PLANNER - Martin Sellens

Living in the middle of the Roman Valley and Donyland Woods map made it very difficult to find persuasive arguments against being the planner for this delayed badge event. Particularly when a desperate fixtures secretary offered to co-plan. And of course, when the map is being simultaneously redrawn (to pacify the armchair planner who finds in the field that the control sites to which he has become attached cannot be found) the mapper becomes involved in the planning process too. And so it was that the planner became a team, and the team was Sellens, Robertson and Bonnett, and the controller (who had been getting nervous) saw that it might all be alright on the day after all, and was placated.

Thanks, then, to Steve, for all his efforts, to Richard for living in the woods, remodelling them where necessary, and redrawing bits of the map right up to the wire, to Hilary for assistance beyond the call of marital duty and to Keith for his forebearance under extreme provocation. I hope our courses gave you a challenge, despite the density of controls (and some bits of the forest) and the relative lack of technical difficulty. We wanted to give everyone a chance to run through the Donyland Woods, which are new to orienteering, and thought it was worth the organisational hassle of two road crossings as well as the extra controls for the longer courses. We hope those of you who survived the Mersea Rd chicken run agree. There would be more nice runnable bits in Donyland during the winter and spring but we hope you found it a pleasant place to get lost in at the height of an Indian summer, too. At least the worst of the nettles were dying off. Apologies on behalf of the unwelcome guests who made themselves unpleasant to some competitors and burnt three controls overnight. Thanks to Hilary and Robert for policing the replaced controls and calming the situation. No one complained about the courses so I can only assume they were OK. No one complained about the weather either, which I thought we managed rather well. Thanks for coming.

ORGANISER - Andrew Cordle

Thanks for coming.

As well as providing a new area, the event provided some new challenges for the organiser. All the logistical problems were eventually resolved, however, and things seemed to go all right on the day. The printing of split times and results would have gone more smoothly had the two people most comfortable with the system not been pre-occupied with planning and organising roles. I heard a couple of favourable comments about the timed road crossing - it seems that the opportunity to stop running for a few seconds whilst knowing exactly where you were was a welcome novelty!

Essex Stragglers is not a big club, and getting sufficient help on the day is always a worry at an event like this. In the end we seemed to have just enough people to cover all the tasks and still give the opportunity for almost all helpers to have a run. The helpers seemed to fall into two groups - those who got on with their jobs quietly and competently, and those who asked if there was anything else they could do. My sincere thanks goes out to both groups.

My thanks also go out to the others who helped with the event - Colchester Garrison for the land access, 2 Para for the tents and water, Lyn West and family for the pre-entries, and those Stragglers who filled in pot holes at the field entrance, built the stile, and did the gardening. Special thanks to Richard for the map, Martin and Steve for the courses, and Keith for controlling, who together made the event the success it was.

CONTROLLER - Keith Downing (SMOC)

I've been orienteering long enough to remember the days of uncorrected copied black and white ordnance survey maps with ink stamps to mark control cards, so this event was something of a revelation. It showed just how technology has moved on, to be embraced by our sport in just about every way possible.

The detail expected on maps has become ever more demanding – although the subtle variations from open field through semi-open to woodland across the entire Donneylands and Roman Valley area still present problems. Computerised mapping has enabled changes and modifications to be incorporated into each map draft and printing directly from computer disk has allowed maps to be printed virtually on demand. Thus each version of the map that I saw was significantly improved on the previous version that had reached me. The changes hopefully made finding controls on the day much easier than finding some of the tapes had been on the earlier versions used.

E-punching has revolutionised the sport, but this was my first attempt at officiating at an event using the technology. Even though I was fully aware of its capabilities in producing split times, some of the potential additional benefits were highlighted by the timed road crossing. This event should have convinced any doubters of the value of the East Anglian Regional investment in the kit. The sport still needs dedicated planners, organisers and helpers who put in a lot of time and effort both before the event and on the day.

I've worked with SOS before and know what the club is capable of producing and yet again they were able to put on an event which ran smoothly, even taking in their stride the resident vandals who had set up camp directly on one control.

The effort involved by everybody has always meant that our sport has relied upon 'just-in-time' techniques and I've often bemoaned the fact that many of you have practised the art when sending in your entries to badge events in the region. Richard, Martin, Steve and Andrew also used it to the full in preparing for this event, but had everything under control to produce an event that ran smoothly on the day - and hopefully made it worth your while queuing the next day to replace the petrol you had used to get there!