The North Gloucestershire Orienteering Club are celebrating an important milestone next year.

The club will be enjoying their 50th anniversary and it promises to be a great year for the 150 or so members who, quite literally, run for fun.

Except that there’s a little bit more to orienteering that just running because competitors are armed with a map and a compass and have to navigate their way round a course, which involves checking in at control points along the way.

Getting around an orienteering course that can be up to eight kilometres long requires a bit of nous as well as stamina and running ability and it’s easy to see why the sport is such a popular past time.

“Our members are scattered all over Gloucestershire,” said fixtures secretary Greg Best. “We hold a couple of orienteering events every month and we can get a couple of hundred people taking part.”

Those events – which are open to anyone – take place all over the county.

“We hold events in the Cotswolds, on Cleeve Hill, in Cranham Woods, on Minchinhamtpn Common and in the Forest of Dean,” continued Best.

“They are normally held in woodland but we also hold events in towns, we’ve had people running round the streets in Cheltenham, Gloucester and Stroud.”

At any given event there may be six different courses to accommodate different abilities and ages from eight to 80 – the races are individual – and Best estimates that an 8km course would take the winner about an hour to complete.

Mind you, some of the competitors may run a little more than 8km.

“Yes,” chuckled Best, “if they get lost and end up taking a more circuitous route!”

Fortunately that hasn’t happened to Best too often who, at the age of 57 “still competes but not very competitively”.

He has been a member of North Gloucestershire Orienteering Club for the past two decades and has been orienteering for twice as long.

The club don’t have an HQ but Best says there is a very active committee driving the club forward headed by chairman Tom Mills.

Ask Best who is the best orienteer at the club and he hesitates before settling on Andy Munro.

So what’s his secret?

“He’s very good, he’s fast and doesn’t make mistakes,” said Best.

Anyone who wants to know more about North Gloucestershire Orienteering Club should visit ngoc.org.uk