Dear Orienteer
Escrick event 16 March 2002
On behalf of
Eborienteers I would like to apologise to all competitors for the problems that
occurred with the electronic punching system at the Escrick colour coded event
on Saturday 16 March. Many of you had a prolonged wait before you could
download your times and a few people went away without being able to obtain
their times.
A combination of problems developed, which, together with a
couple of red herrings, succeeded in delaying data input into the computers for
a prolonged period. Having sorted those problems, we then lost power to the
download computer, which complicated the matter even further.
We have
operated the Sport Ident system successfully before and there was no reason to
anticipate problems on this occasion. However, it is obvious that lessons need
to be learnt from last Saturday. I wish to assure everyone that the Club's
committee will ensure that a complete review is carried out to identify what
went wrong and to put a revised system in place which will minimise the chance
of these problems recurring in the future.
May I thank you for your
patience and tolerance and look forward to seeing you at future, trouble-free
Ebor events.
Roger Smith
Chairman
Due to Foot & Mouth this event was planned and replanned several
times - having put the finalised courses away a year ago, when I looked at them
again earlier this year I discovered numerous 'improvements', including the
addition of a brown course with a single master map! I hope that you all found
the courses enjoyable.
E-punching allowed me to make the best use of the
runnable sections of the wood, whilst trying to avoid the worst of the
brambles. It's almost impossible to find 'technical' control sites in the area,
so for the longer courses I tried to give you route choice options, mixed leg
lengths, and plenty of changes of direction to make you have to think. Judging
from the comments of a couple of competitors, it worked! The shorter courses
were planned to give variety and a route along some interesting paths. I hope
you enjoyed going through the tree tunnel!
My thanks go to Tony for
organising, Peter and Christine for giving me excellent advice & putting up
with my changes of mind, and especially to Peter Watson for keeping the
problems with the computing under control. I also want to thank Matt Speake for
putting out half the SI units whilst some of you were still having breakfast,
and Matt & his Irish friends, Mike Ridealgh & Keith Macdermott for
collecting them back in so promptly.
I would like to apologise to those of
you who had problems downloading - I was manning the download point with my
wife Karel, so we both know how long you had to wait!
Kevin Holland
Planner & Eborienteers Club Secretary
What a relief that the day turned out to be sunny and quite mild. The day before was very wet and much colder. The rain of the previous few weeks left a legacy of full ditches and some soggy running although most of the area drains well. Kevin produced some interesting courses making use of electronic punching to allow some convoluted shapes. He has also had a full year to tweak them. Luckily in that time there were no major changes to the area. It was our first experience of controlling an event with electronic punching and we had to change some of our familiar systems and will probably continue to do so. Thanks to Kevin and Tony and their helpers.
Christine and Peter Roberts.
Most of the pre-organising took place last year, before the event was cancelled. Everything was then put on hold for twelve months, but arrangements remained the same. Due to me being 'remote' and with very little free time, I must thank Kevin for doing quite a bit of the local arrangents - finding suitable parking, and fixing an accessible start/finish. Also thanks to the farmer for allowing us to cross his land to gain access to the wood. I apologise to competitors who may have been inconvenienced at the download as we suffered early computer gremlins, but these were eventually sorted out (thanks to a phone call to Tenerife!). Apart from that, everything seemed to run smoothly, mainly thanks to a fine band of helpers,whom I thank for volunteering, and many of whom didn't compete; and to the fine, spring-like weather.
Tony Udris