Winter Warmer Regional event Godshill

Winter Warmer Regional event Godshill & Millersford 5 Feb 2006

Results

Simple Results (final, corrected including some re-instatements on Course 2)

Splits (still provisional)

More pictures of the event from Simon Branford at http://www.flickr.com/photos/owls-count/sets/72057594060049264/

Organiser's Comments
Well, weren’t we lucky with the weather? The open heath land looked wonderful in the sun and I hope your orienteering was as good as the views. The great weather certainly helped to make Sunday a good social occasion and it was lovely to see so many people picnicking, playing football and chatting in the sunshine. I have been nagging the committee for years to hold an event in Godshill but finding a suitable site for the assembly area and a good place to park over 200 hundred cars has been a problem. Sandy Balls provided an excellent assembly area and the staff were very supportive and helpful. When we attend big orienteering events we have high expectations that the courses will be well planned and the event well organised, this can only happen if a large number of people are willing to give up their spare time. So a big thank you to all the people (over 40 WIM members), who did give up their spare time willingly and with enthusiasm, you helped make Sunday a success.

Special thanks to John Warren for his thorough re mapping of the area and congratulations to Tim Britton on planning a successful major event. Thank you to Neil Underwood, the controller and to Sarum for providing the First Aid cover.….and finally thanks to Richard B for getting out of his sick bed to meet the ‘loo man’.

Kirsty Staunton

PS the white bull terrier who followed a runner back to the assembly area was re united with it’s owner during the afternoon.

Lost property:

Purple fleece, Peter Storm Size 10,Small Silva compass, type 7 NL,Silva compass Type 2, (used to mark control circles),Tioga drinks bottle

Planner's Comments This was my first crack at planning a regional event. Naivety must have played a large part in my volunteering to do it – it’s only a glorified colour-coded, surely?! Thank you very much to Peter Brett for acting as my mentor throughout the process, and also to Neil Underwood for his valuable guidance (and also patience) while I learnt the intricacies of the BOF guidelines and of course, Condes. I apologise for the long walks to the start and from the finish. These were necessary firstly because Sandy Balls is the only place large enough to accommodate the car parking, and secondly to avoid two-way pedestrian traffic along that narrow, uneven and muddy path to the start. I think the weather made for a pleasanter stroll back than it could have done.As ever in the New Forest it was difficult to plan courses using Technical Difficulty 5 control sites – I tried my best. Orange and Course 12 were relatively long so as to avoid planning a straight line from start to finish.I would have liked to be able to provide a bit more variety in the White, Yellow, and Courses 14 and 13 but I was restricted by the modest (and admittedly vague in parts) track network on the west side of the road. I hope the courses offered a nice mixture of woodland running, brashing-hopping, and ditch-jumping in the inclosures, with faster more furious heather-wading, bog squelching, and panoramic views in the open areas.

Thanks again to Neil and Peter, but also to the ever-willing WIM members who helped me put out and collect the controls.

Tim Britton.

Controller's Comments Overall Tim produced good courses which from the comments directed to me or that I over heard were challenging but fair. Some of the more able competitors on the longer courses may have found some legs less technically difficult than they could have been, although in an area like Godshill/Turf Hill the high visibility in the open area makes planning at technical difficulty five almost impossible.On most of the long courses the winning times and average times were generally within guidelines, whilst on some of the short courses times were disproportionately long. Tim’s course 12 and the similar orange course was at the upper limit of the range of technical difficulty for these courses and it is not surprising therefore that the times are a little on the long side. The smooth running of the event was down to Kirsty and the dedicated teams of Wimborne helpers. I thank them for making my life easy on the day. Special thanks to Peter Brett who came out to help check control placement for me on Saturday. And finally what a difference a day makes, even on the day before the event it was still very cold with many of the wet areas covered with ice. The warm sunshine certainly made for ideal orienteering weather.

Neil Underwood. Sarum

Dorset Schools v Avon Schools
The event played host to a first ever match between the Dorset Schools League and the Avon School Orienteering Association. As a result, there were far more juniors competing than we usually see at Regional events, about 50 from Avon and 40 from Dorset, many of them having their first experience of orienteering at this level, and though there were one or two slow times, there was only one retirement, and a great time seemed to be had by all. My thanks to Lynn Branford for acting as Team Manager for Dorset, and John Lewis from Avon, who organised their team and undertook to score the event.The best 30 performances from each group counted and full results are available on the Dorset Schools page of the WIM website. For the record, Avon narrowly beat Dorset by 2540 points to 2402.

Dick Keighley