BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY ORIENTEERING CLUB

assisted by Harlequins Orienteering Club

Sunday 15th February 2009

District Event and West Midlands League
Lickey Hills

Comments

Controller's Comments

Many thanks to COBOC for allowing BUOC to use the Lickey Hills for their annual event. I realise how important it is for BUOC to raise some funds to maintain their presence in the university sports union. That said, working with them is always an adventure. This year, none of their members had transport and Kath, the planner, left last year and as well as working full time, has a knee injury that prevented her from even walking round the Lickeys.

Fortunately, when I received the courses, ten days before the event, there was just time to give them a minor tweak before sending them off to the printers. Julia, BUOCs captain, taped the sites, in the snow, with eight days to go and I checked them during the last week. This resulted in a tape 126 being left in the wrong re-entrant but a re-entrant on the route to the correct one on the light green course.

The Sunday arrived with a good thaw except in the car park where part was coned off. This meant that Rollo and Babs had a difficult task finding spaces for the cars and appeasing local residents and some competitors had a longer walk than we hoped. It did make the forest safe for running although rather muddy.

Unfortunately, three of our older SI control boxes failed and were replaced during the event. Thanks to competitors who paused their runs to report these. All runners initially disqualified for missing those controls have been reinstated.

I am delighted to say that there were no non-finishers on the white, yellow and orange courses although I thought the yellow and orange were a little more difficult and longer than they should be, born out by the longer finishing times. The courses made interesting use of a familiar area and Kath was complimented on providing a yellow course that was completely different from the white so that any beginner having done one could move on to the yellow and meet a new challenge.

Congratulations to Jo and Julia for their efforts, Kath for her courses and thanks to the helpers from BUOC and from HOC who helped to provide a successful event.

Colin Spears (HOC)


Planner's Comments

Kath Macmillan (BUOC/HOC)


Organiser's Comments

Jo Webster (BUOC)


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