Culm Davy

Planner's comments

Well that is my first QOFL planned and I can honestly say that I could not have done it without Bill’s assistance. I am extremely grateful for his patience and all that he did to help make it a success. Yes the courses were mine but tweaked and coerced into reasonable orienteering by Bill’s experience.

The planning has been a learning curve and much much more work than I ever expected. Familiarity with the area that you are planning is definitely the key to success.

I hope that all the entrants enjoyed the courses. It is unfortunate to have areas of the ground out of bounds. These areas meant that in order to get runners back into the woods I had to lead them to an acceptable crossing point. This did mean a bit of a ‘boring leg’ (sorry Steve). However, it did mean that you were not all funnelled down the long track. Which I believe would have been a poorer choice.

The area is diverse and offers some pretty good orienteering challenges. This was the first time for a while that we were able to make use of the northern part. There were a great many pits and depressions to make use of and a slope with many features that could be made use of in the future.

I tried not to be too ambitious on my first experience. I had to remember that I had to find the control sites again in order to mark them!! I kept the courses within my ability and when planning I tried to take different routes to each of the sites to ensure it worked for all.

I made a few school boy errors, but Bill caught them and I have taken on board where I went wrong.

You definitely need two days (or perhaps that is just me) to get the controls out and checked.

Anyway, thank you to those that turned up and had a go. Onwards and upwards.

- Karen Lewis

Organiser's comments

Many thanks to Team 1 and some of the new members of the club for putting on the event.

Our usual parking arrangements were denied by the new owners of the approach road to the forest so we had to use the field next to the main road. The wet weather leading up to the event meant we had to put tracking at the entrance to the field - many thanks to Pete Akers and his team for the physical assistance they gave getting cars in! Mike Laver arrived early and helped set up as well as the doing the pushing!

The registration and download areas worked well although the need to renumber and reprogram the SI boxes was a lengthy job for me.

It was good to welcome back some previous members and a minibus-full from Wellington School, who made good use of the junior courses. The numbers were disappointing however, probably caused by adverse weather conditions and major events nearby the following day.

It was a long day for all the officials, but we are grateful for the support given during the anxious period of waiting for the return of a lost competitor, especially from the Pearsons, Jim and Graham, and their help in packing away.

I think this is the last event Judy and I will organise as team leaders as we are becoming too old and infirm to unbury tracking from a muddy field!

- Roger Craddock