SN TROPHY EVENT -
Organisers
Report
Excellent
weather for orienteering - weren't we all fortunate! Except that, perhaps in consequence, far more
people arrived to enter on the day than we had been expecting. The problem was exacerbated by a flood of
last minute pre entries, received after we had placed our final order for
maps. We did try our best to accommodate
you all by buying back maps from early finishers. We had always stated that e.o.d.
for Regional courses would be limited but apologise unreservedly to anyone who
was inconvenienced who wanted to enter a colour coded course, as these were e.o.d. only. Could
anyone from whom we bought back a map who would like a
free of charge replacement, but didn't leave their name at the time, please let
me know (preferably by e-mail to jandvbrown@aol.com) where to send the
replacement. Apart from the shortage of e.o.d. maps everything else seemed to us to run smoothly
and we do hope you enjoyed your day.
Grateful thanks
are due to Landmarc (acting for the M.O.D.) for
permission to use Ash Ranges and especially to their staff on site; to the
planner and controller (who it was a pleasure to work with) and particularly to
the dedicated crew of officials and helpers from SN, without whom it would not
have been possible to put on the event.
Lost
property/left at Enquiries: Two
compasses, one whistle, one control descriptions holder and the M75 Caddihoe Chase trophy (labelled Richard Arman,
WSX). Contact me to claim any of the
above. Items not claimed within one
month may be given away or recycled (as an SN Trophy, perhaps!).
Planners
Report
First of all I would like to thank SN for allowing a Mole to
plan the courses for their regional event on such a great area so close to my
home. Volunteering very early meant I could do all the planning in the
summer when the weather was even better, but the bracken was taller
still! Starting early meant we had a chance to update the map a
bit, so at least most of the cleared areas were reasonably correct. As
Allan said, we found a few more features too late to be added and people
reported other changes we had not spotted.
From the start I was determined to keep the Start and Finish
close to the Assembly area to make things as friendly as possible, to use the
best bits of the area for as many of the courses as I could, and to try and
prove that it is possible to put on really challenging courses in the south
east of England. I don't know if it was very evident but I also tried to
ensure that all the courses flowed around the area in the same direction, you
should rarely have seen anyone coming towards you.
From the comments of the vast majority of the people that I
spoke to, the senior courses were sufficiently technically challenging, and
also physically in a few places. Nobody complained of having too
many path runs. I certainly got the impression that although some people
found the courses tough they did enjoy them. With very few exceptions the
junior courses were also well received.
Coming up to the event I suddenly got a very bad cold and
cough and on Friday felt terrible. The prospect of putting out controls
the next day was very daunting. However Saturday started fine and 5 hours
putting out controls in the fresh air probably did me a lot of good. It
was great seeing the whole of the area in sunshine. At the other extreme,
there was a bit of a hiccup with helpers collecting in controls and I ended up
struggling through the deep heather collecting in the last few by moonlight, I
certainly had not planned to go night orienteering.
With all the access restrictions for the ranges it was good
that Allan Farrington was the controller. He was most helpful and
accommodating when it came to fine tuning and, although you may not have
noticed, he put some effort into flattening bracken down in some areas.
Having so many controls fail was unfortunate, one of our spares also failed
otherwise we would actually have had just enough. Thanks also to the many
SN people who assisted me with the less glamorous tasks.
Philip Gristwood
Controllers
Report
I am not sure if it was in a weak moment whilst on holiday, or the fact that being controller meant I didn’t have to battle the infamous Ash heather, but I committed to controlling in late August, by which time the courses were virtually complete and so it was just a case of checking site locations and ensuring that the TD levels were right. Philip planned some good testing courses, with a variety of challenges and hopefully the good weather added to your enjoyment. One obvious problem with Ash is access, which has to be after 1600hrs, or on the rare closure days, but being military helped as I was able to sneak on as soon as firing stopped, but it did make it difficult for the planner to get out and check on any concerns I had and we did have to make the odd compromise.
The other problem with Ash is that there are numerous negative features which the heather hides and even when in the control circle you can often not see the feature, this catches out a lot of us southern orienteer’s who are used to running generally in the direction of the control and then relocating. The secret is to read the contours as you progress, which is what orienteering is all about anyway. The map also has some inaccuracies where the heather rides are concerned and it is almost impossible to keep track of them as they change slightly at every cutting, also any clearing/burning of vegetation inevitably uncovers unmapped features and that occurred a couple of times, especially near control 175, and is why a couple of control flags had to be hung high. It was also unfortunate that 4 controls failed in the morning and we only had 3 replacements immediately to hand, my decision to not replace control 189 on courses 4 & 5 was based on the same principles as the BOF guideline that courses should be voided rather than remove legs into and out of a specific incorrect control. It would have been unfair to earlier starters to have replaced the punch only control with an electronic control, it should be exactly the same for all, including having to remember which control was out, if nothing else this should at least prompt a new discussion line on Nopesport. Finally my thanks to the SN crowd who all chipped in to help put on this event on a superbly testing area.
Alan Farrington