Thank you to all those came to MV’s orienteering event at Buchan Country Park on Sunday 14th December. I hope that our South-East Vets, SuperVets and Families enjoyed the Competitions.
Results : Results | RouteGadget | WinSplits | BOF Results
Congratulations to the Trophy Winners for 2025:
- SEOA Veterans Women – Julia Jarvis SO
- SEOA Veterans Men – Simon Evans SAX
- SEOA Super Veterans Women – Christine Jepson SO
- SEOA Super Veterans Men – Peter Chapman SO
- SEOA Families Trophy – Chapman Family SO
Controller’s comments (Vince Joyce, SO):
It was difficult to refuse when Mike Elliot asked if I could control this event as I live on the edge of the Holmbush map.
Apparently this is only Ian’s second time of planning but I thought his courses made the best use of this small area without too much repetition. I spent a very pleasant day checking his control sites and found all of his tapes and all in the right place which made my job a pleasure. The comments at the finish were all very positive.
There was a nice festive spirit at download with the mulled wine and mince pies which encouraged people to stay for the prize giving. Congratulations to all of the trophy winners.
Thanks to Ian and Marc and all of the Mole Valley helpers for a really good event.
Organiser’s comments (Marc Roberts, MV):
This was my first time organising an event and as an organiser, and having enjoyed turning up and running many orienteering events, I felt that I wanted the day to be an enjoyable one for the runners. Early on, in the week before the event, the weather forecast was poor – wet and windy! Thankfully
the forecast changed and the weather turned out kind; a good day on the Saturday for putting out some of the controls and conditions dry on the day.
As a first time organiser I was grateful to benefit from the experience of others in the club with a number of templates for plotting all the tasks that needed planning in the months ahead and documents for preparing events and organising helpers. My particular thanks to Tim Scarbrough for sending
over copies of the documents early on, to Tony Burton and Mike Elliot for their expertise and assistance, and to brother Ian who helped with the organising.
The ranger at Buchan Country Park, Simon Rowledge, was very helpful in providing permission and access to the park and reserving a parking bay in the Country Park’s car park that enabled us to locate the download, bag drop and mulled wine at a convenient location for the event.
Everything seemed to come together for a good day at Buchan Country Park and I was grateful that all the helpers seemed to know exactly what needed doing and just got on and set everything up on the day with minimal input form me – thank you all. Also, grateful to brother Ian who planned the courses. I
heard a number of runners all say at the end of their runs how good they found their course – well done Ian. Thank you to Dawn and Stefan for calculating the events results and to Sarah for the very popular word search based on the IOF Control Descriptions!
Again, a big thank you to the team of MV volunteers who helped on the day without whom it would be impossible to set up, run and pack down an event – thank you!
And congratulations to all the competition winners.
Planner’s comments (Ian Roberts, MV):
For the Mole Valley Festive event at Buchan Country Park I once again stepped into the role as Planner; but really one sits down in the role as an armchair planner/computer plotter for a lot of the work. We have an up-to-date map from Mike Elliot as it was a corner of the larger British Middles map. I found the map very accurate and thus thank and acknowledge Mike’s work on its creation. So having done the armchair thinking – I then ventured out into the Park for the real work.
My last time planning was on the quite hilly Reigate Park, Buchan has hills, but the slopes are gentler. I felt this gave me a challenge to really use the map and from the course design point only consider the hills last – with an eye on climb to be reasonable to our Vet runners. I attempt to pick interesting and challenging legs as well as a few nearby legs. I set out with a couple of aims – can I ensure competitors need to get off the path network – and can I get them to see a wide variety of terrain in Buchan Park. Another planning challenge is the lakes, as there are only three crossing points from the east to the west.
I hope that I made our runners think about their route choices, and also gave them a good, non-repetitive run around the limited area.
Congratulations to Marc Roberts for organising his first O Event – it was a great success. And as always a huge thanks for our volunteer helpers, especially Mark Feltham, John Pickup, Peter Martin for the essential dawn shift of control setting.
My last thanks goes to Vince Joyce our event Controller – I thoroughly appreciate your hard work and your very friendly advice, I have certainly learnt more of the subtle art of planning.