2 compasses, 1 whistle, 1 dibber belonging to Steve Hinshelwood / WAOC
Contact Tony Biggs 020 8502 0862
This was a good event, with super weather, a beautiful forest with plenty of features and excellent courses. There was also an excellent turnout of almost 300 competitors. Add to that the very good organisational abilities of the Havoc team led by Anthony, and it's small wonder that many competitors expressed their delight with their visit.
More than a few commented that the courses were good. Brian had prepared the courses in very good time, and in particular I had been asked to check out the white, yellow and orange courses separately about three months before 21st September as Brian wanted to make sure that these were no less suitable than the longer courses.
Having carried out all this work, Epping Forest Conservators then, belatedly, decided that they did not want us to park at High Beach. Brian had to consider whether he had the time to rework the courses. It was a possibility that the event would have to be canceled. It says a lot for his abilities that he managed to "tweak" the longer courses so that many of the original control sites remained. Obviously, the short courses had to be all totally new. It isn't easy when suddenly you have to park at the extreme south of the map when original planning was at the extreme north.
One competitor was a little unhappy that a control was placed behind a tree, causing one of the Havoc team to respond " Well, that does tend to be a problem in forests".
Chris Baker
DFOK
As HAVOC stands with a foot in both SEOA & EAOA, it was good to see a fair representation of all neighbouring clubs at the event. Congratulations to CHIG for pipping Happy Herts to the Snail Trail Trophy this year; almost on home territory, as the HAVOC Epping SW map and CHIG Epping NW map overlap at High Beach.
Apart from White and Yellow, courses had originally been planned to start just South East of the forest church (near control 127) and finish North of the pub & visitor centre at High Beach. Planning and 'preparing' suitable White and Yellow courses within the NE block near High Beach had taken some time. Re-planning the courses from Chingford Plain led to some compromises being made, but I still wanted to get all the harder courses into the more technical northern area. To minimise the risk of error and the workload on Planner and Controller, I retained most of the technical control sites (as they had already been checked). The position of the 'Far' Start and Finish were limited by logistical considerations and by what was thought to be an acceptable distance from the car park. Hopefully people saw the pre-event information and came prepared. We were very lucky with the weather!
I will apologise for a couple of the control placements, which caused some competitors difficulties. Control 133 (Clearing SE tip) was close to the taped position but I discovered on Saturday that there must be a concrete base underneath the clearing and could only wedge/tie the control to the fallen tree trunk, where it wasn't so visible despite my trampling the bracken down. The other control that drew comments was 119 (S Re-entrant), the placing of which close to a rootstock/fallen tree trunk was mainly as a defence against vandalism - a major concern for the area as a whole. We were fortunate to escape with no vandalism at all - which was a relief.
Thanks to those who gave me their comments personally (mainly favourable!). My personal thanks for the support of the stretched HAVOC team marshalled by Anthony Waller; in particular Paul Beckett for help setting some of the controls on Saturday and the rest of the gang who helped collect controls after the event. Thank you too to Graham Batty and family who put on the excellent String course. Finally, a big thanks to Tony Biggs and my family for their support on the SI front and not least to Chris Baker (Controller) for coping admirably with our challenges.
Brian Daniel
We had a really good turnout for this event, many more competitors than we originally expected. I think being the first large event of the year and the excellent weather helped no end. Overall the event went well and we were pleased to hear numerous positive comments about Brian's planning.
I must apologise to the early finishers who had no water as I had forgotten to transfer water to the far finish. I hope this did not spoil your day.
As you may have been aware we had some problems with the parking area and at the eleventh hour had to change our plan. We had intended to run the event from High Beach, in order to use the better part of the area and intended to use off road parking there. This had been agreed with the conservators, but a change of regime meant we were not allowed access to the parking we wanted.
Therefore we had to revert to Chingford Plain. As it happened the number of competitors we had on the day would have caused difficulties and I was glad that the parking was moved.
When we had heard the news about the parking we nearly called the event off but Brian worked solidly over the August Bank Holiday weekend to re-plan. We decided that we wanted to still use the best of the area and that explains why the longer courses had a long walk to the start, and back from the finish.
Thanks go to Brian Daniel, who produced some excellent courses and to Chris Baker for acting as controller. Finally a big thank you to all the helpers from HAVOC who helped put on a great day. Special thanks should go to Tony Biggs for co-ordinating the SI equipment and coping with it's foibles unflappably, to Colin Jackson
for organising the far start and finish and to Barbara Fothergill for running registration with her usual ruthless efficiency.
I hope you all had a great day and hope to see you at Bedfords Park on the 22nd November.
Anthony Waller