Planner’s comments
This was my first use of OCAD 9 “course setting”, I had used OCAD 8 before and so was a little familiar with the procedure but it is slightly different for OCAD 9 . Paul Frost’s Tutorial(s) were an invaluable help in getting started. Unfortunately they did not tell me how to cope with a 1:7500 map, the consequence being that I had the Yellow, Orangeand Green planned to my satisfaction before I realised that the courses were 25% too short. After a hasty re-planning exercise this was rectified and I set about planning the Blue. It didn’t take me long to realise that the Blue would have to have 2 maps, then the fun started. I spent several hours fighting with OCAD trying to convince it not to start numbering the controls from 1 for the second part of the Blue course – we were starting to fall out. I posted a plea for help on the Southdowns Forum and fortunately Ali Weller had come across the same problem at Southwater but with OCAD 8. However, her solution (originally suggested by Mike Gammon) did not completely work because OCAD 9 (demo version) will not allow saving of anything other than “Course Setting” files. In the end, the solution was to export the Blue Part 2 course as an OCAD file and then leave it up to Mike Gammon (or someone else with a full OCAD 9 license) to modify the control numbers on the Blue Part 2 map before printing – easy! (not)
On the Friday before the event Judy and I put out all the stakes and in the process discovered the rather playful cows. A quick phone call to Balcombe Estates established that the cows would be in residence during the event, having nowhere else to go! I thought long and hard about whether to re-route the courses to avoid the field but in the end opted for the warning notice and hoped that no-one would be troubled/disadvantaged/hurt. Fortunately nothing untoward happened but I would advise future planners to double check with the land owners in situations like these where there are fields that may or may not contain livestock.
Looking at the winning times, the courses seemed to be OK and all the comments I heard were good. Rivers Wood was probably at it’s best with the Bluebells putting on a good show. Many thanks to Simon Greenwood and Balcombe Estates for the use of the land, Claire Teesdale for parking, Judy for checking my courses, putting out controls and registration, Sue and Jim Parker, Steve and Nick Jarvis & Darrell High for collecting controls, Tom Jarvis for helping to sort out the kit when it had been collected in and last but not least, Peter and Jaquie for Computing.
Andy Bridge

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Last Updated on 06/05/2006 at 17:06:47 by J. Drake
Programming by Peter Drake. Contact by e-mail or visit web site for information about Vuggles Software's orienteering software