Proposed NEOL & NEUL for 2016

Proposals for new NE leagues - a report by Rob McKenna, 18th July 2015

 

The suggestion of resurrecting the old NEOA Galoppen League in a new format and creating a new NEOA Urban League has long been discussed at recent NEOA fixtures meetings. Urban events in particular are becoming ever more popular these days with the orienteering public and neighbouring regions already have both such leagues which appear to be very successful.

 

It was proposed that a single NEOA league, combining a mixture of event types (e.g. regular forest, middle distance, urban etc.) would be beneficial in giving people something to aim for and getting local orienteers to travel a bit further afield - this would be called the North East Orienteering League (NEOL). Also, to be ran in conjunction with this would be a league based solely on Urban events, called the North East Urban League (NEUL).

 

Adrian Barnes (current NATO chair) agreed to take this forward, propose some events for 2016, come up with competition rules and formulate a way to publicise etc. His suggestions on possible fixtures for 2016 and league structure can be viewed here. The leagues would be open to anyone – not just members of NEOA. He is happy to act as league coordinator and scorer, maintain the leagues and provide information for clubs to publicise on their websites.

 

These are only proposals for the moment, but it is hoped to introduce the schemes from the start of 2016. If you have any comments or suggestions on the leagues or how they can be improved then please forward these to either Adrian Barnes or Duncan Archer.