DEE/MDOC Challenge, Delamere, 14 April 2002

Officials' comments

Results | Scores | Splits

Organiser's comments | Planner's comments

Organiser's Comments (Barry Barnes)

It took a long time to put this event on. F & M last year scuppered it, and the crowded calendar this year made finding a date problematic. When we did, we nearly lost it again to a Compassport Cup takeover. It seems to have been worth the wait. Over 160 entries and some very favourable comments about Steve's courses suggest consumer satisfaction. The social seemed to go with a buzz and the food contributions were stunning!

The scoring system generated considerable mathematical discussion with the criteria being the opportunity for as many competitors as possible to count. The overall total of DEE 631, MDOC 556 does not reflect the closeness of the result on most courses; course 5 seems to have been the one which gave DEE a decisive advantage. I understand Ian Watson is working on a more refined version for the next match.

Despite enjoying the benefits of SI it was still necessary to rope in some of the usual suspects to ensure all the parts made a whole. I am grateful to the Deesiders who ran at strange times so they could then help and to Tim Palmer who did not run at all as he muttered over a hot computer all morning. Also to Jill for dealing with the entries so efficiently and then serving 150 soups in an hour.

It was good fun - we will have to do it again sometime.

 

Planner's Comments (Steve Ingleby)

I hope you all enjoyed your run at Delamere. A special thank you to our friends from MDOC who turned up in good numbers - if it's any comfort, many of the high scorers from Deeside know Delamere like the back of their hands!

  1. My utmost apologies to the lady on course 4 who set off with a map that did not have a description sheet attached. This was an unforgivable error.
  2. 3 SPORTident control boxes became faulty during the course of the event. One went into auto-destruct mode and bleeped continuously as I was putting out controls (much to the concern of passers by!). The other two failed to record people 'dibbing' at the control and had to be replaced. The reason for the failure seems to have baffled our technical experts and the boxes will have to go back to Germany for further investigation. Apologies to all concerned on courses 7 & 8.
  3. I have less sympathy for individuals who complained about "all the controls being hidden". My philosophy in putting out controls is to ensure that the orienteer navigates to the control feature and is not drawn into the control by 'beacon' control flags. When the feature has been found, however, there should be no difficulty in seeing the control. When collecting all the controls after the event I checked out these criteria with each site. The only one for which there was difficulty in seeing the control was #222, where the flag had been trampled into the bottom of the gully.
  4. Fortunately most competitors seem to have enjoyed their runs and I am very grateful to people who either thanked me on the day and sent me messages after the event. I felt very disillusioned after the event and these positive comments have helped renew my enthusiasm in planning.
  5. Finally my sincere thanks to the following people: