About HOC
We are affiliated to British Orienteering, the national governing body for orienteering.
Harlequins are long established and successful orienteering club. Our membership and mapped areas fall within an area centred south-west of Birmingham, bounded in the west by Leominster, in the north Walsall and Dudley, in the south Malvern and in the east the M42. These boundaries are not formalised and there is sometimes a degree of overlap with our neighbour clubs
OD Octavian Droobers (Warwickshire)
POTOC Potteries OC (North Staffs)
MWOC Mid-Wales Orienteering Club
WCH Walton Chasers (Cannock Chase area)
WRE Wrekin Orienteers (North Shropshire)
Our better small orienteering areas lie on an outcrop of sandstone running from Stourport, north-east to Himley. We have access to larger areas suitable for higher-status events in the Wyre forest and hills in South Shropshire/North Herefordshire.
There is still some argument about exactly when the club was founded, but the generally agreed date is April 1st 1968. In our early years we absorbed Halesowen Orienteering Club and spawned Wrekin Orienteering Club. More recently, 2023 saw the merger of Harlequins with neighbouring City of Birmingham Orienteering Club. For more about the history of the club and where the bones of contention are buried, go to our history page.
We are fortunate to have a wealth of experience in mapping, planning and organising events, with an active mapping team and a host of mapped areas.
We are affiliated to the West Midlands Orienteering Association (WMOA) and normally hold a couple of West Midlands League events each year and one or two West Midlands Urban league events. We organise national competitions as they are allocated throught the WMOA, sometimes as part of a multi-day event run in association with neighbouring clubs. On ‘odd-numbered’ years HOC co-organise ‘Springtime in Shropshire’ over the late spring bank holiday.
We also have a programme of less formal events, including the Winter Evening and Night Street Leagues and the Summer Series. We also hold the annual ‘June Jaunter’ on Clent and Walton Hills – the nearest you can get to a fell race within 10 miles of Birmingham City Centre.