• Orienteering club founded in 1977
• Based in Kauniainen, active in the whole Helsinki metropolitan area
• Organises orienteering activities for children, youth and adults
• Member of the Finnish Orienteering Federation and Finlands Svenska Orienteringsförbund
• Approximately 350 members

History

OK 77 was founded on 12 December 1977 in Kauniainen. After an autumn-long lively public discussion, a meeting was held at the Kauniainen youth centre on 22 November 1977. The meeting decided to found a new orienteering club.

The decision was made in a historical environment: the first ever Finnish civil orienteering competition started from the yard of the youth centre (then Grankulla samskola) on 4 November 1923. OK77 later honoured the event by arranging a national competition in 1983 called Suomen Suunnistus 60 vuotta, "Finnish Orienteering 60 years".

The idea behind the new club was to unite the Swedish-speaking clubs in the Helsinki area. These clubs had done pioneering work in the Finnish orienteering history, but had seen their best days in the late 1970’s. Amongst them were HIFK (the club which organised the first competition in Finland), IK Örnen (the first orienteering club in Finland), Grankulla IFK, Esbo IF and several little clubs with only a handful of active members: Kilo IF, Drumsö IK (Dicken), Kronohagens IF (Kiffen), Kruunuhaan Reima and Kyrkslätt IF.

The plan didn’t quite succeed, as only GrIFK (from Kauniainen) gave up orienteering activity to benefit the new club. This made it of course easier to choose the home base for the club. Most of the other clubs mentioned earlier have since died out. When founded, the new club had 66 members, of whom almost a third were new orienteers.