Daniel

Nice to see faces old & new at a sunny Catton Park. Here are the Results and Split Times

Next event Lion Wood, Sunday 25th June – see you there!

Results and Split Times
Routegadget & Splitsbrowser
WinSplits
BOF Ranking Points
EAUL Standings

Organiser’s Comments

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the event today. I heard lots of positive comments about Roger’s courses, which seemed to provide plenty of variety and a few traps along the way.

Originally we were going to use the sports centre (opposite Morrisons) for the event centre, but after having a wander around it became obvious that this would not work for the junior courses, as we would have to provide innumerable road crossings, which would have stretched our volunteer base to & beyond its limits. However, I found Dereham Meeting Point and realised that it gave access to the water meadows and Scarning to the west, which would be ideal for courses 6 and 7; as a club we always try to make the junior courses a “proper” urban, as opposed to a run round a park.

I thought the atmosphere in and around the event centre was lovely today (if a bit stuffy until we opened the windows). The tea and cake stall seemed to go down very well, and hopefully encouraged people to stick around a bit longer than they normally would and have a chat. There were only 4 slices of chocolate fudge cake left at the end, which pleased my wife, although she was hoping for more ginger cake! We raised over £110 for GOSH.

As with all orienteering events they only work because of the effort put in by volunteers on the day. Thank you all for making it run so smoothly. A particular thank you to Emma & Kate Jarrett (WAOC), who helped on the cake stall and helped tidy up at the end. I am sure many of us would be happy to help out at other club’s events, so maybe this could be the start of a new trend. It would also help build links between the clubs, and foster the East Anglian Orienteering community, a bit like at The JK, where SUFFOC, WAOC and NOR put up their club tents next to each other each day.

See you all at Sudbury in a few weeks.

Jonathan.

Planner’s Comments

Dereham and New Scarning has several areas with interesting networks of roads and alleyways which presented navigational challenges, though in the courses these had to be linked with less interesting connecting legs.  The green spaces broke up the road and path sections and offered some variety.

On the longer courses I varied the early controls in New Scarning which meant courses 3 and 4 did not include control 211 which proved challenging in courses 1 and 2.  Also later, on course 3, control 218 was approached from the north which meant it was less difficult than when approached from the east on courses 1 and 2.  Overall the competitors made light work of the technical problems on courses 3 and 4 and it appears these courses ended up less challenging.

As I started putting out the controls I was surprised to find densely parked cars, a van and a lorry parked close to some of the control sites in areas which I had previously found uncluttered on a Sunday.  This affected the visibility of controls 207 (courses 3 and 5) and 234 (courses 6 and 7) and WinSplits shows this led to time loss.

I would like to thank Jonathan (mapper/planner) for his comments on the early drafts of the courses and the production of the maps, Mike (controller) for feedback on the later drafts, Daniel for sorting the files for SI and Routegadget and the control collectors for finishing things off by mid afternoon.

Roger.

View all the courses and the controls Roger mentions on Routegadget, add your route if you haven’t, and see which route(s) others took.

Controller’s Comments

Dereham has some interesting areas for urban orienteering and Roger made good use of these even though it meant some longer connecting legs. The area has a nice variety of streets connected by alleyways, an area of houses with only pedestrian access ideal for juniors, as well some green open areas and the complex shopping and car park centre of town. The people I talked to enjoyed their courses. The map suffers from the limitation of a lot of urban maps that the specified minimum gap between lines on the map of 0.15 mm is too small for most of us to resolve. This makes route choice a bit of a lottery and that was true today. Also people didn’t spot the ‘ruined’ part of the control description for control 204, the linear thicket, which according to IOF specifications, means parts of it have fallen to ground level and therefore are presumably crossable. I’m sure I wouldn’t have done if I was running.

Mike Bickle.

Results and Split Times
Yvette Baker Qualifier Results
Routegadget & Splitsbrowser
WinSplits
BOF Ranking Points

Organiser’s Comments

An organiser’s job is basically to get the competitors to the start flag and once they’ve finished to get them back to their cars and away.  Sounds simple when you say it like that, but when you add in the need for buses and loos, a junior competition and having to organise equipment needed for an event the night before, it makes it slightly more involved.  That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it, because I did, but I would never have managed without a fantastic band of people who had my back, both in the months leading up to the event and on the day.  I think/hope people enjoyed themselves – the weather and great courses helped immensely of course – and I didn’t lose anyone on the day so overall a positive result.  Also, fantastic Yvette Baker results for all four junior teams.

Liz.

Planner’s Comments

Thanks to all who came to Hockering today – the wood has put smiles on several faces.
As a first time Planner, I’ve enjoyed being out in the wood on so many occasions. The area isn’t overly large and it’s rather devoid of contours, but it’s wonderfully runnable in all but the northern part. My main aim became to add challenge through ensuring that good route choice avoided paths.
The YB heats mean that juniors often ‘run down’ and I was therefore keen to make Yellow and Orange as challenging as possible. The lack of paths certainly facilitated that (more so on Orange).
It was pleasing to hear so many positive comments from finishers. Several commented on the physical nature of their runs – lots of running on uncompacted leave debris, and avoiding deadfall.
A big well done to all the team involved. Specifically, from the Planner’s perspective, to Phil Halford for his controlling, Liz for her fantastic organisation, my Dad for his assistance over two days with control placement (and bus monitor duties), and my team of highly skilled control collectors. Lastly, a thanks to the second best looking chap on the committee for his mapping skills and dedication.
I’m looking forward to my next planning adventure!

Ben.

Results and Split Times
Routegadget & Splitsbrowser
WinSplits

Organiser’s Comments

Thank you to everyone for turning out on what at first seemed like a drizzly and cold winter evening, but once everyone arrived and the lights went on, the evening also seemed to warm up and it was lovely to see such a mixture of old and young, new and experienced orienteers; many of whom were running a night o for the first time. Indeed it was our first night event for a good few years and I think it could well become a regular fixture judging by the feedback.  Oliver flew round the green and won by a clear 5+ minutes giving our older men no doubt something to ponder, and Marcus Richardson likewise made short work on the yellow course.  For me though the star of the evening was Rodney – M85 and successfully completing the orange with a big grin, oozing with positivity.

Massive thanks to all the officials and volunteers, most of whom did not have a run. Having such a capable bunch makes the job of organiser so much easier. I would also like to thank  Felmingham PC for use of this lovely area, and the Webster Family for a splendid parking area and allowing us to cross their garden to get to the heath.

Nicky

Planner’s Comments

I think the relative uniqueness of the area, the format (much more of a ‘middle distance’ event than the traditional ‘long’) and of course being in the dark did a lot of the legwork in terms of the enjoyment of the event that I think most people shared; however there’s always that trepidation that you’ve planned a bit of a turkey until the finishers start coming in, so I’m most pleased that the consensus seems to be a Saturday evening up in North Norfolk well spent – thank you for coming along and taking part, no matter where you ended up in the final results.

My two biggest considerations when planning the courses, were making sure that those with restrictions on the number of decision points per leg (Yellow, and to an extent Orange) kept within those rules, and conversely that the longer/harder Green had enough decision points not to make it a procession – there are only so many ‘long’ legs possible in such a small area! So there were a few gambles; 5-6 on the Yellow (with the path junction coming in behind the direction of running) and 6 on the Orange (using the elongated depression as a linear feature), especially as some of the paths in the woodland to the North West seemed to get less distinct as the event day approached. I didn’t want to start taping routes, as the size of the map meant they’d also be routes for other courses, and would make them too simple, so that ruled out some other potential legs. 10-11-12 was a bit clunky on the Green – the intention being to stop 10 being an in-and-out and to get you rotated for the next loop of the Heath.

With no injuries sustained on some of the remains of the cut gorse, and everyone successfully back, plus your comments post-run, makes all the recent trips back and forth to update the vegetation (which is being constantly altered, with the aim of increasing biodiversity) worthwhile. My personal thanks to my assistant control hanger – two hands really does make it much easier, at least in this compact area – to Jonathan for covering Download all night, Katharine/Philip/Emma/Ben for going out for another loop of the Heath at the end of the event and speedily collecting all the controls so that they could all be sorted ready to go out early Sunday morning for the Hockering event, and to Tim for his Controlling guidance.

Daniel.