Planner’s comments
Selhurst is 3k long x 750m wide
not an easy shape to plan courses on when plan a is to keep you off the paths,
with a forest that has good visibility and moderate technicality the main
challenge is to avoid the worst of the bramble and minimise the height gain,
considering some of the minutes per k some of you did not appear to have
noticed either.
My thanks to my teams of ‘putter outers’ and ‘getter
inners’ with special thanks to the 6.30 am Sunday crew, the snow showers did
not put them off; to Charlie Turner for his dedication and Mike Gammon for
trying to explain the mysteries of OCAD to me.
I hope you enjoyed your day
Pat Maher
Organisers’ comments
This was the first time that either of us had
organised a Regional event. We hope that
this did not show too much.
Thank you for putting up with the change in the parking arrangements. After the heavy rain at the beginning of the
week a site visit was arranged on Thursday and we were advised that we could
not have the use of the field we had hoped for. Rain was still forecast for the weekend and
therefore we opted for the minibus alternative using the Selhurst Park Car
Park. Also on Thursday a lot of the hard
standing was a sea of mud! By the weekend
as you know the rain had not come and everything was drying out, but it was
agreed not to take any chances. Fortunately in the end we were able to park a
lot more cars around the farm buildings.
For those of you who had to wait for a minibus we apologise for the
inconvenience caused. The walk from the
Selhurst Car Park direct to registration took you through the competition area
and then along the narrow country lane you drove along and we were not prepared
to take this risk.
The other issue was the lack of splits for at least two hours. It seems this was simply the cold (the
temperature hardly went above freezing all day) affecting the two small
printers as they sprung back into life when the sun came out. Steps will be taken to prevent this happening
again. If any one getting printed
results would like their split times, please let me know on 01243-789949,
leaving your name, course and address and I will get these sent to you.
At the start there were sufficient maps for all the
badge course and colour coded courses but on one or two occasions the fact that
the maps were interchangeable (courses 11-14) was not spotted. Our apologies to anyone affected.
Thank you to the string course team who made a lovely set of new controls based
on the Simpsons, sat it out in the cold but had about 30 customers, Patrick
Windsor Brown for supplying and driving one of the minibuses at short notice,
Chichester Youth Wing for supplying the other again at short notice (Jillian
was the driver), and the army of other Southdown helpers who willingly stepped
in to help, especially the computing team with the problems they had to
overcome.
Finally thanks to John Holt and Haredown ATB for allowing us the use of the
parking around Ide’s Barn and the access across his land to the competition
area, and providing refreshments and the Forestry Commission for the use of
Jillian Devine and Michael Merritt
Controllers comments
Pat produced his draft courses for me in early December and my first trip
down to Selhurst was just before the New Year on a
day that the temperature was well below freezing and with an added wind chill
factor I was unable to write or alter any tagging/tapes. In comparison Sunday’s event was warm, even
though you may not have thought so!
I think Pat’s courses produced a good challenge but I am sorry that a few
competitor’s runs were upset by an unbroken circle on 74, which hid a dot
knoll. Prior to printing, each of the
courses was checked for the need for line/circle breaks and many extra breaks
were made where features were not clear.
Number 74 was completely hidden and as such it slipped through the
checking. My
apologises to anyone who was affected.
I am grateful to Michael for getting his various teams doing all the tasks
needed and in particular for him having
kept a watchful eye on the weather and booking, on a ‘just in case’
basis, minibuses for shuttling people to
the overflow car park. Southdowns made my controlling task very straight forward
as everybody completed everything within agreed timeframes.
Charlie Turner