The participation came from 32 events, more than one a fortnight. If you like your orienteering in different shapes and sizes there's always something on; and if you prefer one of the types you can find additional events being run by our neighbours and national events further away. A dozen members even competed in other countries!
Stand by for some more statistics! The average participation was 73. But that was skewed by the City Safari, which became NZ's largest rogaine with 540 people, and 680 participation units. At the other end, some park events had single-figure participation! However these are learning opportunities both for participants and planners.
Our traditional foot-orienteering events with a full range of courses yoyo around depending on how many people put their hands up to run them. They were significantly up on last year, while the park events were down. Traditional orienteering events plus Park/Street/Trail events provide a fifth of the figures; and so does MTBO. The last four years have been good ones for MTB-orienteering, no doubt helped by the Akatarawa Attack. But the Brownie (beginner) events contribute a lot to the figures.
The biggest chunk (60%) comes from rogaines. You might think it's expanded by the multiplier from long events, but the proportion would still be over half if we just counted starters. In fact "rogaines" are getting shorter and shorter, some of them aren't even team score events, but it seems that lots of people like what they get. And they are easy to plan so there are lots of offers to put on events.
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 key volunteers who made this possible. There are over 40, plus probably another 30 who helped with on-the-day jobs. 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 |
| 2009 | 384 (17%) | 126 (5%) | 1433 (61%) | 384 (17%) | 2327 (100%) | 32 | 73 |
(The fine print. A "participation" in most events is a person who starts. Rogaines can be much longer 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, 2009 participation would still be over 2000 - 2097. The Ak Attack is counted as MTBO, and the foot or bike rogaine as a 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.