SportsShoes.com X British Orienteering Maprun Challenge

After hearing about the exciting virtual orienteering course available on the free Maprun app, SportsShoes.com asked British Orienteering to create a 60-minute virtual orienteering event for their entire workforce as part of a staff social.

Prizes were lined up, ranging from pairs of trainers to electric scooters, with special Street O t-shirts, bags and a Street O podium created!

The aim? With your partner, visit as many of the 60 checkpoints dotted around the Shipley HQ as you can in an hour! Checkpoints are worth differing points between 10-50, meaning tactics on which ones to go played a big part. The checkpoints work via a phone’s GPS function, and are interactive, turning from purple to green when visited, there’s also live timings and scores on the app.

Staff were paired with people from different departments, many of whom had not met before, before being unleashed in Shipley, armed with a mobile phone and map. Live tracking meant you could see where the pairs were heading and racking up the points, and as the time limit ticked by which ones *may* be late back – which would lose them points!

As the teams made their way back to HQ, the live results screen was a popular place to be as staff watched themselves either tumble or rise through the leaderboard! Being also able to see everybody’s tracks of where they had visited mean that the competitive ones were seeing where they had lost points or were above their colleagues.

Not only did the Maprun Challenge get SportsShoes.com staff out and active for 60 minutes, but it also enabled different departments to meet and get to know each other – it’s difficult to not engage with somebody you’re out exploring the streets with for an hour.

We were thrilled to be able to create these experiences for SportsShoes.com and show off the fantastic sport of orienteering! If you are wanting to learn more about how to utilise these activities for your own company, please email khawke@britishorienteering.org.uk . 

Chris Barnes – Thank you so much for a brilliant event last night. Thoroughly enjoyable and frustrating, which obviously had me up studying maps and looking how to run it faster and wiser!

Check out the British Orienteering RIA Alliance Partner profile here  .