the next day. I set off in a comfortable second place on the third leg but a
180 degree mistake on the last control left our team in 4th. It was just
enough to give England the relay and the individual team trophies and
therefore the overall prize. I really enjoyed the experience of running for
England and I hope that I will be asked to do it again. Thanks to AIRE for
contributing to the cost of the weekend.
        Last weekend (24th and 25th of October) I went down on the train with
Hector and Victoria to Stafford for 3 days Start Squad training on Cannock
Chase. We used a variety of areas on the Chase and we did a number of
exercises to improve different bits of our orienteering. We also had a few
mini races and a relay. This was also a great new experience and I am
looking forward to the next Start Squad weekend training which is in
February.

I'm sure many of you will have read articles in Juniaires about people going on Summer Tours, and I'm sure quite a lot of you will recognize the "Start Squad" Jack talks about in his article even if you're not quite sure what it is. So I thought I'd tell you a little about it and how you can get on it. If you have run at Green standard you can join the YHOA junior squad. Here you will be able to go to training days and weekends and receive coaching to improve your orienteering. When you reach the top year of the M/W14 category the YHOA junior squad manager (Tony Carlyle) chooses  (usually) one boy and one girl to go to Lagganlia in Scotland for a weeks training from national coaches, and these choices are based on impressions gained from YHOA squad training. If you go to Lagganlia and impress the selectors there you may be put on the Start Program. If you're older than 2^nd year M14 you can still be selected for the Start Program if you run well in the selection races. Dates for these can be found in Route Choice #5 or on the BOF website, but the races are usually around March/April period and always include the JK. If you're on the Start Program you can attend 2 training weekends organized by BOF (one in autumn the other in spring) and you get funding for your orienteering from Sport England.
          Joe Mercer

(….and even if you don't quite qualify for the Start Program, you can apply for financial support to Sports Aid, Yorkshire and Humberside and to the Jack Bloor Fund  ...if in doubt, ask the club committee.  Eds)