Some notes from the Organiser

Organisers spend a lot of time trying to make things happen. Sometimes a pleasure, sometimes a burden, but always a challenge! In Orienteering Events.

Land permission has to be obtained. Ibsley Common used to be owned privately and a quick phone call to the Estate Office usually resulted in permission being readily given. The area is now owned by the National Trust who in common with other public bodies has layers of administrative responsibility. I was fortunate to have met the NT Ranger in his previous job, but it was still necessary to get environmental permission from Natural England. Much to my relief we obtained this in good time and it was a pleasure to welcome the Ranger to the event where he went out with the Controller to see what an Orienteering event looked like in action. The outcome – A fully informed landowner and WIM are likely to get permission for future O activities on local NT land!.

Next is Car Parking and Assembly with the memory of many nightmare sites in the past! Local contacts were the key. We were guests of the Andrews family whose field was ideal. It sloped gently, it had a huge capacity for vehicles and it was near to the Finish and String Courses. The Andrews family are keen Scout Leaders and also involved in Hyde Pre-School group, and thus always looking to raise funds. Your £1 parking fee together with the proceeds of the outstanding refreshments, provided by the playgroup volunteers, raised an amazing £740. Thank you all! Coupled with the glorious weather the assembly field could not have been better sited to enjoy the autumn sunshine.

The unexpected always occurs! A coach arrived unannounced in what for him was a 'dead-end' road, causing a problem at the entrance and resulting in several cars missing the entrance. I'm sorry for the inconvenience but fortunately we managed to turn the coach and relocate it to enable normal service to be resumed.

More concerning was' vandalism' to control 148 in the middle of the event. Evidently the whole unit was uprooted and ended up in the pond but not before being smashed with some force which destroyed the S/I box. After some investigation it seems most likely that the 'vandal' was four legged, probably a cow or pony coming to drink and they stood on the S/I box! All affected competitors have had their Final results re-instated from the provisional results 'disqualification'.

Overall a truly memorable event for WIM. 304 competitors made it our largest event for some years. On the day, once the fog had cleared, the perfect weather and efficient WIM teams made the event one that Organisers dream of!

Thank you all for coming, thank you to all the WIM helpers, our Planner Kevin Pickering, and to the Event Controller Terry Smith of SOC. I hope that we can welcome you to some equally enjoyable events in the future.

John Warren - Organiser