Manchester and District Orienteering Club
Piethorne Night Event
Saturday November 10th, 2007
RESULTS
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Manchester and District Orienteering Club Piethorne Night Event |
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It seemed such a good idea in early summer to volunteer for a night event in November.
However, working away from home during the week and holiday commitments meant that
by the end of October very little had been done in preparation and everything was
going to be reliant on the usual few to help out.
Julie had volunteered earlier to do the computers etc and at the last minute Steve
Lang stepped in to be the controller, as well as helping to put out and pick up the
controls. John Britton was also available to help out on the night, manning the start
and picking up controls. Night events have relatively few competitors, so with the
addition of my wife, Eija, we were able to cope well on the night.
Using the minibus as a base is essential on such small events at night especially
if the weather is likely to be inclement.
On the night we had the best turn out of competitors for several years despite the
wet and damp conditions during Saturday.
My thanks to the helpers above and also John Kewley who stayed behind after his run
to help pick up the controls.
Having planned on Piethorne before I was fairly familiar with the area but I do
not recommend starting planning less than two weeks before the event especially when
it would be my first time to use the Condes tool.
As there was a Regional event on the Sunday I did not want to use any of their control
sites.
In some respects this made the planning easier as a lot of ‘known’ sites had been
used but also restricted my choices. The Piethorne map is 1:15000 in A4 size, so
to provide a 1:10000 map (which is the minimum scale for Night events in my opinion)
also restricts the planning.
As crossing points had been placed out for the Regional event I took advantage of
these and used a new area in the north. However, I was therefore very disappointed
to hear that some competitors had cheated by not using the crossing points clearly
marked on the map.
My thanks for Steve Lang for stepping in at the last minute to be the controller
and I certainly learnt a lot from his comments. The courses certainly felt a lot
better than last time and most people seemed to enjoy them judging by the comments
at the end. Looking at the results the Green course could have been slightly shorter
but I think I avoided my usual brutal Blue course.
Thanks to everyone for coming along and competing.
Chris Rostron