Official's Comments
Controller
Congratulations to Kevin and the Wimborne Orienteers
for getting the organisation ‘spot on’ and appropriate for a British Night
Championships. Substantial hardstanding car parks, the start, finish and
assembly all within 250m allows competitors a more relaxed approach to their
pending race. The facilities at the assembly area were fantastic, warm
environment, plenty of space to sit before and after your race, complete with
hot food and drinks a plenty.
Moors Valley is a physical forest in places and it has
been 6 years since the area has hosted a “significant event”, at which runners
were taking 6.2min/km. For the BNOC the guidance is a winning time
on M21L of 75 mins for a “top elite competitor. Last year Graham G won the M21L
course running at 5.1min/k so we aimed for a course around the 14km mark. I
think Linda did a great effort in making courses that tried to encourage you in
the forest when we thought it wasn’t too bad, and otherwise to give you longer
legs around the blocks of paths. The option to get out onto a path was nearly
always there, but maybe I should have cut the course lengths a little, so if you
thought the courses were too long thanks for not shouting at me on the night and
I hope you enjoyed getting your money’s worth.
Steve Mckinley
Organiser
A BIG BIG thank you to everyone who helped and competed at the BNOC on
Saturday night.
The weather, unlike the last two night championships, was perfect for a
night event. The event ran very smoothly aided by the great venue at Moors
Valley with a really good atmosphere in the restaurant for the meal and
presentations.
One hiccup which could have made our lives difficult was when the restaurant
and toilets had to be closed mid afternoon for a fire alarm, but after an
all clear from the fire brigade we had a fairly empty facility for us to
use, which in the end helped us, as the car park and restaurant were nearly
full before the alarm and the rumour that it was our curry orders burning
was not true!
The event, with its new map, will have made a small loss overall and from my
point of view I was slightly disappointed that more competitors didn’t make
the trip for the weekend. With the opportunity of another good event in the
New Forest on Sunday, which had to close at 399 entries, the night
champss only had 251. I find night orienteering improves your day runs
because you have to use all the skills required, pacing and good compass
work.
We managed to have the last competitor out of the forest at around 10.30,
who sensibly phoned in their location at a control, so we could collect
them, and therefore didn’t need to put our rescue plans into operation.
The forest is tough in places and that is why we had the ‘No Whistle No Go’
rule in place, thank you for remembering it. Having heard from some other
organisers that whistles have helped rescue competitors in trouble, I
believe that it should be made a rule for all orienteering competitions.
Remember C-D-W before arriving at the starts , Compass - Dibber - Whistle.
We have applied to run the SWOA Compass Sport heat at Moors Valley on the
18th February 2024 so the area is embargoed for Orienteers from now until
then.
We had a team of 45 helpers on the night ensuring everything ran smoothly
and to time. Thank you to all those and for being members of very friendly
Clubs in the area.