We took our first steps towards instituting an electronic timing system. Actually, it’s getting pretty rare in 2015 to find an orienteering club, even in North America, that does not use such a system. But they don’t come cheap and they do require a knowledgeable group of persons interested and capable of running it. We are fortunate to have the essential beginnings of such a team in Bruce and Dmitri.

We decided to start with 50 “petals” (the electronic card/dibber that you carry on your finger) and four “stations” – sufficient to do the start and finish timing (only) of competitors on the two advanced courses. Plus two laptop computers. Happily, at their first use, everything worked as expected.

As for the cost, the decision was not to go with the rather expensive, though most commonly used ‘SI’ system, but instead to purchase a trial number of pieces of the new SFR system. It has recently been sanctioned by the International O Federation for use at certain major meets in Europe. We can even make the “dibber” parts ourselves, saving even more. Sunday, May 24th, will be the second time the partial system will be used. If you would like to help, we hope we will see you there.