14th December 2008
Christmas time at Northwood Copse has come again. After a
wet Saturday, Sunday 14th December was a quite a nice day, cold on
the field, but as usual, much warmer down in the copse.
We are grateful to Mr Young for letting us use his field
again. Northwood is a difficult place for parking otherwise.
Dougie Saunders, the Planner, was there as early as daylight
allowed and put out the controls. Events near the shortest day, as this one
was, are always a problem for the course setter. He has to decide whether to
put some of the controls out overnight, at the risk of finding them vandalised,
or to rush around as soon as dawn appears.
Lesley Curran and Frank Winter arrived early to do their usual job of carrying bits and pieces down to the copse to prepare for the mince pie onslaught. They also set up the start and finish.
Iris Fay and Eileen Hollinshed arrived to man - or woman the
finish, while Beryl was there to deal with the cards and maps at registration.
Then the customers arrived and brightened up the chilly field Christmas hats
and bits of tinsel.
Yvonne Curran and her helpers disappeared down into the
copse to lay out the stringcourse. Many thanks to them. Quite a few little
children tried it, including Leona Ould, not yet one, on her first orienteering
experience.
Father Christmas arrived, looking very portly, and Mother
Christmas too, dressed in her best red outfit. They wandered round the copse
distributing gold stars. Many thanks to them for coming all the way from
Lapland and congratulations to Fiona and Simon who met them three times for
stars
No-one on the long course managed to get maximum points. But
Robert and Tom Stead were not far off, only missing two controls, not getting a
time penalty and boosting their total with bonuses to 405. Peter Bartlett only
missed one control and could have beaten the Steads, if he had acquired a
balloon or painted his face.
Congratulations to Neil Brown who perfected his timings o he
ran the course in 59.05 minutes, wasting no time and getting all his bonuses,
making him equal with Peter
On the Short Score Course four teams managed to get all the
controls and score 100 points, with the Faithfulls getting all their bonuses to
total 145 points. Carol and Debbie would have been up with them, but their
balloon must have encountered some Borthwood holly and burst!
Aeryn Bond ran a good String Course to be the winner with
16.30 minutes. She must have been training with her grandfather, Peter
Bartlett!
Thanks to all those who brought mince pies and other nibbles
to go with the orange squash that Glyn Williams had carried all the way into
the copse before helping at the finish.
Finally, thanks to all who took part. There is quite a lot
of work involved in preparing for an event like this so it is nice when plenty
of people come to enjoy it. We look forward to seeing them all again.
27th December 2008
T'was the night before Christmas
Kites all over the house
So I planned this event
On a mat, with a mouse.
A score course at Firestone
Would be easy to plan
I know it as well
As the back of my hand.
A few clicks of the mouse
And with faith I entrusted.
And two hours later
It was all done and dusted.
Even by my standards this was to be a record. My approach to
planning has become laid back of late. But this time I'd gone horizontal.
My attitude had not changed on the night at Registration.
Martin Boyce had offered to help. So I allocated him filling in the insurance
sheets, control cards and starting people off. This meant that after I had collected the money for the
pre-printed maps, I could do what I do best, 'GAS-BAG', (this works for me).
I also thought that, not having set the stopwatches, using
the clock on the dashboard would be subtle and cunning. Until Martin pointed
out that it was still set to British Summer Time. This was not the first time
Martin had been " pickie over a timepiece". It resulted in some
runners starting at 7.02 and finishing at 6.59, recording a time of
-3 minutes!
I have to admit that I wasn't expecting a large turnout for
this event, so I only prepared 25 copies of the marked map. How wrong could I
have been, as 50 or 60 runners turned up? Luckily most went around in groups.
Richard Eastaff started last with the only map remaining, which was a draft
copy. This didn't seem to matter as he won the event, finding all but one
control (unlucky 13) in 52 minutes.
Well done to him and well done to everyone who braved the
cold and darkness. Especially to those who commented on how well the course was
planned!! This was an experimental, fun event that I would be happy to do
again. I just hope that it doesn't take so long to prepare next time !
My thanks to Ian and Neil for collecting in the controls, to
Martin for putting up with my continuing abuse and to everyone who
participated, making the event a success and worth staging. See you all Boxing
Day next year.