What is Rogaining?

This World Championship, like all classic rogaines, is far more than the just a test of the best . It truly is an event for everyone who enjoys getting out in the natural landscapes that this planet has to offer. The WRC3 will meet and exceed the expectations of all rogainers, beginner, recreational and elite! Rogaining is the sport of long distance cross-country navigation in which teams of two to five members visit as many checkpoints as possible in twenty-four hours. Teams travel entirely on foot, navigating by map and compass between checkpoints in terrain that varies from open farmland to hilly forest. A central base camp provides hot meals throughout the event and teams may return at any time to eat, rest or sleep. Teams travel at their own pace and anyone from children to grandparents can experience the personal satisfaction that comes from cross-country navigation at their own level of competition and comfort.

One feature of rogaining is the opportunity for night navigation and the extra challenges that this involves. Although rogaines are defined as being twelve hours or longer, the classic rogaine is the twenty-four hour event. Rogaining developed as a sport in its own right in the early 1970's, but 24-hour walks had been held since at least 1947. Rogaining is a team activity for people of all ages and levels of fitness. It provides competitors with navigational challenges, a way of enjoying the outdoors, and a sense of achievement.

Once you've started an event, the parts of the course you see are entirely up to you and your team members. You plan your own route! Some teams may cover more than 60km in a 12 hour event or over 100km in an event of 24 hours duration. However, many others may walk only 10km and achieve just as much satisfaction. The enjoyment comes from finding your way around a course that you have chosen and navigating back to the finish. At each event a "hash house", or base camp, provides food and drink for competitors. These refreshments are included in the entry fees for the event. Teams may return to the 'hash house' at any time during the event (after 16:00 hrs or 4:00pm) and as often as they like for food, rest, sleep, and conversation.

These World Rogaining Championships will be the Third WRC's and the first to be held outside Australia. Classes of entry : Mens, Womens and Mixed in Open (<40), Veterans (40-54), Super Veterans (55+). If you've never "rogained" before and want to share in the festivities, get your feet "wet" in the "12 in 24" hour Recreational event. Perpetual trophies, medals (top three in each competitive category) plus the adulation?? of your peers await the victors. Beautiful country, great food (and local beverages) and the company of many international "friends" will be the hallmarks of this World Rogaining Championship.

Rogaining History

Rogaining was started in Victoria, Australia in 1976, and the Victorian Rogaining Association celebrated the 20th anniversary of that first rogaine with the recent Victorian Championships at Tallarook. On this occasion, a plaque was erected to commemorate the first rogaine, and at its unveiling, the founders of the sport, Neil and Rod Phillips, said a few words about the early years.

Transport yourself back to 1976. Rogaining did not exist. What does exist are several private walking events, differing from each other in many ways, but with some common themes. Melbourne University each year has a 24 hour walk and you have been on a few intervarsity 24 hour hiking competitions which were a challenge and great fun. Two or three schools take their senior students on an overnight long distance navigation exercise once a year. And your local Rover crew has run a 24 hour hike for three years. With several friends, you have helped organize some of these events, and over this three year period two things have happened. One was that you have altered several aspects of the events (terrain, marketing, event style) until they have become what we would now recognize as a rogaine. The other was that you have developed a vision that this activity could be a sport with considerable appeal to the public.

A sport? The idea was bizarre to most people who had been on one of the related events for university and school bushwalkers and to absolutely everyone who had not. That was where we found ourselves in March, 1976. There were a couple of problems. First, the sport had no name. We explored a great variety of alternatives, usually hopeless, before realizing we would have to invent a word. Even that was not easy. (Try it for yourself! Come up with a new name for squash.) Many new "words" were tried but were inappropriate for a number of reasons such as sounding wrong, not being able to form the necessary parts of speech, wrong number of syllables. We used many ways of trying to construct words and finally accepted "rogaining, rogaine, - rogainer".

The second problem was no structure for the sport. Four of us created a "Victorian Rogaining Association" in May, 1976, and, having no resources ourselves, sought help from the Surrey Thomas Rover Crew to organize and publicise the first event in November, 1976. To their credit, STR had the foresight to share their already successful event with this previously unheard of group. The success of that event enabled us to run rogaines by ourselves from the following year although we were heavily dependent on STR for equipment until we had money to purchase tents two years later.

The major strategy of the VRA was to organize events with minimal emphasis on competition and maximal emphasis on teams enjoying themselves. The VRA and STR were committed to service and total quality management years before major companies picked up on these concepts in the next decade. On each event (e. g. two hundred competitors), all teams were met whenever they returned to the hash house. Course setters chatted to them about the route they had chosen and what they thought of the course and checkpoints. Logs around the camp fire provided easy seating. Catering staff asked them what they wanted to eat and drink and brought it to them. In this atmosphere, growth of the sort was phenomenal. No-one fussed about shorter events, they loved going on 24 hour events.

In 1979, an Australian Rogaining Association was created and soon after the VRA agreed to join. Two years later WARA was formed and also joined. Within another year, almost seven hundred people attended an event at Clonbinane and membership exceeded one thousand. Interestingly, the ARA was started without any member associations, and its legitimacy grew as it was recognized as the appropriate national body by those active in the sport. Much later it developed a constitution and become incorporated.

Those first years give us useful clues as to where the VRA might go from here. Looking back, I see trends

more clearly now than I did when I was on the VRA committee during the first decade.

1. As the sport continued to grow during the 1980s, we moved away from service, from making teams feel

important. All the effort put into talking to teams, getting feedback, acting on it, pampering them at hash

houses and the like did not seem worthwhile.

2. The competitive side of events began to overwhelm participation. Initially, it was fun to have multiple

section winners and championship events, but no-one took them more seriously than they deserved. Does it matter that this has changed? Yes. Because the emphasis on competition plays a key factor in the public perception of the sport and events. For example, much of the publicity for a Victorian Championship event could be aimed at teams coming to enjoy the weekend and sleep much of the night. It need never mention the Championships or competition. This would tap a market .currently overlooked, the very market that was tapped during the initial growth period. That market is still there.

THE RULES OF ROGAINING

Rogaining is the sport of long distance cross-country navigation for teams travelling on foot. The object is to score points by finding checkpoints located in the rogaine area within a specified time (twenty-four hours at championship rogaines). Checkpoints may be visited in any order. Teams wishing to be regarded as competitive must abide by all of these Rules. Since rogaining has a recreational as well as a competitive aspect, it is expected that a rogaine course will also be open to people who are by virtue of one or more of these rules ineligible for a placing in the competition. Members of such teams must abide by rules 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20 and 21.

DEFINITION

"On the course" means anywhere a team travels during the time of the rogaine but specifically excludes areas in the proximity of an administration area designated for competitors' use by the organizers, for example for parking

or camping.

ENTRIES

1. A team shall consist of two, three, four or five members.

2. A team which has a member under fourteen years of age shall also have a member over nineteen (Canada) years of age.

3. Competition placings may be awarded in several sections based for example on the age and gender composition of teams. Each team shall be deemed to be entered for all sections of the competition for which it is eligible.

4. No member of a team shall have been involved with the organization of the rogaine so as to have a prior familiarity with the rogaine course or the fieldwork of the rogaine map.

RESPECT FOR LAND AND PROPERTY

5. Competitors shall respect public and private property.

(a) Competitors shall not cross newly sown ground, growing crops, or any area deemed out-of-bounds by the organizers.

(b) Competitors shall keep a reasonable distance from dwellings and stock with young.

(c) Competitors shall take all due care when crossing fences, crossing at corner posts or solid posts wherever possible. Each team shall leave gates in the same position as they were found.

(d) Competitors shall not discard litter.

(e) Competitors shall not light fires on the course. Fires may only be lit in administration areas if expressly allowed by the organizers.

(f) Competitors shall not smoke on the course.

(g) Competitors shall not unduly damage or disturb native flora or fauna.

(h) Dogs and firearms are prohibited.

CONDUCT OF COMPETITORS

6. After obtaining map and checkpoint information, competitors shall not leave the start area until the official start is signalled.

7. The only navigational aids that may be carried on the course are compasses, watches and copies of the specified rogaine map. The possession of other navigational aids on the course is prohibited, and the possession

of relevant maps other than those expressly sanctioned by the organizers is prohibited at the event site.

8. Competitors shall travel only on foot unless specified otherwise by the organizers.

9. Members of a team shall at all times remain sufficiently close together that verbal contact is possible.

10. A team shall surrender its score card to any organizer on request.

11. A team shall not accept assistance from nor collaborate with other people, nor deliberately follow another team.

12. No food or equipment shall be left on the course before the event for a team's use, and no food or equipment shall be discarded on the course unless retrieved by the team before the team finishes the event.

13. Each competitor shall carry a whistle at all times.

14. Competitors shall abide by any further conditions specified by the organizers, which shall not be such as to change substantially the spirit of these rules, and which shall be approved by the organizing association.

CHECKPOINTS

15. All team members shall approach to within twenty metres of and within sight of each checkpoint for which points are claimed.

16. A team shall record its visit to a checkpoint by punching a single sheet (normally the score card provided by the organizers) with the punch at the checkpoint marker and by filling in the intention sheet at the checkpoint with the time of arrival, the team number and the number of the checkpoint that they intend to next visit.

17. A team may record punch marks on any single sheet and this will be accepted by the organizers in the event of the score card being lost, so long as the punch marks are discernable, and the team can inform the organizers of the checkpoint number for each of the punch marks.

18. Competitors shall not deliberately rest within one hundred metres of a checkpoint. The organizers may, however, waive this rule with respect to any particular checkpoints.

19. Competitors shall not interfere with a checkpoint, water drop or any other facility placed upon the course by the organizers.

ADMINISTRATION AREAS

20. Whenever a team visits an administration area, all team members are required to report together to the organizers and surrender their team's score card. The team shall only collect its score card immediately prior to leaving the administration area.

21. A team shall finish by all of the members reporting together to an administration area and surrendering their score card. (Teams breaching this rule risk being responsible for a police search.)

22. If a competitor wishes to withdraw from a team for any reason the entire team shall return to an administration area and notify the organizers. The original team shall be deemed to have finished the event. If a new team is formed it may be admitted to the competition at the discretion of the organizers but no points shall be credited for checkpoints already visited.

23. A team shall not be eligible for a placing in the competition unless it finishes at the designated "finish" administration area.

PENALTIES AND PROTESTS

24. A team may protest in writing to the organizers within thirty minutes of the nominated finish about any team thought to have breached these rules.

25. The penalty for breaching these rules is disqualification, except for rules 16 and 18 for which the penalty is the loss of points for the checkpoint under consideration.

26. A team which is not satisfied with any decision of the organizers may appeal in writing to the committee of the organizing association within seven days of the publication of the official results. This committee shall have the power to overrule the organizers and to amend the results accordingly.

SCORING

27. The event shall end at precisely the set number of hours after the actual starting time according to the organizers' clock. For a championship event, this shall be twenty four hours after the actual starting time. Teams finishing late will be penalized at the rate per minute or part thereof specified in advance by the organizers. Teams finishing more than thirty minutes late shall be deemed ineligible for a placing and their result shall be recorded as LATE.

28. A team's score shall be the value of the checkpoints visited less any penalties. The team with the greater score, or in the event of a tie, the team which finished earlier, shall be awarded the higher placing.

29. In the event of a damaged, misplaced or missing checkpoint, scoring shall be as follows:

(a) If the intention sheet is missing or has no space left, full points shall be awarded for recording the correct punch mark.

(b) If the punch is missing or damaged, full points shall be awarded for a correct record on the intention sheet.

(c) If both (a) and (b) occur, then full points shall be awarded for a correct verbal description of the location of the checkpoint.

(d) Full points shall be awarded for correctly recording a visit to a misplaced checkpoint.

(e) Full points shall be awarded if a team can satisfy the organizers that they have visited the correct site of a misplaced or missing checkpoint.

(f) Any other eventuality shall be scored at the organizers' discretion.

GENERAL

30. In the event of an emergency, a team shall give any assistance asked for. In such a case the assisting team shall not be penalized for breaking any rules in the course of giving assistance.

31. The organizers shall at all times be guided by a sense of fair play.

These rules were adopted by the Council of the Australian Rogaining Association on July 30, 1993, to take effect at all rogaining events in Australia from January 1, 1994.

These rules are submitted to the International Rogaining Federation on November 1, 1996 for ratification, and to take effect at all rogaining events.