PARKHURST FOREST - 19th MARCH 2006

 

PLANNER'S REPORT

 

A week is a long time in orienteering!  Having gone out to Parkhurst the week before the event to find everything in order, contractors moved in, taped off some of the rides and started felling trees at a point that was to be used by all the longer courses.  The first I knew of this was on Saturday evening when I went to put out the more remote controls.  It was too late to change the courses so I decided to advise runners to take care in this area and hope that the contractors would not work on Sunday.  Much to my relief, there was no sign of work in progress on Sunday morning.  As it turned out, this was the only hitch in what turned out to be a very well attended and successful event.

 

I have planned a few events in Parkhurst so the challenge for me was to find some different areas to send people.  Moving the start to the west of the car park allowed the string, white and yellow to explore new areas.  The orange course was more difficult than usual to avoid the use of too many path and track junctions, but nobody complained and everybody got round eventually.  I took a risk in going for green and blue courses in place of green and dark green but this paid off on the day when 13 people opted for blue.  This was the first time in ages that more than a handful of people ran on the longest course. It was a great pleasure to see so many new faces.   Thank you all for turning up and competing and I hope to see you at the next event.

 

Thank you very much to all who helped at the event: at map sales, at the start and finish, putting out and winding up the string, providing the squash, collecting in controls and the things I have forgotten to mention!  Many hands make light work.

 

Finally, the information on the results list is taken from the control cards.  Sometimes this is unclear or difficult to read.  I have done my best to accurately copy this information but I would like to apologise if I have got it wrong.

 

Dave Mackett, Planner