Sunday 18th April 2010

 

THE NEEDLES

 

Report

 

It must be over 20 years since I planned an event, so when Kevin kindly volunteered us to plan this event at the Needles I was a little nervous.  We started by looking through previous events held and realised that when this area was used for the Nostalgio in September 2008 apart from ourselves only 3 other Wighto members had taken part.  This was a great shame.  We then contacted Sue and Glynn who had planned this original event, fortunately they still had details of their courses and they very kindly said we could use them.

 

Over the Easter weekend we spent an afternoon walking the area to ensure all of the control sites were still suitable to be used, and to note the exact place we intended placing the flags. We made a few changes to the original courses planned by Sue and Glynn but the basic routes and distances remained the same.

 

Over the next couple of weeks  I then spent time preparing the master maps, control descriptions and event details.

 

To save an early start on Sunday we decided to put the courses out on Saturday evening, and to then stay in our camper van at Stoats Farm, just 5 minutes down the road.  This meant we just needed a quick run around the controls on Sunday to ensure they had not been stolen, eaten by rabbits or blown away.  Fortunately all was well.

 

The weather could not have been better, and I am sure this encouraged the good turnout. 

 

There was a good entry for each of the courses and some very good times recorded.  Sorry for the position of number 10 on the yellow course, which a couple of you did not find, if you had you would both have had excellent times.  The control was on quite a large feature so donšt be afraid to spend a couple of minutes having a look around.   This control was shared with the green course so I may have been afraid of making it too easy.  Apart from this everything seemed to be a success and everyone looked like they had enjoyed themselves.

 

Thanks to Eileen for sorting out registration, to Sue & Glynn for doing the string course and to Soph and Pete for helping with the start and finish and to Pete for helping to collect the controls.

 

Vanessa Allen