Results

Results and Split Times

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NOR’s next event, is 8th December, at Beeston Regis on the North Norfolk coast. 
Plenty of other East Anglian orienteering taking place on every weekend before that – see the fixture list here. 

Organiser’s Comments

Thank you to the very many who entered and ran yesterday in full-on autumn weather; I heard good feedback during the day so I hope people enjoyed themselves.

Firstly an apology to the couple of people who missed the sign to say that White and Yellow maps needed to be picked up from Registration and suffered the long walk back from the Starts to collect them. It was a decision I made on Saturday because I knew we had a reasonable number of entrants for those courses and it would be fairer to give children a chance to study the maps in the registration area rather than under pressure in a busy start area. I realise I could have done more to notify all entrants of White and Yellow and I apologise that I didn’t.

NOR has now pretty much moved across entirely to event registration online and it was good to see that we had 140 entrants before the deadline. We do then estimate a number of additional maps to allow for Entry on the Day and that is very much an educated guess based on course numbers already known; we need enough, but not too many that we’re wasting money. As it happened my estimate (20 additional maps across the colours) could have done with being higher, although we managed to find maps for everyone who got in touch ahead of the day and the few who arrived on Sunday not having registered or reserved. So a request – please register online. If you do happen to miss the deadline – and I know they sneak up before you know it – get in touch with the organiser as soon as possible to see if there are maps available that can be reserved (and if early enough after the online deadline it might be possible to add to the print order). Organisers hate the thought of having to turn away orienteers because we don’t have an endless supply of maps.

Finally, a thank you to the volunteers who made the event possible, they were fantastic and most gave up more time and effort yesterday than would ordinarily have been expected. If you’re able to spare an hour on a day you’re orienteering, please do get in touch with the organiser to offer your time even if they haven’t asked yet – they will love you for it. No tasks are very onerous, there’s always guidance or help and the more volunteers there are, the shorter the amount of time is needed from each.

Liz.

Planner’s Comments

Hopefully you all found today’s courses challenging but enjoyable.

It was my first time planning an event and all seemed to go smoothly. We had a few changes to the areas we were allowed to use in the run up to the event along with lots of map updates needed keeping me on my toes. I tried to avoid the worst of the grotty brambles (apologies to those of you who became entangled) and take the longer courses to the more interesting areas Hockham has to offer.

My thanks to those who assisted with control collection at the end of the event and all the other volunteers who give up their time to make these events happen. Thanks also to Bruce for being controller for the event keeping me on the straight and narrow.

Ben.

Controller’s Comments

As a first-time planner, Ben coped well with the new challenge. The Blue and Brown courses had to be replanned after we were refused permission for the wonderful pingo area. With that done, we then lost the south part of the map because new forestry work was planned. That meant replanning all eight courses.

So thanks to Ben in succeeding in giving you some tough orienteering today. Please thank the Organiser, Liz, for organising the permissions. Without her persistence I don’t think the event would have gone ahead.

Bruce.

Results and Split Times from today’s event.  We hope you enjoyed your morning’s orienteering.  It is a little while until the next NOR (Norfolk OC) event (10th November, see below, we hope to see you there), but below is a listing of events in the region that anyone is welcome to attend if you wish to travel a little further. 

We also have Wednesday evening informal sessions throughout the autumn generally located close to Norwich, for club members.  Contact Club Captain Glen for more details.  

Future nearby events in the East Anglia region

15th September – Hatfield Forest, near Stanstead. SOS (Essex OC).
29th September – Cambourne Urban(ish), near Cambridge. WAOC (West Anglian OC).
6th October – Bury St. Edmonds Urban. SUFFOC (Suffolk OC).
10th November – Hockham, near Thetford. NOR.
17th November – Mildenhall. WAOC.
24th November – Stowe National Trust, nr Milton Keynes. SMOC (South Midlands OC).
1st December – Rendlesham Forest, nr Woodbridge. SUFFOC. 
8th December – Beeston Regis, nr Sheringham. NOR.

Helpful links

East Anglian Orienteering Association
British Orienteering Fixtures List
British Orienteering website

Final Results and Split Times by Course
Final Results and Split Times by Class
Statement from the Organiser regarding the results: Thetford Urban – Decision on Complaints.pdf

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BOF Ranking Points
UKUL & SEOUL Standings

Organiser’s Comments

To my mind Thetford has always been a good location for local orienteers, being on the outer reaches of three clubs, with decent road and rail connections; we’re well used to events out in various parts of Thetford Forest.  Having said that, I was really keen to bring orienteers into the town itself.  Although it has a reputation around the 1960s London overflow estates, there is an awful lot of history to Thetford which is undeservedly overlooked as a result and we were lucky enough to be able to access a little of that today.  I hope you enjoyed the shift between new and old Thetford that Ian created for you; there is still quite a bit I feel unexplored.

I have to give thanks to English Heritage for access to Thetford Priory, the GW Staniforth Trust for access to the Kings House Gardens and the Keystone Trust for the use of the newly refurbished Riversdale Centre.  All were incredibly enthusiastic about we wanted to do, for which I’m grateful.

I also have to make mention of the help I’ve received in organising the event.  I would not have managed any of it without Kim, who you would have seen mostly on Starts today.  She has mentored me through the whole process and has just got stuck in without question when it was most needed. Thanks to Ian who put together what I’d always thought were exciting courses – I’m just annoyed I couldn’t run them – and to our Controllers Sarah Mansel and Michael Chopping, I’m sure bicycles have never had so much use!  Thanks also to people tucked away but no less important – Daniel and his SI band, Tim, the many lovely people who stepped forward to volunteer some of their time today and my committee colleagues who dealt with the bits I couldn’t get my head round. Thank you to Sam and Angela who provided the tea and cake today – all events should have cake!

I hope you enjoyed the day.  We expect to be able to finalise the results next week for you.

Liz.

Planner’s Comments

Well it is rare opportunity to be able to orienteer around a 12th Century Priory – I think we were incredibly lucky to have consent from English Heritage – and that combined with a variety of different housing estates made Thetford a fantastic venue for an Urban orienteering event. The St John’s estate (to the SW) made for ‘sprint style’ short & medium length legs, lots of twists and turns, lots of similar-seeming courtyards and plenty of potential for errors if pushing the envelope. The Abbey Estate to the NW brought different challenges for the longer courses, while for all the transits allowed some long legs with plenty of potential routes. The Priory itself a privilege and, I hope, a fun ending for all. 

Overall, a great day’s urban orienteering in a historic and challenging town. Everyone I spoke to thoroughly enjoyed the delights of Thetford and loved the courses, so that was great. I’d like to thank Liz for a terrific job organising, Sarah for controlling and Michael for on-the-day controlling. There is so much to do for these urban events, everyone with a key role has to put in a massive amount of work. Planning my first urban has brought home how much we owe our volunteers for this format. I’d also like to thank Phil for the excellent new map and Jonathan Gilbert for Purple Pen and map compilation help. Plus everyone who helped me collecting controls. 

Ian.

Results and Split Times
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If you’ve enjoyed a weekend of O in East Anglia, with Sandringham yesterday and Bawsey today, then be sure to check out another double-header in our region, Springtime in the East – 20/21 April, in South Norfolk & North Suffolk, easily accessible from the A11 & A14 respectively.

Organiser’s Comments

Thank you to over 150 of you who came, including some newcomers attracted to a local venue.  We had lots of good feedback, in spite of the weather.

I think it’s true across a lot of clubs that our membership is getting smaller, we’re all getting older, and overall it is getting harder to get enough volunteers to run an event.  I am therefore especially grateful to some hardcore NOR volunteers who turned up and stayed for double shifts, in spite of it also being Mother’s Day.  Please offer your help at your club and keep the shifts shorter!

It has been a pleasure working with the team for this event, the Planner and Controller are also volunteers and made my work easy.  Thank you to Richard Wilkins from Bawsey Country Park who has been consistently helpful and keen to promote the event locally, and agreed to half price parking.  We’re hoping to work with him to establish a Permanent Course which may kindle more interest locally.

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend in West Norfolk and we’ll see you all again.

Julia Paul

Planner’s Comments

Billed as a somewhat lower key, warm-down event following the Midland Champs at Sandringham on the Saturday I think the physical nature of the Bawsey terrain may have been a somewhat sharp and hopefully pleasant surprise for competitors.  Planning and surveying at Bawsey with an ever evolving map was a thoroughly enjoyable endeavour.  The small size of the area certainly limited the amount of technical and compass-based orienteering but hopefully plenty of small route choices were to be found.  Owing to the huge amount of rain we’ve experienced over the past couple of weeks some paths were now underwater, one vanished entirely, and many sections now resembled bogs!  However I hope that the courses were fair and challenging and showcased a new area that can become a permanent fixture on the East Anglian orienteering calendar.

Hopefully everyone went home tired and satisfied after a challenging weekend in West Norfolk.  I’d like to give a big thank you to Richard at Bawsey Country Park for being so accommodating, and to Controller Mike Capper for his very sound and thorough approach.  Thank you also to Organiser Julia Paul and all of the volunteers that made the day run very smoothly.

David Sparshott.

Controller’s Comments

I’ve had my eyes on Bawsey for about 30 years, so it was great to be asked to control the first event on this completely new area. The area has a fantastic industrial past, and it was fun to spot relics of this on my visits before the event.

The area is small and has its limitation, but it is a fun area and hopefully provided a few interesting challenges. When we got the first map draft both David and I came up with ideas that involved long runs around the eastern lake. We fairly quickly realised that this added little value other than distance and hence the final drafts focused on the more interesting parts of the map that we ended up using. I was mindful of the potential dangers of the steepest slopes, especially for older competitors – at times on our visits, they were incredibly slippery, and we decided to keep all but the Brown and Blue courses off these slopes. Hopefully, the warnings about the need for well-studded shoes on these courses were heeded!

David worked really hard on the map and then adjusting courses to make them fair and (hopefully) fun. It was great to have such positive feedback on the day, especially from the first-time orienteers. There seemed to be very few problems, although apologies for the flooded path on Blue and Brown. Also, on Brown, for 22-23, we shouldn’t have bent the red line around the lake – my mistake that negated a potential route choice.

Finally, I must acknowledge the great support we received from the owners, Bawsey Estate and Country Park. They are keen to extend the use of the park and were so welcoming. It was super to have such a good car park with good toilets and an excellent café – I hoped you tried their fare! There should also be a special mention to Richard, the Senior Park Ranger, who was superbly helpful throughout the planning process and helped to make the day so successful.

Mike Capper.