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Controllers Comments    Planners Comments (Day event)    Planners Comments (Night Event)    Organisers Comments

Controller’s Comments

Roger had a lot to contend with in having to revise his courses several times, but in the end he made good use of the area. The only comments I received about the courses were good ones.

 It is the best time of year to use this area. The area is now maturing nicely, the dense Summer vegetation has died back somewhat, but there is still enough to make navigation difficult, and some kind person even mowed the long grass on the open areas to make it faster running. It was nice to have the Start and Finish in the North of the area to give a different perspective, but unfortunately the parking is very limited (not that the parking at the other end is extensive!). I hope we did not upset any residents (or competitors) by having to park on the roads. 

The farmer who had cattle in the finish field (longer courses) was upset that we ran across the field in lots of directions, as we spooked the pregnant cattle, (although the field does have a public footpath across it). If we use this field again we must remember to keep him informed and probably limit the use of control sites to those near the footpath. The Working Men’s Club were pleased we made use of their facilities. They did just run out of sausages, and there was not much choice of vegetarian fare, but I can heartily recommend the bacon butties – do try them if we use this facility again 

We were also very lucky with the weather. Hopefully this added to your enjoyment of your courses.

Thelma Spalton

Planners Comments

Hopefully the event was improved by starting from somewhere different. The two road crossings limit the use of the area a bit. However, once I had decided to use the south crossing, the shorter courses had to go straight down the west side and then back. I hope you found some variety, in the dense young trees, tip slopes and open land! You probably got quite good at recognising a vegetation boundary too. I am sure the elephant tracks were a big help to later starters.

Thanks to Thelma who had rather a lot of course revisions to comment upon as changes were made as to how the area could be used. I think we had the best weather when checking the harder sites in early September, we even needed sun block on! I used OCAD for the first time; fortunately I got the correct maps scale before the event. However 50% longer courses would not have troubled the fastest on the longer courses. Thanks to Don Moir for helping me getting the map to the final print quality and also resurveying and adding various map corrections so I could use some new sites/tripods.

The loss of equipment the previous week end (Thieves Wood) lead to some makeshift changes, I was wary about the new numbers staying on. But they were there when they were collected in.

We had a few shortages of pre printed maps which lead to a couple of later competitors having delayed starts. At least it was not the first competitor taking all the maps! Next time I also need to remember to put the spare master maps and blanks at the start and not in Registration.

Having a night event in the same area before hand helps in putting the controls out; especially so with a helper, thanks Gerry Spalton.

Roger Edwards

Night event

I wanted the courses to go the opposite way round to the day event and for safety only to have one Road crossing. So the ochre course was rather limited as I wanted to use the east part of the map, but the easier controls were all on the west side of the area, with hind sight the course was far too difficult! The Light Olive was perhaps a bit easy on the west side but hopefully you found it a bit harder from the road crossing. The night courses were intended to be as an overprint on the old map to give a contrast with the new map the following day, but you cannot use a map correction as a site so this was abandoned.

I hope those hardy souls who turned out enjoyed themselves; may be I’ll try one myself another time.

Roger Edwards

Organisers Comments

Many thanks to all the helpers as usual they all took charge of there own domains, leaving me ferrying registration slips. Organising is easy with such great help .Please ring Chris Phillips and volunteer.

Roger and Thelma were a great support and did a lot of great work to make the event the success it was. We even had members of the England team and the Newbold brownies, all beginners. That's what orienteering's all about.

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