What Happened- An Organiser's Report

First thing I have to say is a big thanks to everyone who turned out on the night to support the event. It makes all the effort worthwhile when so many people take part. We were also very lucky with the weather. There was a very heavy rain shower in the city center just as our event was finishing. Let's hope the luck lasts for the remaining three events.

From a planning perspective, I have to apologise if some of the controls seemed a little hidden or far away from the flags. My main worry tonight was that we would lose a lot of the controls to vandals. Cave Hill has had a reputation in the past with orienteering events, and I simply wanted to make sure that the units were well secured to something solid. Number 2 seemed to cause a lot of people problems. The flag was found easily, but I had placed the SportIdent Unit on the actual fence. No-one has been penalised for not punching this control, and hopefully no-one wasted too much time looking for it, once they found the flag. The concern of losing controls was also the main reason for using mostly permanent posts during the event - it was unlikely that someone could remove these posts from the ground !!! And the good news is that none of the controls did get stolen in the end.

Nettles .... all I can say is that there were many other areas in the park which I didn't take you, in which the nettles were even worse. Yes, really!!!! It was interesting to see that a number of people on the long course decided to not climb up through the long grass (and nettles) to controls 5, 6 and 7. Possibly a wise decision in the circumstances. Anyone who missed a control was penalised 10 minutes for each one missed. This has enabled you to be awarded points in the series, but the actual times can be found at either the winsplits or splitsbrowser sites.

As everyone knows, orienteering is an adventure sport, and unfortunately Kieran took a nasty fall on one of the tracks tonight. He has badly gashed his knee with a deep wound, and thanks must go to Mark, Gavin and Heather for helping him back to safety and onwards to the hospital after applying first aid. Hopefully he has a speedy recovery.

On another safety note, I should point out that as the nights now get darker earlier, it is very important that everyone is accounted for out of the forest (or park) before it gets too dark (this is the reason for filling out the safety registration card). The controls were collected tonight at 9pm due to it being very dark at 9.30pm. This only gives a 30 minute window of light in which to find any missing or injured runners still out on their course. This course closure time is likely to be earlier at the later events, since it will be pitch dark before 9pm in Cairn Wood. I suggest that people try to start their runs as early as possible in the remaining events. It is also much easier to read a map in the forest at 7.30pm rather than 8.30pm ....

It was asked tonight "where can you purchase your personal SportIdent Card? (the little red thing that you run around the forest with). Due to the Awards for All grant that was received for the WEE Series, we have not been charging for the hire of the cards. Normally you would be charged an extr £1 to hire the dibber at any of the orienteering events. Enjoy the free hire while it lasts ... If you do want to purchase your own dibber, the most convenient method is at the sportident website. (£18 each with free p&p).

All that remains to say, is see you at the remaining events. And don't forget you can download a copy of the registration slip online. Fill it out before you come to the next event, and save a bit of time on the night.

[Just in case you haven't noticed the option on the graphical Splitsbrowser site - You can change the type of graph that is displayed. One interesting option is to change it (top left of the screen) to be "Race Graph". This shows the actual times that people visited the controls, and who they passed on route, who they ran with between controls, any possible following ... etc etc...]