If you are interested in intermediate and advanced orienteering training, come out to ROC’s Tuesday Night Training sessions. The club is offering free training sessions to all current ROC club members every first and third Tuesday of the month from 6:30-8:00 pm at various parks throughout Greater Rochester. Sessions are planned from now until the end of September. If you wish to find out more about the training sessions, including downloading custom training maps, please join the ROC Training meetup.com site at http://www.meetup.com/Rochester-Orienteering-Club-Training/. Our next training session will be this Tuesday evening 5/15 at Durand Eastman Park.

Note you must be a current member of the ROC club to participate. If you wish to join ROC, please complete the online registration found by clicking on the “Membership” menu item or register at the next orienteering event.

The Mendon Ponds Trail Challenge is on Saturday, May 5. Details and registration for the Trail Challenge (page also linked from the schedule page for the relevent events). Note the entry fees are slightly different than our regular local meets [in other words please pre-register, this is non-binding as always.]

The courses are 5k and 10k listed as their nominal distance that one might expect to travel. Straight line orienteering distances are about 4k and 7.5k.

The control locations are of white/yellow nature and are on or near trails. Although going off trail may be helpful at certain points, legs are designed to be completed mostly on trails. Wherever possible, legs have multiple route choices.

Just a reminder that this Saturday is the 3rd annual Pick Up the Parks. If you can support this event by participating, please help at the park of your choice and wear your ROC tee shirt. Let Sandra Lomker know that you participated as this event will earn you points towards next year's ROC tee shirt! Information below:

I wanted to get in touch with you to let you know about the 3rd annual Pick Up the Parks Event, which will take place on Saturday, April 28th, from 9am-noon. Last year's PUTP event collected 3,200 pounds of trash; 1,500 pounds of it recyclable!

We will be expanding the event to include seven meet-up spots/parks: Churchville, Durand Eastman, Genesee Valley, Northampton, Powder Mills, Seneca, and Webster Parks.

This year, immediately following the pick up, County Executive Maggie Brooks will offer a Thank you Picnic (ONLY at Genesee Valley Park) for all PUTP volunteers, along with an Eco-Fair, and an e-scrap collection event. Several local environmental and outdoor recreation groups will host an interactive, educational table. Thank you to Sunnking Electronics Recycling for their partnership.

Results from the RIT meet and Sprint Series standings are now available on the results page.

Come and join us as we take on the RIT campus this Saturday, April 21st. We will have both a long sprint and a shorter white sprint that are open from 11am – 1pm followed by a score-O with a mass start at 1pm. The long sprint will be the first in the ROC club sprint series. Members of the RIT community are free with ID, so we hope to see a big crowd of students, staff, and faculty.

As always, please use Online Registation to make it easier for everyone! Registration will be in the breezeway between Clark Gym and the Campus Center, which is close to the 73 foot tall Sentinel sculpture. It is best to park in the field house parking and come up the ramp between the field house and Ritter ice rink.

NOTES from course setter, Linda Kohn:

The sprint courses will make use of a section of the RIT campus. There will be a white/yellow sprint and a green/red sprint. There are several symbols and rules that apply to sprints.

--The garden areas marked on the map (green) are out of bounds, and even if not marked as such gardens must be avoided.
--Building insides (dark gray) are off limits although you may use underpasses that are marked with a light gray.
--Impassable walls are a thick black line, passable walls are a thick gray line.
--sculptures are shown with a black X
--construction areas are fenced with the uncrossable fence symbol and are out of bounds
--individual pine trees are represented with a green circle, leafy trees with a green X, in places where there are numerous trees the white with yellow dots symbol is used.

Check codes carefully since there are many controls out there.

See you on Saturday!