 |
Millward's Park Colour Coded Event Results 28/04/02Results to the White, Yellow, Orange, Red, Light Green, Green, Blue and Brown Courses. Next HH Event - Whippendell Wood Local Event, Watford, 11/05/02. Organiser's CommentsAs part of the South East Orienteering Association's pre-start map copying experiment, I thought it was time someone tried something a bit more radical than just moving master maps to the other side of the start box. La Fédération Française de Course d'Orientation have had master maps available at registration at their equivalent of Colour Coded events ever since I first started orienteering in France, so why shouldn't we do it here? There are lots of advantages for UK orienteers:
The choice is yours to get the most out of the event and run your course how you want to run it. I believe this arrangement helps to make the introductory end of orienteering much more user friendly and improves training possibilities for everyone. Judging by comments received at Download, only a few people were particularly opposed to this liberalisation of the sport. Their argument being that it gives an advantage to those who are prepared to consider their course in great detail beforehand and takes away the thinking on the hoof element. With this system, everyone has the opportunity to study the map, if they choose to take it. But, I agree, it will be more difficult to assess the competition, since you have no way of knowing how other people tackled the event. On the other hand, if you want the thinking running element, why not partner up with someone on a different course and swap maps as you start? Generally, however, most people, especially those we are trying to attract to orienteering, were happy with the arrangement. I hope others will experiment with this format so that more people can see the many benefits. After all Colour Coded events are intended to be a step up from totally informal local events, yet remain a means for beginners and experts alike to improve their skills. They should be different from higher grade events and not be just poor man's Badge Events. Finally, many thanks to Lord and Lady Salisbury for giving us permission to hold our event in this area, which is normally closed to the public; the staff of Hatfield House Estate for their help and co-operation; my very willing helpers, many of whom were so dedicated to their tasks that they chose not to run; and of course all those competitors who persuaded the sun to shine and made it all worth while. A total of £125 from the event receipts will be donated to Lady Salisbury's charity. Roger Moulding Planner's CommentsFirstly, my thanks to a number of people. Thanks to Janet for her helpful advice; I was particularly interested in her views on the Light Green course. Do you make it of Technical Difficulty 4 and therefore a slightly shortened version of the Green course or do you make it a transitional course between Orange and Green? We came up with a compromise: fairly easy early controls with more difficult controls later. Thanks to Jon Marsden for his tutorial on SPORTident; it's a steep learning curve, as they say, for the Luddites among us but as well as being more user friendly for competitors SPORTident allows much greater scope for course planning - using pin punching it would have been difficult to fit in Blue and Brown courses in Millward's Park without manned controls. My thanks also to the those helpers who put out and collected in controls. I had thought beforehand that copying down courses in the car park might have provoked serious controversy, but competitors I spoke to afterwards (not necessarily a representative sample) seemed remarkably relaxed about the development. Is this the way forward particularly for newcomers to the sport or is there a better way? Copying down courses in race time is not really an orienteering skill, and unless overprinted maps are available as at WAOC's event at Chicksands, might a better answer be to allow competitors to copy down the course at the pre-start as at CHIG's event at Epping East (perhaps with a time limit of say 5 minutes) and then use a punching start? Please make your views known, especially if you are a newcomer to the sport. I'm sure that David May, BOF's Technical Representative for the South-East, would be interested to hear from you. Finally, I hope you enjoyed the event. There is plenty of pleasant runnable forest in Millward's Park and using the rhododendrons to aid navigation provides a test which is probably unique in the South-East. Robin Barris Controller's CommentsThere was a good turn-out, on a pleasant day to encourage the officials and helpers. No problems were reported to me directly so I must assume everyone went away from the event in a reasonably happy mood. I hope the activities of the large flail machine, parked between the finish and the orange squash, which caused one of the small paths to become a wide ride and for the disappearance of several of the smaller rhododendron bushes, did not cause you any difficulty. The clearance work was done less than two weeks before the event after the courses had been finalised, hence the need for the last minute map corrections. Just one example of the many headaches event officials can suffer while trying to put on courses for your enjoyment. I am pleased to say Robin's courses were very well received. Also, the map was given a thumb's up by many people. If anyone would like to comment on whether or not competitors should be allowed to copy down their courses before starting, then please either send me an e-mail or contact your own club committee or the SEOA directly. I will pass on the opinions of competitors I spoke to at the event. As a matter of interest, most of you will have seen the large watch-towers by the out of bounds area. These were, I was told, part of one of the sets used when filming "Saving Private Ryan". Thanks must go the Hatfield Park Estate for permission to hold the event and to Robin for his thorough and meticulous planning, and to Roger and his cheerful band of helpers for the efficient organisation. Also, thanks to Neil Gostick for helping me check the controls on the day. Janet Biggs, HAVOC The Hertfordshire Orienteering Club ( HH )If you are not already a member of an Orienteering Club and live in or around Herfordshire, you may like to join Happy Herts. Membership allows you to enjoy many exclusive extra activities, including technique training and socials and receive the Club journal and monthly newsletter which includes an events programme compiled specially for people living in this area. More club information. For more details contact S. Marsden ( Membership Secretary ). |