and challenging orienteering.

Mark your calendars and plan to attend this unique event.

Add these events to your log @:
Western CDN Champs
Canadian Champs

Hope to see many of you there! We are looking forward to hosting you in friendly Manitoba:)

That's awesome! I'm disappointed I'm not still in Canada to enjoy that.

There is a photo and map sample at the
Manitoba Sandhills Orienteering Festival 2009 Website.

Registration for the Sandhills Festival is now open.

Early pricing is in effect until April 30th.

For more information, visit the Sandhills Festival website at www.coc2009.ca.

I am sooo there:)

Are entries transferrable?

Can't wait to run on the new map at the Hog's Back...

Transferrable? As in can you give your registration to someone else?

Yes. We would like to go (and register early) but won't know by the deadline if my work schedule will allow it, so I was wondering if I could register us now and in case we end up not being able to go, transfer our registration to someone else who wants it but hasn't registered by the April deadline so we could avoid the $50+ ($25 and costs each) processing fee and save someone else the late fee. I expect probably not, but its worth asking.

I just checked with the meet director (my father) and we've decided that entries will be transferable until registration closes on August 14th.

However, if a lot of people start to transfer their registrations, this decision may be reversed. So please don't abuse this...

Thanks. I expect just about everyone who registers will do everything they can to make it to the event, myself included. Everyone I talk to raves about this terrain. One very experienced club member told me, "The Manitoba sandhill terrain was the first time I ever orienteered in Canada. I was overtime on the first day, and DNF'ed on the second." Who can pass up a recommendation like that? =) And then there's this.

I understand that everyone who registers will probably try to attend. We just wanted to leave our options open to ensure that no one could unfairly capitalize on entry transferability.

I wish I could compete at these events, but I'm doing the timing so that's probably not possible.

And then there's this

I vividly remember that particular meet in 1982 and the special terrain offered since I was there too.

I totally blew just about everything the first day (except a short compass leg of about 100M and the easy last control) and had a very poor race (compared to my expectations to be in the Top 5 or so).
The second day everything just clicked and I spiked every control and had a good result.
So this is definitely some challenging terrain - I´d love to come back and try it again but unfortunately I don´t think it will be in my schedule for this fall :(

The terrain being used for the WCOC will be very similiar to the terrain PG described in his blog. The sprint will actually be VERY close....the M and L will be a couple Km S. The COC terrain is similiar as well. I have grown up on "sandhill terrain" so I usually don't consider how unique it is, but after orienteering in various other place there truly is no other place like it. Hopefully not many OT's and dnf's this time around:)

Early bird registration ends at the end of April!!

Go to the website (see above) to register...sign up early to save big bucks:)

Less than one week to sign up for the early bird price.

Early bird registration closes on April 30th.

Early bird registration closes tomorrow (April 30th @ 23:59 CST)

The 2009 Manitoba Sandhills Orienteering Festival will include some unique orienteering terrain. The festival will consist of 8 competitions including the Western Canadian Orienteering Championships, relay, prairie goat, Canadian Orienteering Championships (2 WRE's), Sass Peepre Junior Training Camp and COF Conference!

www.coc2009.ca

In these tough economic times, what a better way to conserve some disposable income by registering early for the '09 Sandhills O festival....deadline is fast approaching.

Register early, register often :)

Regular pricing ends on June 30th. Be sure to register before then to avoid any late fees.

8 events over 10 days....COF conference....Sass Peepre Junior Camp....great orienteering in the Manitoba Sandhills.

Register at the website link on previous thread.

For those in the US worried about flight pricing and with Star Alliance (United / US Airways / Aeroplan / ...) miles, there seemed to be decent award availability into Winnipeg on the United flights from Chicago. 25,000 miles beats a $700 fare. (It was an even better deal at the 20,000 mile sale fare that ended Sunday...)

I have unfinished business with Manitoba sandhill terrain from the last time I went in 2001, so I have been tempted back.

WestJet has a 40% off seat sale for Canadian destinations until June 25, 2009 (11:59 pm. MT).

Thanks for posting the airline info guys. Sweet deals!

"unfinished business with Manitoba sandhill terrain"
hopefully you can settle the score this time:)

Another friendly reminder....regular pricing on registration to the Manitoba Sandhills O fest ends tomorrow night, June 30th @ 11:59 CST.

This is the North American orienteering event to be at this summer!

For those of you on the fence about attending or have not booked your travel...West Jet, Air Canada and Via Rail all have sales on!!

West Jet- book by August 2 at 11:59 MT
Air Canada- book by August 2 at 11:59 ET
Via Rail- book by July 31 at 11:59 PT

Less than 96 hours to register! If you haven't decided whether you are going, now is the time to seriously think about it.

Also, please remember that there will be a silent auction during the COC banquet to raise money for the Junior and Senior National Teams. If you have anything to donate (even if you aren't attending the banquet or the festival), please contact Ursula Goeres (ugoeres@yahoo.ca) as soon as possible.

Ideas for things to donate:

In an e-mail to the [orienteeringcanada] e-mail group, Charlotte suggested donating the following: homemade crafts and food, cabin bookings, sketches, photographs, entry to upcoming events, or items from local sport stores.

Some more ideas are: shoes, travel gear, compasses, SI cards, and watches.

However, these are just ideas; you can donate practically anything that you think other people might want to buy.

And airlines have good sales right now:

Air Canada

WestJet

Don't miss this event:
* Great new maps
* Fabulous terrain - fast running, loads of technical detail
* Arena fun - music, Red Group runners in Elite classes, with announcers to highlight these exciting races
* lots of socializing
* tons of maps for training to learn how to run in the sandhills
* and, if I do say so myself, pretty darn good courses ;-)

Some extra training maps have been added to the website for download.

Also, this is the last day to register! The online registration system will close at midnight or shortly thereafter.

Fabulous weather, great courses, fabulous terrain! Two races done at the WCOCs. The organizers have RouteGadget ready so quick it is 'almost live' ;-)

rg.orienteerring.ca

Results for the first two days are up -

Manitoba Sandhills Orienteering Festival Results

Now that people have a taste for the terrain everyone will be cleaner here on in....even though most RWT are bang on so far:)

Long results up now. On to the Spruce Woods!