Hopefully the information below will assist in gaining an understanding of the South East Night League and provide other information on orienteering, and in particular night orienteering. Select the information you would like to review or scroll down the page. If there is something you still don't understand, contact the league co-ordinator.

What is SENiLe?

The South East Night League is a series of night orienteering events taking place over the winter season each year within the South-East. A variety of courses are available at each event, offering beginners to advanced orienteers a run through forests and parks at night. After each event points are computed and a simple league is compiled for the season. The events are held to encourage and develop night orienteering and the league results add a little competition for the more competent or determined runners. You don't have to participate in the league series to run at an event - everyone is welcome to try the courses.   [Top]

How do I find out more about SENiLe?

This website contains information on the history of the league, statistics, past results, winners and losers, future fixtures, how the league works and much more. Check out the main pages on the site and the links to many other historical and current information. See the menu above or start with the general SENiLe webpage.  [Top]

How do I find out about events that are on?

Fixtures information is available on this web site. You may be able to find out more information about specific fixtures from the club web pages or from local club O phones which are also detailed on the fixtures page. Alternatively check out the SE fixtures page or the BOF fixtures page for other events, both within and outside of the region.  [Top]

How does the league work?

SENiLe events are held over the winter period. They are generally cross country orienteering events with courses ranging from 2 to 6 kilometres. The results of each event are scored based on a formula that gives the winner of each course a set number of points with all other competitors scoring points based on how far in time behind the winner they are. The "league" itself is the a table of results over the season. Depending on the number of events over the season the total of the best X results is used to produce a league table.  [Top]

What courses are on offer?

There are generally three courses on offer at SENiLe events : Ochre, Olive and Navy. The courses are differing lengths and technical difficulty and are designed to enable a progression to be possible from one course to the next and to ensure that there is something available for your technical ability. The Ochre course will be about 2km long and should be fairly straightforward. Controls should be on obvious line features or right next to them. The next course up, Olive, will be about 3.5km long and should provide a bridge between Ochre and the harder Navy course. Controls may well be a mixture of some controls from the Ochre course and some of the easier controls from the Navy course, possibly starting a little easy and then getting a little more difficult nearer to the end of the course as you get into the swing. The Navy course will be about 5 to 5.5km long and controls can be as hard as they come, provided they are fair. SENiLe events can also be score events. At these events there will be a time limit in which all competitors attempt to find as many controls as possible. There should be a mixture of controls at a score event, some very easy, some hard, some very near the start or finish, some possibly quite a long distance away, and generally not all of them attainable within the time limit. The skill is judging what you can achieve within the time and then continually revising your plan as you progress. The SENiLe guidelines explain some of the finer points on the courses to be offered.  [Top]

Are there any tips on taking part in night orienteering?

Peter Chapman of SO has put together some good night O tips giving some personal observations on what to expect, what preparation and equipment you need and some general observations on strategy. Check out these night-O tips.  [Top]

How do I score more points?

The most important thing is to have fun. However, if you do really want to try and earn more league points then there are basically 3 ways to earn do this: go to more events, run the most appropriate course and be consistent.

Firstly there are a variable number of events over each season. Attendance at each event will ensure that you get more points but there is a maximum number of results that will be included in the final league results for the season. This is detailed within the guidelines and normally indicated at the start of the season, and certainly will be on the results page of this web site. So if the best 4 results count then as a start it is important to go to at least 4 of the seasons events. If you go to more and have a "bad one" then you at least have a score to drop.

Secondly, it is important to run a course that is appropriate for your skills and fitness. There are more points to be earned by running a longer course but only if you perform reasonably well. So what is the right course? Sprinting round the easy course and winning all the time will maximise points to be earned on this course but would clearly indicate that moving up a course could potentially earn you more points. I suspect that if you can consistently finish within about 15% of the winners time then moving up to the next course may well be beneficial in terms of overall points being scored, but remember the navy course attracts the best orienteers therefore the competition hots up noticeably.

Finally, cut the mistakes. Night-O can frequently be where the tortoise beats the hare. Navigating safe and sound around the course thus turning in a consistent run is probably the way to ensure steady points scoring. The course winners may well run hard at times but the winners also display one other fundamental strategy - they know when to play safe and when a gamble might pay-off. Check out the detailed SENiLe guidelines if you want to see the small print. BOF also issues some rules and guidelines on events. One of the guidelines is specifically aimed at night events and it is expected that SENiLe events follow the broad principles contained within this guideline.  [Top]

How long has the league been running?

Started over the winter of 1986-87 the league has been running every season since then, so far with 18 completed seasons. The number of events held each year has of course varied but there has always been sufficient to have a little fun in finding out who the most consistent night-O performers are within the South East. Information on the history of the SENiLe, results and statistics compiled over the seasons are all available on this site.  [Top]

How do I get better explanations of orienteering terminology?

There is a lot of terminology and acronyms in all sports and activities. Orienteering is no exception. If you really want to find out what something means then you could do worse than to check out the orienteering jargon buster compiled by Ian Ditchfield of Mole Valley.  [Top]