Sunday 20th April 2008
Clent Hills
Comments
Planners' Comments
Clent and Walton Hills are, as their names suggest, quite
hilly. The nature of the terrain makes it inevitable that the longer courses in
particular will have a large amount of climb. Blue and Green were made a little
shorter than usual to compensate.
The yellow course followed a fairly obvious and level (by Clent standards!)
circle around the main hill. Orange took a slightly wider circle with some
route choice options and more difficult control sites. Some comments suggested
that this course may have been a bit on the challenging side for an Orange, but
it is often tricky to get the balance right on courses which offer an
intermediate level of technical difficulty. I hope no-one was challenged too
much on Orange.
Apologies to green runners for the "sting in the tail" between 12 and
13, but I had to get a reasonable distance in somehow. A Blue course on Clent
alone would have been too convoluted, so the loop on Walton Hill was
required.
As a fairly novice planner, I would like to express my thanks to Robert Vickers
for his advice and guidance throughout the planning process and his assistance
on the day. Thanks also to Andy, Chris, Julia, Simon & Ruth for collecting
controls and others who helped out during the event.
Peter Langmaid (HOC)
Catalyst's Comments
I couldn't think how to title my role, since as a modest Local event it didn't justify the attention of a full-blown Controller and yet I found myself contributing from my store of knowledge about the area, especially the experience of dealing with the local landowners and neighbours built up over many years, as well as doing a light-touch check function on the Planner's work.
So, on behalf of the competitors, well done to Peter and George for putting the show on the road. I think Peter's courses challenged you - but fairly. I heard some comments about the climb, but at Clent this is unavoidable and I know Peter did plan to keep this down to a tolerable level. Master maps are uncommon these days, but the decision was made because the timing of the event (coinciding with the British Champs) made the level of attendance, and the mix of the courses, so unpredictable. As it happened, I am sure the dreadful weather suppressed the numbers and we would have suffered a lot of expensive wastage if we had gone for overprinted maps.
Robert Vickers (Harlequins OC)
Organiser's Comments
Just a few thank yous.
To the various land owners around the hills who give permission for us to cross
their land which we have to do on route to Walton Hill. Our special thanks to
Mr Geggie whose field we used for Car Parking, and also to the National Trust
who own the actual hills.
To Robert Vickers who calls himself a catalyst, he was a lot more than that.
Mentoring Peter doing his proper first event as planner, organising all the
local permissions for access, doing on the day controlling and putting out
controls as well as nudging me in the right direction, even finding time to
project manage the reinstatement of one of the Permanent Course posts. Thanks
also to the lads that helped him in this task after having their run.
To Peter Langmaid for allowing himself to be hooked into planning whilst our
more regular and experienced planners were at the British Championships. I
heard lots of positive comments about his courses and a few not so about the
physical challenge of the sting in the tail of the senior courses. This is the
price we pay for having younger fitter planners. (Ha Ha)
To Paul Hammond for taking on the charge of the SI and running the results
without any hitches.
To all the HOC members that came along on the day to help, several not having a
run.
Finally to you for coming along on an awful day and making it all worth
while.
George Chambers (HOC)