Results for LEI District Event, Swithland Woods, 08/05/2004

Organiser's comments.

There was quite a good turnout for this event considering the bad weather early in the day and the fact that it was a Saturday. In fact, the weather was quite good for later runners, but there was still plenty of water in the woods.

Having the comfort of the Cropston Visitor Centre with indoor registration and download helped immensely on a day of poor weather, though the downside is the distance from the start. It causes logistical problems for organisation and makes it difficult, as early helpers can end up doing a very long stint and a late run whilst waiting for early starters to get back to help. I'd like to thank all helpers on the day, I tried to get a few new people involved and we had a new "string course team" for this event. Again, due to the weather, we had far fewer string course entrants than we would have liked.

Everything worked well on the day. The planner and controller spend most of the event out in the woods so tend not to hear the comments, but many runners were appreciative of their efforts with thanks and good reports about the courses.

Bob Haskins

bobh@piperdrive.org.uk

Controller's Comments

Earlier this year I accepted the invitation to be a controller and was immediately offered the job of controlling this event!

Only one problem was brought to my attention and this concerned the Brown course which had two master maps, both of which were located at the start. Prior to the introduction of electronic punching a few years ago it was common to place any 2nd Master Maps out in the forest to stop (discourage?) competitors from taking controls out of order. When electronic punching stopped competitors from taking controls out of order someone realised that both maps could be located at the start. Not only does this get round the problem of putting out map boards and descriptions in the forest but it also eliminates other problems such as lost pens and removing wet maps from bags. This change was a bit of a shock to regular competitors because it was a new idea, but now seems to be fairly common practice where 2 master maps are required for clarity on longer courses at colour coded events. The final instructions flyer given to competitors stated that both Brown master maps would be at the start. The Brown master map board clearly stated that both maps had to be copied down and had the descriptions list located between the two maps with arrows linking the relevant controls to their respective maps. Unfortunately, it appeared that this was not enough and I accept that it would have been desirable to have had either a large sign near to the start line telling Brown competitors to copy down both maps or one of the start officials reminding them of this.

Alastair planned the courses using what I consider is probably about the minimum number of controls for the range of courses offered. While this may have meant that some of the controls were perhaps a little easy for their technical standard it seems, from comments received at the finish, that this might have contributed to some competitors dropping their concentration on some of the subsequent legs. One SI box failed to work but this was replaced before 10am. Perhaps if the weather had been much nicer we would have had more competitors but at least it stopped raining not long after all the controls had been put out.

Lost To some consternation and screaming until it was recovered - one little girl's wellington boot in the bog near the finish!

Provisional Results for LEI District Event, Swithland Woods, 08/05/2004