Firstly, many thanks to all who turned out on Sunday, in what were glorious (but cold) weather conditions. It was a massive turnout (for an LEI event). I hope you had a fantastic run and enjoyed, the beautiful but physically challenging area of The Outwoods.
The day started brilliantly. I arrived very early at The Beacon to find the barrier down, which meant no paying and no cars queuing down the road waiting to get into the car park, as was the case last year! Also, unlike last year, the toilets were open from the crack of dawn, (no ringing the ranger). So a great start!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Roger (Controller) and Bob (Planner) for all their advice in the last few weeks. Thanks also to the team of helpers on the day…the Start and the Finish Team, to the Road Marshals, the Registration Girls and the Download Guys and Ladies (Kev you’re a star). Massive thanks to the many Control Collectors (sorry you got so cold waiting around) and you were awesome again Car Parking Team! I would like to thank John Cooke for his advice also. Also I would like to thank Ursula for my fantastic Birthday cake (please don’t ever move clubs Ursula).
As far as I know we had two injured casualties. One for lacerations to the fingers from the undergrowth. This was quite a nasty injury. Also a gentleman scratched and bruised an eye and was struggling to see out of it. Thankfully I believe neither of these gentlemen were driving home. Thank you Howard for your First Aid skills.
Happy New Year All Orienteers everywhere and let’s hope all the East Midland Clubs have a brilliant 2014!
Nigel Lydon
It was a frosty morning when I started putting out the controls about an hour before daylight. However, it turned out to be a nice day for running, and we seemed to get a good window between some rather bad weather systems. It was also pleasing to see such a good turnout at an LEI event. The going underfoot was not as bad as I had feared. There are always some wet parts at The Outwoods, but nothing too terrible. The most runnable parts of the area are to the North of the car park, and this is where I put in the butterfly loops on the longer courses, which also used the open area to the North, to give some variety and a chance for a good bit of running.
Although The Outwoods is relatively small, the geography makes it possible to plan reasonably physical courses and so make up the relative distance with some climbing around the crag areas and near the car park. I like to think that this was “making best use of the area”. I noticed when putting out controls, that there had been some significant tree falls in the last couple of weeks, including around one location where we had changed the map in order to use a rootstock, so I hope this did not cause too much confusion.
I’d like to thank Nigel for Organising, and who coped well with the event car park being some distance from the start/finish, but with the turnout we couldn’t have used the Outwoods parking as it is much too small. I only made one brief visit to registration/download but everything seemed to be going well, and Nigel also provided a good number of control collectors, which was much appreciated after a long day and enabled a visit to the local hostelry for refreshment earlier than might have been the case.
Finally, I’d like to thank Roger Edwards for controlling the event, and as someone who was always available for a chat. and who ensured that the event was as good as possible, despite having pressing planning duties in South Wales for JK2014.
Bob Haskins
Outwoods provided a good venue for the final event of 2013. I arrived to see the beams from the head torches of the organiser and planner alongside the wood before starting my check of sites.
The Organiser even avoided the normal queues to enter the car park, and our sharing of the area with other users worked fairly painlessly!
A review of courses shows there were some problems with the final sections for the White course, with many mispunches. The course was more adventurous than planned as there was some wind blow across the path from 1-2 and 9-10. However several families got through all this but missed out on an easy control (9) and others did not turn off at 10. It’s a stark reminder of the adage that the hardest course to plan is the easiest!
I made few comments on Bob’s courses but in an area of active countryside management and windblow, it is always going to be difficult to get a map up-to-date. I would thank Don Moir for completing the final corrections before map printing so we could sue some new sites.
Roger Edwards LEI