You may have been wondering why we changed the assembly to Ibstock from the car park in Battram? The idea was to give the shorter courses in particular a chance to access the northern part of the area. The tight parking in Pretoria road meant that it would only be suitable for an informal event, and in order to get a short course that did more than follow the field edges (and save all of you from even more dead running), a remote start was really needed.

There were a large number of retirals on medium and although I'm sure that the rain played a part, there were a few things I might have changed. It sounded as control number 1 caused problems. Having recced the site from both sides, I didn't think it would be a problem. Perhaps it would have been better a few controls in once you were used to the map or alternatively that part avoided. In addition, I think medium could have done with higher density of controls, perhaps removing one of the long legs from Battram and making use of SI to give another loop in Workman's wood.

Using hides can be a bit of a cop out, but I think it's worth it to give some running legs in workman's wood. The high grass actually meant that you had to navigate fairly close, but I'd hope that with compass and pacing (or following the tracks later on), you would not have had problems. I triangulated the locations off the block corners and the distinctive trees and fence in the SE block.

Overall, I hope that you did enjoy the event as much as could be expected in atrocious weather. Next time the area is used, it is likely to be from the Battram end again, and in a few years time I'm hoping that Common Hill will have grown to a reasonable height and have a few more features and of course that the Workmans wood remains as runnable.

Many thanks to Peter Hornsby for help with registration and for enduring a soaking whilst colleccting in controls.

Mark Foxwell