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BOX HILL AND HEADLEY HEATH NATIONAL EVENT

09 FEBRUARY 2003

Please note that this web site has some bandwidth restrictions (bandwidth is the amount of data that an internet service provider allows to be read from the site and in our case it is measured over 24 hour periods). We will be relocating the web site soon, but not soon enough to overcome the immediate problem. Please try to not to make multiple visits to view the same results - the more times you view  page the more bandwidth is used, and the more likely that the site will get taken down for a few hours. If you would like to have full results emailed to you please ask the webmistress. The full results without splits is a 75k file, with splits it is 600k. Alternatively, view the results through Splitsbrowser which will save on our bandwidth! [added 11 February 2003]

M10A M10B M21A M12B M14A M14B M16A M16B M18A M18B M20L M20S M21L M21S M35L M35S M40L M40S M45L M45S M50L M50S M55L M55S M60L M60S  M65L M65S M70L M70S M75L M75S

W10A W10B W21A W12B W14A W14B W16A W16B W18A W18B W20L W20S W21L W21S W35L W35S W40L W40S W45L W45S W50L W50S W55L W55S W60L W60S W65L W65S W70L W75L W75S 

Colour Coded Courses:     Yellow      Orange     Light Green    

Planners' report  

Orienteering is full of challenges – and that goes for the planning too.  A pair of 1.5km² maps over 1km apart and with only distant parking may not sound ideal but the contrast between Box Hill and Headley Heath and significant route choices provided plenty of food for thought. 

 We decided to start as many courses as possible on Headley Heath so you could enjoy the different terrain.  The run over to Box Hill gave time to anticipate its contours.  This is the first time they have been mapped at 5m intervals and so at least you knew you were doing the climb!  True to the National Event billing we sought to provide as great a challenge as the areas permitted and most courses were won in the upper echelons of the recommended winning time.  You did not experience the area at its best and on a dry or frosty morning times would have been significantly quicker.  Just a few weeks previously tobogganing and skating were the order of the day on Box Hill and during the recent floods a Mole in spate submerged your route back to the Event Centre.

 We learnt a lot from this event.  OCAD 8 was a revelation compared to the previous planning technology used for the 1999 National Event on White Downs, Sheepleas and Netley Heath where course were painstakingly drawn onto transparent film; electronic punching had its ups and downs (heavy stakes and multiple site visits but fast results and splits); and we now know all there is to know about how to measure polybags.  Less surprising, but still disappointing, was the fact that so many chose not to follow the full length of the taped route while others chose to run along the roads despite all our warnings.

 Our thanks go to Simon Ling – the Organiser’s Organiser – and to our ever-constructive Controller, Hedley Calderbank, whose patience must have been tested to the limit by delays in mapping, and whose faith in the event “being all right on the morning” was repaid.  Jon Coles, Vince Grealy, Hugh Walker, Roy Whitehead and John Davies all put themselves out to get the boxes in the forest before the crack of dawn and thanks to all those who put in the hours at the late night map bagging or collecting controls after a tiring day.  A final thanks to Mike Elliot whose just-in-time voluntary mapping service gave a few sleepless nights but delivered the goods.

We would welcome feedback – good and bad – on the courses and particularly on some of the longer route choices involved.  Please e-mail us at svogel@dircon.co.uk.

 Tony Burton & Sandra Vogel

Organiser's report

This is a preliminary report. A second report will follow. 

I have been living with this event for so long that it is quite hard to believe that it is now all over.  I hope that you all enjoyed it despite the weather, which was quite like old times for Mole Valley .  We shall get our old reputation back.

 It was a complicated event logistically with two starts and a finish all remote from the event centre and from each other.  I was pleased with the way the transport all worked out perhaps because more of you than I anticipated elected to walk to the west start or back from the finish – thank you.  We were very lucky to have the excellent facilities at Friends Provident, which meant that the parking problem was easily resolved and the computers had somewhere warm and dry to operate.  The atmosphere in the control room was surprisingly relaxed – most of the time anyway.  Friends Provident have been very good to us on several occasions, and I learnt during this event that the first ever National Event, which Mole Valley organised on White Downs, was actually sponsored by them.

 There were one or two organisational problems during the day, the main one probably being a rather uncertain period early on at the West Start.  We believe almost everybody now has a correct race time, but if you know of any anomalies in the published results please let us know.   I will deal with this more fully in the final report. The clothing exchange system was also less than satisfactory and we will be putting our heads together to work out a better one for the future.

 The event is expected to have made a profit for the club but we anticipate using the map again at smaller events which will not do so.  The extra expense of the transport and heavy land access fees made it a difficult event to budget for, and the breakeven point in terms of numbers of competitors was in fact only about 15% less than we got.  Hence the relatively high entry fees.  I hope to publish accounts in the final report.

 I received one formal protest during the event about the siting of the finish.  This was referred to the jury who rejected the complaint.  Again I will deal with this more fully in the final report.

 There were several injuries during the event of which four were advised to attend a hospital.  I hope you are all well on the way to recovery now.  A message from Frank Kew, who was made temporarily unconscious by a fall, follows.

 Thanks are due to Friends Provident and to the National Trust for the facilities and use of the area.  Thank you also to Hedley Calderbank our controller, and to the large band of helpers particularly my team leaders and the members of GO and SLOW who joined us.  They all did extremely well and deserve most of the credit for making the event happen. The responsibility for the various problems is of course entirely mine.  I would particularly like to mention Tony and Sandra (the planners);  Mike Elliot (the mapper and computer supremo), and Nick Green who laboured for long hours over the entries, at what is anyway a busy time of year for him, with a remarkably laid back and helpful attitude.  Their hard work gave us all a great event to enjoy. Finally thank you to all of you for coming.

 Simon Ling

   A message from Frank Kew, M50, Airienteers, Leeds/Bradford:

 'Thanks to 'Martin' and the lady who lent me her blue cagoule after I was knocked out in a fall near the finish of my course.  They forgot about their own runs and were very helpful.  You will be pleased to know I am OK now'.