With the rest of the team off site seeing in Jerusalem and floating in the Dead Sea on the rest day at the World MTBO Champs I was booked by the TCA and British Orienteering onto the IOF advisers course. This 4 hour course together with the reams of rules, guidelines and appendixes I will receive when I get home qualifies me to become an advisor / controller on major international events. The course covered all the current mapping and planning guidelines plus all the out of forest stuff from accommodation to medal ceremonies. The course was useful for several reasons. One is that someone in the UK is now fully up to date with international rules and guidelines which is paramount to the development of the domestic sport. Two I will possibly get invited to advise on a future World Ranking Event which means foreign travel and the chance to absorb other countries ways of running events, again valuable for UK MTBO development.
Full IOF rules and guidelines are available at http://www.orienteering.org
its all about stodge, bikes, MTBO and the outdoors