Our traditional foot-orienteering events with a full range of courses yoyo around depending on whether we do any biggies that pull people from far and wide. They were slightly up on last year and within the scatter we have had. Surprisingly the Park/Street/Trail events (which you might say are our bread and butter) were low. These are where course planners learn the ropes, without having to worry about big numbers or course difficulty requirements.
The last three years have been good ones for MTB-orienteering, no doubt helped by the Akatarawa Attack. But also this year the Brownie (beginner) events contributed a lot to the figures. Foot-O and MTBO each produce about a fifth of our participation.
The biggest part (60%) comes from rogaines. You might think it's expanded by the 3-hour units from long events, but the proportion would still be over half if we just counted starters. And its not the number of events either, which are one third. It's the big contribution made by the City Safari. This accounts for over 20% of the participation on its own!
In 1997 we narrowly decided not to close up. The resurgence of the club owes a lot to two things: we schedule events that people are prepared to organise; and by trying different forms of orienteering we've discovered how to reduce the work. Most of our events are close to home.
Here are the stats alongside those from previous years. And below is a list of the volunteers who made this possible. There are over 70, thanks heaps!
| Year | Traditional Events | Park/Street/Trail Events | Rogaines | MTB-Orienteering | Total | No. | Av Particip |
| 1999 | 478 (51%) | 382 (41%) | 76 (8%) | 0 (0%) | 936 (100%) | 16 | 58 |
| 2000 | 97 (10%) | 383 (40%) | 317 (33%) | 153 (16%) | 950 (100%) | 19 | 50 |
| 2001 | 611 (45%) | 404 (29%) | 44 (3%) | 312 (23%) | 1371 (100%) | 23 | 60 |
| 2002 | 220 (17%) | 422 (34%) | 425 (34%) | 186 (15%) | 1253 (100%) | 24 | 52 |
| 2003 | 374 (26%) | 390 (27%) | 433 (31%) | 222 (16%) | 1419 (100%) | 25 | 57 |
| 2004 | 569 (32%) | 414 (23%) | 502 (28%) | 314 (17%) | 1799 (100%) | 27 | 67 |
| 2005 | 208 (9%) | 527 (23%) | 1327 (58%) | 224 (10%) | 2286 (100%) | 36 | 63 |
| 2006 | 780 (19%) | 320 (8%) | 2618 (64%) | 376 (9%) | 4094 (100%) | 34 | 120 |
| 2007 | 263 (12%) | 414 (20%) | 1005 (48%) | 349 (20%) | 2105 (100%) | 29 | 73 |
| 2008 | 276 (13%) | 196 (9%) | 1257 (60%) | 373 (18%) | 2102 (100%) | 27 | 78 |
(The fine print. A "participation" in most events is a person who starts. In 2003 we didn't count people in groups except for rogaines, so the figures for trad and park/trail events for that year are a bit low. Rogaines can be much more substantial efforts than orienteering, so one rogaine "participation" is counted for each person for each 3-hour unit rounded to an integer, eg 2-4hrs is 1, 5-7hrs is 2 etc. If we counted each rogainer at par, 2008 participation would be 1723. The Ak Attack is counted as MTBO, not rogaine. 2006 was inflated by the Tararua 24, a national championship and being 24hrs many participants counted as 8 units. And we also ran the NISS Champs (2 major traditional events) besides an OY. The figures may not be the same as reported by NZOF because of (a) timing differences and (b) we count the Ak Attack even tho HVMBC takes the lead role every other year.