Manitoba Orienteering Association

2013 News

Latest news from the Sass Peepre Junior Development Committee - January 28, 2013

The Sass Peepre Junior Development Committee would like to take a few moments of your time to update you on our activities. We hope that you will find something amongst our current projects that may be of interest to the junior orienteers in your family, programme or club.

The items in this letter include:

The Sass Peepre Junior Development Committee – what is it?

First, for those who are new to it, what is the Sass Peepre Junior Development Committee? Sass Peepre was instrumental in establishing the sport of orienteering in this Canada. After his death, a fund was created in his name, to support and encourage growth in the sport among the juniors. The Sass Peepre Fund has recently morphed into the Sass Peepre Junior Development Committee, as a committee of Orienteering Canada, with the fund being managed by that organization.

Sass Peepre Junior Training Camps

For many years, the Sass Peepre Committee has organized a training camp for juniors from across the country, connected in time and location to the annual Canadian Orienteering Championships. Junior athletes of all abilities, from 10 to 19 years of age, from novice to candidates for the Canadian Junior Team, are invited to participate in the 3 day camp, which always has amazing volunteer coaches coming from the ranks of the Senior National Team, High Performance Programme athletes, ex-national team members, and parents wanting to help their kids.

This year, there will be two separate Sass Peepre Junior Training Camps – one in Manitoba, associated with the Western Canadian Championships in late July, and one in New Brunswick in association with the Eastern Canadian Championships in August. If you are interested in either or both of these camps, you might want to send a quick e-mail to the contact so that you get on the mailing list for further information as it becomes available.

Manitoba –July 30 to August 1 – contact Kitty Jones at kittyjones@shaw.ca
New Brunswick – week of August 19 to 23 - contact Lori Heron at heron.lori@gmail.com

Pre-HPP Youth Squad – A Call for Interested Juniors

We are just now starting up, with the help of Orienteering Canada and the High Performance Committee, a new Pre-HPP Youth Squad. The intent of this programme is to fill a gap in training support for athletes who might be interested in joining the High Performance Programme and who would like a programme now to help them move in that direction. This program will give athletes, mostly in the 14 to 16 year age group, an opportunity to have some coaching, guidance and support for their training as they progress towards more serious training and competition. A national network of Junior Orienteers will also help build friendships and strengthen peer support for these young athletes. If you are interested in learning more about this new junior group, please contact Anne Teutsch at anne@teutsch.ca.

Junior Training Resources

Last year the Sass Peepre Committee started two new projects. One was a pilot project for an online training and coaching programme for juniors. This project was successful and is the jumping block from which our new Youth Squad will evolve. The second project was a compilation of resources that are currently available across Canada and in other countries to support coaches of junior orienteering athletes. The information collected through this project will be valuable as Orienteering Canada and the Sass Peepre Junior Development Committee work to create a national junior development curriculum. If anyone is interested in receiving the compiled resources, please contact Meghan Rance at meghan.rance@gmail.com.

Looking for Committee Members for the Sass Peepre Junior Development Committee

In the near future, we plan to expand our committee from the current three people (Kitty Jones, Calgary; Meghan Rance, Vancouver; Anne Teutsch, Ottawa) to up to 6 people. We will be looking for new members from across the country who have an interest in helping develop opportunities for the junior orienteers in Canada. If you might be interested, please contact any of the current committee members. We would love to hear from you!


Kitty Jones: kittyjones@shaw.ca
Meghan Rance: meghan.rance@gmail.com
Anne Teutsch: anne@teutsch.ca