SPLITS - Brown, Red Blue, Green, Light Green, Orange, Yellow, White,
Lost property
One Set of car keys
Organisers Comments
I hope the day went well for you. As always a lot of your fellow Orienteers put in a lot of effort with what seemed to be very good results.
As you will know, we have used the same assembly area a number of times but we hope this did not detract from your enjoyment; we would like to 'attack' the forest from a different spot but, below the forest, trying to park on the sloping fields is almost impossibe. On the top of the hill if we move to the west we move away from the only areas suitable for the junior courses. When we will return to this area is open to discussion because the whole of Staple Common and Castle Neroche is being developed as a local 'amenity' in which the area will be developed for the good of the people, wildlife and vegetation therein. We are watching how this will evolve and how it will affect access!
As to the day itself, everything seemed to go according to plan except that I forgot Orienteers need leading by the the hand when it comes to taped routes, there was a right turn in the moat around the farm which about 30% of people missed and ended up going back through the start!! We also had a small hiccup in printing the results for the Brown and Blue which was traced to a small glitch in the software, now fixed. Numbers were down but I expect half term and skiing holidays played their part and there were enough people there for us to cover our costs.
Which brings me on to the maps. We premarked enough maps to cover the maximum entry experienced on each course on the gallopens this season hence nobody had to have a recycled map. I have been to events where maps have been recycled and I do not think this is right and, in most cases, is avoidable; competitors have to pay so much to compete and one extra competitor covers the cost of at least 10 extra maps.
Finally my thanks to Nick Hockey for cheerfully giving up his time to Control the event and to you the competitors for turning up and in so doing making all our efforts worthwhile.
Ted Heath
Planners Comments.
To follow. However he asked me to remind all of you who use the Joe Lee system in the future to make sure the red light flashes when you dib.
Richard Sansbury