Recently some members of
English club HAVOC were bemoaning the fact that Essex has so few areas
of land for quality orienteering. Someone remarked that all Essex does
have is shopping precincts - and suddenly SHOP-O was born!
Competitors are given a
specially surveyed map of the superstore or shopping precinct. Most maps
could be drawn in black and white although some colours could be used.
Maps would have premarked controls. Competitors afier the starting whistle
have to secure a trolley (basket for M/W 12-) and commence to navigate
on their designated course.
Control descriptions would read, for example
1 45p Top shelf Special offer
2 £1.19 per 500g
3 36p Cool cabinet Red label
Competitors have to navigate
to the control circle, locate the item from the control description, place
it in their trolley and go on to the next control. On completion of all
the controls, competitors have to select the fastest checkout (this requires
great skill) and after paying run to the finish in the car park with their
trolley. They are timed and the contents of their trolley checked, resulting
in disqualification if any wrong items are present.
Training events to use
corner shops.
Colour coded events to use supermarkets. Courses with a high technical content would have some purchases from delicatessen counters and other complicated sections.
National Events and the JK to take place in shopping precincts such as Lakeside and Blue Water, the multistorey terrain demanding a high level of navigational competence and presenting representational problems for the mapper. Longer courses to use the adjacent retail park, giving a wide selection of route choice between shops.
Score events to take place
in Argos. Competitors are each equipped with a catalogue and have to get
as many items as possible for a total price in a given time. All items
to be paid for and collected before the finish.
This requires close liaison
between managers and orienteers. Many stores appear to change their displays
at frequent intervals merely to confuse the shoppers. Special offers to
be monitored and be included in the map corrections.
Most events to take place
on Friday evenings - you could do your week's shopping and orienteer at
the same time. Entry fees would be reduced and you take home what you have
bought. Although these items may not be exactly what you would have bought
yourself, public opinion will force the planners to stick to staple items
in the main. If your course takes you to, say, the sock counter at M &
S, I feel sure that Technical Committee would allow each individual to
buy his/her own sock size.
Courses could easily be matched to the competitors' tastes - for instance all the women's courses could have a last control at the flower counter, M2lS could visit the beer area, juniors the sweet racks.
Special events could be geared
to certain tastes e.g. Vegetarian-O, Gluttony-O, Alcoholic-O, Stationery-O
(referring to the items in the control circle, not the speed of the competitors).
Permission to hold events
would have to be negotiated but I can foresee fewer problems with getting
permission from a store to hold a SHOP-O event than trying to persuade
a landowner to allow us to run over his land (who is going to turn away
1,000 guaranteed shoppers?).
The only difficulty that may arise is that the terrain might have to be closed to orienteers for a year before a big event, resulting in housekeeping difficulties for law-abiding orienteers. However, this is a small price to pay for taking part in our sport.
I hope you will join me in this new venture. I hope to run a demonstration event using the orienteering traders' stands at an event in the near future. I am sure that with the introduction of SHOP-O Essex will take its rightful place as the national centre of orienteering.
Mary Ryder, Shop-O Co-Ordinator, East Anglia
(from LOKation)