Results available at http://www.walton-chasers.co.uk/results/2012/HedBrindresults/index.html
Splitsbrowser available here http://www.splitsbrowser.org.uk/splitsgraph.php?eventId=6023
RouteGadget here http://www.walton.routegadget.co.uk/walton/reitti.cgi
If anyone lost an SI card one was found so please drop me a line with your SI card number kelvin@carleyandkel.co.uk
Planners Comments
It was nice to see so many people at the event enjoying the lovely weather and, hopefully, their course. Hednesford Camp and Brindley have been used many, many times before so that it is quite well known by many orienteers and it is a difficult area to produce TD5 legs especially now that a lot of the forest has been demolished to provide open heathland with lots of heather and bramble. The net result was fast courses but with a few twists.
I started planning several months ago and the courses slowly evolved into the finished articles. Some sites I wanted to use were too overgrown with bramble and others I deemed unsuitable. In the end I used as much runnable terrain as I could linked by the numerous tracks.
Of the courses most had winning times that were about right but the green was perhaps a bit too short and needed another ½ to 1 km it was though pleasing to see so few retirements. I hope you enjoyed your course and will return to Cannock Chase to orienteer in the future.
Thanks to Robert my long suffering controller and to Sue for organising the event which ran very smoothly. Also to all those Chasers who help put out or collect in controls………………..never again.
Christine Collins (WCH)
Controller’s Comments
This event ran so smoothly that there are really very few comments which I can make. The courses were Christine’s, and the organisation was Sue’s – and whilst we were in contact throughout, I really needed to provide little input beyond some tweaking here and there.
In these risk conscious times, my principal concern was the road crossings, because of the speed of traffic on the road. However, I agreed that these did not justify manning, as the only courses involved were Blue and Brown and I judged that those competitors should be sufficiently experienced to treat them responsibly without the need for supervision or special markings.
I was pleased that the event had a good turnout, perhaps enhanced by a splendid day which encouraged people to stay a while and enjoy the excellent catering on offer. The compact layout of hard standing car park, assembly, start and finish was about as perfect as it can get. From my point of view, the results on all the courses (particularly the low number of disqualifications and retirements) suggest that we “got it right”. My thanks to WCH for giving me a hand in the event.
Robert Vickers (HOC)
Organisers Comments
The two things that I was most apprehensive about in the run up to this event were the two things over which I had minimal influence – would the weather be kind and would people actually turn up on the day.
After the summer we’ve had, and with memories of horizontal rain at Teviothead still fresh, I was stalking the weather forecast for days and was relieved that none of my contingency plans were needed, in fact the weather outstripped all my expectations. As for turnout, with 336 runners from 26 clubs (from Devon to South Lakes and even some visitors from Finland), again all expectations were exceeded and at one point I was starting to think that even our emergency overflow car park would fill up. So thanks to everyone who came, ran and made all the effort worthwhile.
Apologies to anyone who went through the start while we were still hunting for our second “clear” box (helpfully tidied back away in the bag, always the last place you look!). As all runners were safely in well before the course close times, I hope this didn’t cause too much disruption.
Finally, my thanks to all the WCH helpers who pitched in on the day and to Christine & Robert for making sure the courses did justice to the area. Thanks to them, this event was a pleasure to organise…..Bring on the next one!
Sue Williams (WCH)