Organiser's Comments

In advance of Organiser's Comments, thanks to all who donated their maps at the finish.


Apologies to one family who did not punch the start and who found controls were being collected in before they completed their course - we have reinstated the (literally) missing controls.

Planner's Comments

It was good to see so many out enjoying the sunshine and mild December weather. Fortunately the actions we had put in place in the risk assessment due to snow/ice/hypothermia didn't need to be carried out.
What wasn't foreseen back in September was the fact that contractors would be in the forest thinning various sections, but as a working forest these things are to be expected. As a result some of the early versions of courses needed to be altered and a decision was taken not to place controls in the sections being worked on and to hope that by the day of the event other areas would not be affected, despite rows of trees having recently been painted with ominous white dots.

Holding the event in December did at least mean, as it was outwith the bird nesting season, that we had use of Warren Hill (the open grass land area). We tried to make good use of this area without overdoing it and from comments received on the day most found this a challenging and enjoyable experience which is different to most forest based orienteering in this area.
Being open grassland did inevitably mean that some controls were visible from a long distance. Perhaps the longer courses could have visited this area twice, which would have made unnecessary control 59 in the NE corner and the long leg which followed which from comments was the main gripe about the blue course.

Mildenhall South is a fairly small area, the usable area of which was made smaller by the forestry work and the need to be able to use the two lay-bys as contingency for parking which meant routing competitors through the edge of the forest/Warren Hill area to keep off the road. We always knew that the Blue was likely to be completed in fast times and maybe this could have benefited from a second map and visiting Warren Hill a second time, as mentioned above.

Being planners and very involved in the event certainly meant that we now appreciate much more the effort that is put in by people in order to be able to hold events like this and makes you very thankful for everyone who are able to keep our sport vibrant and challenging by giving freely of their time both on the day and in the months beforehand.
Thanks to all those who turned out to help at the event and making it go smoothly, from the car parking to registration, to start and download and as planners we especially like to thank those who helped collect the controls in and sort them afterwards.
The event wouldn't have been able to run smoothly without Peter Allen's organisation and also with Peter Woods stepping in to find the family who were still out on the Green course as controls were being collected, again apologies that they were unable to find the last few controls.

As planners we would like to thank Stephen Searle for controlling the event and providing good feedback and advice on the planning process, especially as it was our first time to plan an event. Thanks also to Neil Humphries for printing the maps and his final tweaking to make the control descriptions fit better on the map.

Iain Stemp & Andrew Stemp (WAOC)