Organisers Comments     Planners Comments     Controllers Comments

Organiser's Comments

Unfortunately I failed to organise the weather, but at least you had the best of it. The planners, Colin and Chris, had to endure two days of getting drenched.

I would like to apologise to the competitor who encountered a gamekeeper near the southern edge of the woods. There were no controls in the disputed area and without any out of bounds marking on the map it was a valid route choice. We are currently clarifying ownership and extent of permission. Hopefully this will avoid future confrontation. 

Lastly I would like thank the Forestry Commission for all their assistance and cooperation, the LEI helpers, Mr S. Claus, Thelma, Roger and Margaret Keeling from DVO and especially, you, the competitors for making it all worthwhile.

Found property:-    a. Grey thermos flask.
                             b. Cuddly toy (elephant resplendent in green suit, answers to the name of Babar.)

To claim either phone 01572 755419.

Ian Wells

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Planner's Comments

Luckily the rain receded for the event itself but for the deployment and collection of controls we had cold and continuous rain. So it is with much gratitude that I thank Colin for his support throughout the planning process, Ian for his valuable advice and practical help in the forest and also Roger Edwards his help on the Saturday. Many thanks also to Peter Leverington for his prompt work on all the late map amendments.
 
In hindsight, the autumn was not the best time for events at Wakerley as the map revisions and planning were done when the undergrowth was at its worst. The courses were designed to avoid the worst of the brambles but they have spread considerably in the last few years. Other constraints with the map limited our options and some compromises were made which hopefully did not reduce the challenge on most legs. 

Winning time for most courses seem to indicate that the course lengths were about right except for Course 8 was too short. Having avoided to thorns and brambles with the 70+ classes in mind I failed to ensure adequate length for the W50S class. A late control position change to a line feature due to ongoing coppicing also reduced the quality of courses 8 and 9. The new BOF class combinations were used for this event, which mainly affect courses 4,5 and 6. It would be interesting to know if anyone on these courses felt their distances were unsuitable. 
As this was the first event when some maps were printed on LEI’s new laser printer. These were for courses 7 to 12. I did not hear any adverse comments from competitors about the print quality and so I think we can count this a success.

Chris Bosley
 

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Controllers Comments:

I controlled a colour coded (sorry-district) event last year in June. In my comments then, I said that early Spring was the best time to hold an event in Wakerley. Having said that, the dry summer has improved things, even from that event. OK, there are still a lot of brambles, but the relatively dry conditions made running a lot easier.

Chris and Colin avoided the worst of the brambles, and I think produced the best of courses for the area. As Chris said, map updating was a continuous process, but it is very disappointing that a couple of areas couldn't be used because the map wasn't correct.

It is very difficult to comment on (or adjust) the badge times, as there were so few on a lot of classes, and a lot of people were 'running up'. However, all the planning (and course combinations) was done to the new BOF guidelines. A complaint that the W50S was too short is probably justified for the class, but this is more to do with the recommended classes within the course, than the wrong length being planned. That course was probably 300 m short, compared with the recommended ratios within the guidelines. Would we get complaints if the W50S were put in with the W45S instead?

The control 120 (small depression) was a bit of a problem on some courses. I haven't managed to get out and check it yet, but I suspect that the depressions are correct with respect to each other, but wrong against the outside attack points. Apologies to all those affected.

Thanks to all of the LEI team for a very well organised and successful event. I heard many comments that people were surprised how the area had matured, and improved. let's hope that this continues, and in turn entice more people to attend.

Ian Whitehead.

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