HALO - Broughton Regional Event –
Organiser’s Comments:
The organiser’s job for this Event
was made so easy. In advance, by the
preparation carried out by Neil and Mike, who both organised elements over and above
the call of duty of Planner and Entries co-ordinator respectively. On the day, the experience of the various
helpers enabled the process to run smoothly despite the white stuff. There was a significant hitch in setting up
as I lost my car keys in the snow whilst putting up signs, which meant a bit of
a rush in getting reorganised, but also that fewer signs were in place than
were planned. Apologies to those who
missed the road directions. The main
concern with the snow was getting cars in and out of the field, but as the last
car left there was a collective sigh of relief!
John Fulwood
Planner’s Comments
This was my first attempt at planning a regional event and not
knowing where to start I looked on the BOF web-site for the guidelines. This suggested that the length of the M21L
course should be based on a 68 minutes winning time and all other course
lengths are a specific proportion of this.
Imagine my surprise when told that the leading M21 competitor
had finished in
1 hour 7 minutes and 59 seconds.
Needless to say I was pleased with this until I was told by the HALO
committee that I must keep on planning until I can get it spot on!!
I hoped you all liked the snow and thank –you for travelling
to Broughton in the conditions, although I suspect that anyone setting off from
the west would have been unaware of the snow until it hit them, like me, on the
M180. Well done to John F and his team
for getting all the vehicles into and out of the car-parking field.
The sun was shining on Saturday when I put out the stakes, but
it was a totally different story on Sunday morning as I tried to find the grey
stakes against the snowy backdrop. But find them I did, even the one that had
fallen over (or been pushed?) and become buried in snow. I tried to clean the snow off all the
numbers, but I think that was a futile gesture as they soon became covered
again when the next blizzard started.
Orienteering in the snow has advantages, with competitors
being able to follow the many tracks, and disadvantages, with competitors
complaining that the tracks did not lead to their control! Later runners seemed to have the best of the
conditions, running under blue skies.
Congratulations to all the earlier runners who braved the conditions and
completed their courses.
Many thanks go to David Horn, who, at quite short notice,
accepted the role of controller.
Fortunately he did not want many course alterations, but his help and
support were extremely valuable.
Thanks also to Brian Slater who helped my through the learning
curve of OCAD8, even once until
One competitor did ask me to check the position of control
number 132, a re-entrant, as he thought it was in the wrong place. Two people confirmed that it was correctly
sited as the controls were being collected.
Neil Harvatt