Regretfully, Orienteering Wellington and Orienteering New Zealand have come to the joint decision to postpone the NZ Orienteering Championships 2020. We believe that this is in the best interest of our orienteering community at this time. The decision to postpone is due to the unfolding presence of COVID-19 in New Zealand.
COVID-19 is a highly communicable virus and has widespread implications for public health. You can find out more about COVID-19 from the World Health Organisation. Guidelines specific to New Zealand are provided by the Ministry of Health.
We had always intended to take precautions but given the Government’s firm stance against indoor or outdoor gatherings of 500 or more people – around the level of previous Nationals attendance – we feel it is too much of a risk to proceed. We know that people have many concerns at this time and we wish to provide you with certainty.
Refunds
We will be in contact with everyone who has entered to date to offer a full refund using the email address provided when the entry was made. Please appreciate that contacting everyone and processing refunds may take some time. However, if you haven’t heard from us by Sunday 29 March, please let us know by contacting Gerald Crawford at treasurer@wellingtonorienteering.org.nz.
Looking forward
We hope that you appreciate our reasons for this decision and that we are responding to a situation beyond our control. We were all looking forward to getting the chance to run on some fantastic terrain this Easter. We had commissioned new maps and updates for these areas and we, along with Orienteering NZ, remain optimistic that we will be able to use these maps and courses later in the year. As such, the posted embargoes for Nationals areas remain in place beyond Easter and until such time as they are lifted by us.
We will provide more information here and via the Nationals newsletter when the situation changes.
Stay safe everyone.