Organisers’/planners’ comments
Since Arthur Vince handed over the control of this event to me some years ago, I have wanted to run the event up on the Blackdowns ridge. The area was used for a National event a couple of years ago, and, with the addition of the Priors Park extension and a little joining up work, we had a large enough area to use without resorting to any second laps. The area offers challenging, physical and technical terrain with a limited track network and thus much more pure orienteering than outright running which has been a feature of previous events on the Quantock and Dunster hills.
Perhaps the area’s tough reputation or not enough suitable publicity was a contributing factor to the low turnout. This is a great shame as, with virtually no rainfall in the last few weeks, the terrain had dried out considerably and in many places was very run-able. I like to think we used the nicest parts to the best of our ability-you may have had other thoughts as you wrestled your way through acres of brashings and fight! Typically we had the first rainfall for weeks on the Saturday afternoon while putting out the controls. This inevitably turned the track from the start into the quagmire you all enjoyed at the outset!
With the distance of the nearest hall available some distance from a suitable forest entry point, it was always going to necessitate you all driving to the start. My plans to direct all access to the hall from the A303 from the South, and from there North to the start was thwarted by the closure of the A303 with all traffic being diverted North along our route to the start. This made our signposting both to the hall and others to the start exceedingly confusing to follow. I can only apologise and hope that those of you that did enjoyed your circuitous tour of the lesser lanes of the Blackdowns!
On the subject of apologies, again in hindsight I should have realised that if loose control descriptions are available, there should be sufficient numbers to cope with demand- a lesson learnt for the future.
More helpers were required this year to assist with catering, safety/drink stations, start/finish and parking. As expected the usual suspects rallied with enthusiasm, and we all owe our thanks to Judy, Roger, Margaret, Bob, Sue and Christine for their daylong efforts.
In particular this year I am indebted to Bill Vigar who, apart from all the work done with the mapping, course production and electronic punching management, took over the role of controller from Trevor Griffiths who was unavailable this year.
I hope you all enjoyed the courses and found them suitably challenging. Due to the low numbers, I have taken the decision to restrict prizes to the first man and woman on each of the long and medium courses. An orienteering retailer gift voucher will be sent out to each in the near future.
After discussions with various finishers, the consensus was that although most enjoyed the courses and different area, the preferred venue for this event is on the Quantock or Dunster areas. If you want hills, next year you certainly will…..
Andy Rimes