Directions / Parking
Parking: Free parking on the southern section of College Way, adjacent to the west perimeter fence of Queen's College. This parking is typically used by Musgrove hospital staff during daytime working hours, but it starts to clear after 5pm. Double yellow lines exist further to the north.
Assembly on the grass verge alongside the road. Look out for the club banner.
Directions: from the A38, take Galmington Road from a westward direction or Trull Road from the east. The event will not be signposted.
Course Information
Two courses are offered, Long and Short, using exactly the same controls.
Both are "Score" courses, meaning there isn't a set order to the controls you visit.
Short Score- the order of the controls you want to visit is entirely up to you.
Long Score- there are two sets of controls, one set tackled after the other. Once you switch to the second set, you cannot go back to the first set.
Because of this scoring method, please double check that you've properly visited each control on the long course - it will turn green on your phone screen. Sometimes you'll get an audible bleep but the control won't turn green.
For this event, the optimum routes are about 10 km for the long and 7.5 km for the short. There will be 30 controls, giving a maximum score of 1000 points.
Each course has a time limit of 50 minutes.
Points will be deducted at a rate of 30 points per minute for each minute or part minute you're late back.
Points values for controls are variable and denoted by the first number of the control, e.g. 62 scores 60 points.
The control circles on the map are coloured red on one set and blue on the other- the colours are meaningful only for the Long score.
For those who took part in our QOADs series, the Long score uses essentially the same scoring system.
Link: more on the scoring systems
Entry Details
Registration
Please print off and fill in our standard registration form in advance (or email it to us) as we are trying to keep the event organisation low key.
Filling out a Registration form (link)
Ignore the boxes about 'SI' unless you are hiring a club phone, in which case fill in the details we usually request off those hiring SI dibbers.
Entry fees
£5 - for both adults and juniors with accompanying adult.
Hire of equipment
Should you need one, we have four tried and tested Alcatel club smartphones available for hire on a first come, first served basis. Please contact the organiser in advance to reserve one.
Smartphone hire- £1
Headtorch hire- £1
Charge for lost/ broken Smartphone- £40 (replacement cost)
Registration & Start Times
Evening event.
Start times from 17.00 to 19.00.
You effectively have a choice between running in partial daylight or in the dark.
Courses close at 20.00.
Terrain Description
Generally flat suburban area, with a decent path network and scattered green spaces.
Map
The paper map is in OCAD at 1:5000, surveyed by Simon Beck in 2009. Little has changed except for the emergence of new out-of-bounds areas, shown on the map. It's not geo-referenced which means the on-screen map will be from open source mapping. This latter map has less features on than the paper map so it should not be relied on for navigating!
Safety notes
There is a brook in the park to the north which should only be crossed using the path marked on the map.
College Way bisects the area from north to south. Traffic can be heavy as workers leave the nearby hospital. Cross with care; you are encourage to use the two crossing points marked on the map.
After recent wet weather, beware slippy fallen leaves on paths and slippy grassy areas. Try to bring footwear with sufficient grip.
Social afterwards
Please join us afterwards. The beauty of the smartphone format is post race discussions are fully enabled by the instant results, leaderboards and race route graphics!
The gathering will be at the Vivary Arms, Wilton.
Directions: head north up College Way, turn right onto Galmington Road, right again at Trull Road (do not head back towards town- likely to be very busy). Then first left onto Haines Hill, bringing you to Middleway. Park along here or at the Fons George car park, which is free after 6pm.
We have seating for a dozen booked in the bar area for drinks. If you'd like to eat, they stop serving food in the restaurant at 8pm so if you'd like to dine, please let them know in advance or even phone in your order. The pub is about a mile from assembly and 500m off the NE of the map.
Note about series
This venue replaces Yeovil NE, which has been rearranged to 4 March 2020 due to organisational restraints.
Contacts / Officials
Planner: Jeff Pakes 07754 301217 website@
Organisers: Judy & Roger Craddock 01823 323850 president@
