East Anglian juniors have also been active, on a club basis, at the Peter Palmer relays where NOR entered one team and SOS and WAOC had 2 teams each. As Eleanor recounts, SOS won the small clubs competition - well done SOS! Then the Junior Team Competition was held at the Rowney Warren Colour Coded event a couple of weeks ago where it was disappointing that only SOS and WAOC entered full teams. WAOC won that one - well done WAOC! Full details in the next Points East (ed.)

Junior Points East

Lagganlia is a junior training camp for M/W14's and some 16's; it took place the week before the Scottish 6-day event. Unlike other tours their region selects members. The representatives for East Anglia were Peter Gardener and myself. We traveled up to Scotland, starting at 7.30 in the morning and arriving at about 4.30.

As soon as we arrived we were given a short compass exercise to do; they didn't let us have it easy!! After this we were given our rooms and the job rota for the week! The training started on the Sunday for real, with some fairly technical exercises. They were probably designed to sort out ability early on and I think they did that. Monday and Tuesday were both training days. On Wednesday we only trained in the morning. During the afternoon we went swimming in a local loch. Wednesday also saw the annual rounders match against Glenmore, which Lagganlia won, of course!! Thursday saw a morning's training with the tour short race in the afternoon. The last day was race day, with the very technical classic championships in the morning and the relays in the afternoon.

On Saturday morning a group of very tired people were dropped off at the first day of the Scottish, no rest for us!! My orienteering has improved a great deal from the things I learnt on tour, the areas were all top class, and all within 45 minutes' drive of the centre. The week was also great fun, giving the chance to meet new people and see friends. Any young juniors should make their aim to get on the Lagganlia week, as it was brilliant.

David West (SOS)

This year (after being especially nice to the squad coordinator) I was one of the two people from East Anglia to be selected to go on the Lagganlia training camp in the summer. For those of you who don't know, this is a camp run by BOF for the best top year M/W 14s and bottom year M/W 16s (two from each region). The camp was the week before the 6-day event in Scotland this year and, as BOF pays your travel expenses, I got a free train journey to Scotland! When we arrived we found half the people were already there but we had no time to say hello as we had to go straight into the first exercise (compass and pacing). After a very satisfactory meal and getting over the disappointment that there wasn't a stereo in the room as promised and that we couldn't hire a video as we were an educational group (some copyright thing apparently???) we were all looking forward to a good night's sleep. Unfortunately this was where Joe Harris (a Welsh squad member) kicked in with his jokes.

The next morning we were greeted with another good meal and the news that the area we were running on today was the best we were going to get all week. The good news was that we had a whole day on it and were coming back to it later in the week. The centre was actually marked on the map we were using so after a quick warm up we were split up into three groups and sent separate ways. As we were so close to the centre we came back for lunch then, after a quick game of basketball, went to the second exercise.

The week progressed like this with some days involving long minibus journeys to the areas we were using (one very encouraging sign above the entrance to one area proclaimed "Welcome to Wolf Country"). The facilities were very good with basketball, volleyball and football being available if you weren't too tired. We even had our own chef who helped with the cooking (we did have to do our share of the work unfortunately). There was a well stocked shop and a sauna!!

Fortunately we had one afternoon off and we were told we could do whatever we wanted. The main body of people wanted to go swimming in a loch (an idea put forward by Joe who for some reason had brought his snorkel gear) with a few wanting to go ice skating in Kingussie. At the loch we started to regret our choice. The water was very cold and there was no sand, just pebbles. We could even see snow on a nearby mountain. I need of further entertainment we decided to head off for a hopeful looking hut for ice-cream. It wasn't a stall so we kept walking and walking and walking and... well you get the idea. When we eventually arrived at the ice-cream stall we discovered that there was also a sandy beach and warm water. Unfortunately we couldn't stay as we had to walk back as it was time to leave!

In the evening we had a game of rounders against Glenmore (another Scottish training camp for M/W16s) which we won easily despite the umpire being biased (I'm sure some of those rules were made up on the spot). There was, however, a more serious side to things. We had to do a lot of training but it was still a very enjoyable week

Peter Gardner (WAOC)

After my performances in this year's selection races I was pretty confident that I was going to make it onto the M/W16 'B' tour and nervously awaited the arrival of selection letters. In May, when I received my letter I was over the moon to discover that I had made it onto the M/W16 'A' tour. For those of you who don't know how the annual junior tours work basically every year BOF organises two M/W16 tours, an 'A' tour which goes to Scandinavia and a 'B' tour to Scotland. It works similarly for the M/W18s and first year M/W20s. The selection is made on the results of five selection events (which normally include the J.K. and the British Championships), reports from squad managers and previous tours and general performance. My twin sister, Nicola, did not do as well in the selection races but still managed to achieve the position of non-travelling reserve for the 'B' tour, unfortunately no one dropped out allowing her to go. This made the prospect of going on tour rather daunting for me as we had up until now done everything similar to this together and so had each other for moral support.

The first step in preparing for my tour was to pay £200 as a personal contribution towards the cost. Thank you to both EAOA and SOS who helped me to pay this. The next month and a half flew by as I slowly began to get organised for the tour. Every so often I would get letters from Derek Allison, the tour manager, with more details and questionnaires to fill in. I discovered that the tour was to be in Halden in Southern Norway from Friday 16th July to Friday 30th July (this meant I was going to miss five days of school, I was SO disappointed). It was a few days shorter than normal but this had to be so, in order that we were back in time for Highland '99 and WOC '99. Finally Friday 16th July arrived and after a long morning of travelling to Newcastle I successfully met up with the other six girls and nine boys I was to spend the next two weeks with. Then on we went to catch the ferry to Kristiansand in a convoy of three cars and a minibus. Other than an introductory meeting in the evening where we met Jan and Janey our two cooks and Chris and Karen Heppenstall two of our four coaches, we were more or less allowed to do as we pleased. At 9am we all piled off the ferry into the assorted vehicles for a long day's travelling. We arrived at Gimle Hut, our accommodation for the tour, in the early evening just in time for a quick run and swim in one of Norway's freezing lakes. On Sunday the training began with a course to familiarise us with the terrain. I was rather worried when I got my map as it looked as though someone had scribbled all over it with a brown pen. The terrain was made up of marshes (which I discovered you could go up to your waist in!) that were very slow to run across, bare rock (I found it very hard to tell which bits of rock were marked on the map as crags and which were runnable wood) and lots and lots of contour detail.

We soon developed a daily routine; breakfast was at eight followed by a morning briefing then it was out to the area for one or two exercises. Lunch was either back at the hut or a packed lunch depending on which area we were on. Then we normally returned in the afternoon to the same area for a short course to put what we had learnt in the morning into practise. More often than not we went swimming in a freezing lake before returning to the hut for showers and to do our daily chores. After dinner the evenings were ours apart from the debriefing session and organised entertainment sessions which were great fun.

At the weekend we all packed up and moved four hours North to compete in a two-day competition made up of a short race and classic race. The short race was on typical Norwegian terrain but the classic race took place on an open hilltop that looked like somewhere out of the Lake District. I did OK in the short race and came 8th but in the classic race, how shall I put it?, well, I definitely got value for money! I spent 1hr 20 min on a 5.8km course having run straight past one of my controls (whoops!). I finally arrived back covered in mud just before the prize giving. The event was only very small due to the O-ringen taking place in neighbouring Sweden and our tour took home most of the prizes in our age classes. The prizes were not mugs, medals, small trophies or anything but alarm clocks, watches and T-shirts (they turned out to be the right size for a five-year-old rather than a 16 year-old male!) but we were told that this was normal in Norway. We stayed up there for Saturday night but returned to Gimle Hut on the Sunday.

The week ended in the tour championships, which I didn't do too well in because I was exhausted after two weeks of solid training. Then it was the reverse of the journey to get there before most of us took the train up to Scotland. About ten of us spent the night at Lagganlia before being reunited with our families in the morning fit and ready for the challenge of Highland '99. The whole experience was unforgettable if exhausting, great but hard work. My tour report states that my orienteering improved and I gained great experience on technical terrain that simply does not exist in East Anglia. Last but not least I made loads of new friends!

Suzy Robertson (SOS)

The week started by getting up at 5:15am to finish the packing and in order to set off to the West's house. Eleanor, David and I were driven to Ipswich railway station to catch a train to Peterbrough. At Peterborough we met up with Peter Gardner from WAOC who was going to Lagganlia with David. We arrived in Aviemore at about 5pm minus David and Peter, who had got off at the previous stop in order to get to Lagganlia.

At Aviemore station the tour mini bus picked us and our luggage up and took us to Glenmore Lodge. Glenmore Lodge is the National Training centre for orienteering. It has excellent facilities, including log cabins, rock climbing walls, swimming pool and restaurants.

Having settled into our cabins we watched TV and got to know every one who was also on tour. There were 10 boys and 6 girls on the tour and 7 coaches plus a very good cook, called Carol. Over the next six days we did many exercises to improve our orienteering skills and to help prepare us for orienteering in the 'Highland 99' event which was to be held near Inverness the week after the tour. Some of the exercises I found particularly useful were continuous flow in and out of controls, compass bearing practice and reading the map while on the move. Our coach who was called Merlin advised that we should practice reading a map while bouncing on our beds! It was very useful to have the opportunity of orienteering in such intricate areas with little or no line features to use as handrails. I found myself having to read contours, which was refreshing since we have very few in East Anglia.

We worked hard and did solid training for all of the six days apart from Thursday, when we had a half day and went to the aqua-dome in Inverness. The whole week was great fun and I found it very useful. My ambition is to get on the Halden tour in Norway next year but I realise that I will have to perform well at the selection races. It was great to see the World O Champs at Inverness during Highland '99 and it has really made me even more positive to one day represent GB.

I would like to thank EAOA for their support and would encourage all young East Anglian Orienteers to try to set Glenmore and Halden as their goals for the future.

Chris Sellens (SOS)

To describe the experience of a BOF tour is almost impossible. Whichever tour you go on you have an unforgettable week and this was certainly the case with Glenmore 99. Chris and I travelled up by train on the Saturday - an unmentionable hour in the morning saw us standing at Ipswich station along with David. We met Peter at Peterborough and settled into the train to Edinburgh. All went smoothly with only the occasional out of tune singing from David. At Edinburgh we changed trains and from then on we got more and more behind schedule. However, so did everyone else on the train so when we got to Aviemore station, having deposited Peter and David at Kingussie, it was to find the minibus waiting. We all piled in and were whisked away to Glenmore Lodge, our accommodation for the next week.

The first evening consisted of sitting around , watching great TV (hmm. . . well) and eventually finding the pool table. The six girls had our own separate chalet, which later in the week gave us a bit more freedom. After the usual "you must work hard this tour is for your benefit but it's also going to be great fun" talk, we were dismissed to bed. The following six days pretty much all followed the same pattern. We had breakfast, made packed lunches, had a briefing and left for the day's area. All the training was challenging but it was also all incredibly helpful. We would arrive back shattered in the evening with spare time to run around playing football, volleyball, swimming or even playing pool in the Glenmore bar (no, unfortunately we were not allowed to buy anything from the bar!).

Highlights of the week included Merlyn, the lead coach, reducing all of us girls to tears on the second evening - we all declared we were going to give up orienteering because we obviously weren't good enough and there was no point! However, Merlyn turned out to be all right, after I made sure that he knew I didn't agree with what he had said! Later in the week, when it came to prize-giving time, this meant that I got the "I think Merlyn's wrong so I'm jolly well going to let him know it" award! So I speak my mind, not necessarily a bad thing! Proof of the coaching team's ability to have a laugh came when we received a mystery phone call from the "man from reception" who informed us that he had a complaint about our noise level. It turned out that the coaches had nominated Dave to ring us up and pretend - and the stupid thing was we fell for it!!!

Apart from the orienteering the social side was brilliant - I was with a different crowd of people to those who went on Lagganlia with me two years ago and so I made tons of new friends. Speaking of Lagganlia, just for the record, Glenmore 99 thrashed Lagganlia 99 at rounders but their cook was refereeing and so made up the score in Lagganlia's favour!

The areas we trained on were all amazing compared with East Anglian forests and I gained a lot of confidence and learnt a lot of new skills, which I can now pass onto other juniors in the squad. Thank you to East Anglia and SOS for funding both Chris and me. I had a fantastic time and I'm aiming to repeat the selection (or better it!) next year.

Eleanor West (SOS)

And finally (really, it is!) congratulations to Helen Gardner(WAOC) and David West(SOS) for being selected for the England team for the Junior Home Internationals in October. Good luck Helen, commiserations to David who broke his leg playing rugby and so will be unable to take his place in the team.

Eleanor West