Tony Feltbower’s Report (Planner)

It is a bit of a step up from planning 'colour-coded' courses to regional / Badge events, not only in the number of courses, but also number of controls. I severely underestimated how long it would take to put out controls on the Saturday, having to leave some till the Sunday - hence the slight delay of the start. I will do better next time (if asked!). Thanks to Bruce for the finalising of the map, courses and OCAD files for printing, and a huge thanks to the army of people who collected in controls after the event - I could leave by 4.15 and not having had to collect any myself. Such
a bonus after 2 days of hard work. Thanks of course to Allan for his advice as Controller and correcting my mistakes before the event, and on the day.

Bob Brandon’s Report (Organiser)
I was quite depressed on Wednesday after yet another significant dump of snow.  However, I then found out that the weather forecast for the days leading up to Sutton Park was for a rise in temperature and enough rain which would shift most of the snow.  I crossed my fingers and kept my head down.  Today, snow all gone but some very icy patches - in particular on the road serving as the route to the start.  Sue Bicknell taped an alternative route through the woodland adjacent to the road and then set to with a hammer to break up any ice on that route.

Having organised quite a number of ‘badge’/’regional’/’Ievel-2’ events.  This time quite a bit of time was consumed as I/we found conflicting documentation regarding Colour / Age Class offerings.  For today allocation was as per British Orienteering guidelines “B – Draft Event Guideline for Regional and Local Cross Country Events (effective January 2009)”.  Our Fabian4 entry form was offering some extra classes.  Tony found that a ‘Very Short Green’ course was required (I have failed to find evidence of that one).  I believe that I understand the debate between those wanting to compete at this level on Colour coded courses and those who want to compete at this level in Age Group Classes, so whilst the debate continues I will investigate further as to what colours and age classes are current and which go with which.

As usual each of the Droober helpers took over from me as they came to the Park and got on with their allotted task.  I thank them all on behalf of each competitor.  Thanks are also due to Tony Feltbower and Allan Williams for the testing courses.  Tony’s solo efforts at control deployment is commendable, however I feel that the Club should be proactive in provide support to the planner in this area.   Carolyn Marr tells me that the Start would have benefited from having a lane for each colour.  A lack of communication on my part as we had everything on site to achieve this.

Another good day out in sunny Sutton Park .   Thank you all for coming