BOC

[ifor]

Nice day today at the British Champs sun is even out now back in the carpark. Thought my course was OK not to technical but considering the area it was good. Realy liked the far bit of wood nice runable stuff especialy compared to the first bit which was hard going.

Good quick results.

http://www.cix.co.uk/~neper/boc2009/index.htm

Thanks to everyone involved.

Ifor

[Tatty]

I was disappointed for the children in the M/W 10-16 B classes who were not given prizes. It means so much to these children and often encourages them on to greater things. I know the daughter of the owner of the assembly field was 2nd in one of these classes. It would have meant so much to her. I can't beleive the cost of 48 small momentoes was too great considering the bizarre amount of "First Aid" cover at the event which seemd totally over the top for an event in this area. At the OMM maybe, but in the New Forset? Never

[EddieH]

Having had the most diabolical run imaginable, I feel totally unbiased in saying that I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend. Thank you everyone that put it on.

[awk]

I was disappointed for the children in the M/W 10-16 B classes who were not given prizes. It means so much to these children and often encourages them on to greater things.

The more junior prizes (especially at 10-12), the more publicity: prizes (and even better, certificates) can be re-presented in school. We built a school club on the back of a prize being re-presented in assembly.
The rollcall of later achievers in the junior B classes, particularly M/W10B is quite impressive - M/W10B after all is effectively the M/W8 class.

[Jon Brooke]

Great weekend, but please can the next set of organisers give a bit more regard to catering? Glad to see the place not being littered with millions of unwanted plastic bottles of water, but it would have been nice to be able to buy a cup of tea after my run on Sunday. Also, sausage, sausage or sausage not to my taste. Surely wouldn't have been too difficult to get a second caterer along - plenty business for 2.

Have Wilfs packed up now? Did the business get sold?

[Mrs H]

Yes a thoroughly enjoyable weekend - and the weather fantastic. Everyone was very helpful and cheerful. I agree that the catering and toilets were perhaps a bit limited for an event of this size and personally I struggled with the selective mapping of the gorse/rhodies but I actually enjoyed both my run tremendously. It was just great to be out and among friends - especially as a bad back had put everything in doubt just the day before.

[NeilC]

We have often found that landowners specify who can and can't provide catering at events on their land (and perhaps specify a level of first aid cover as well?). No idea if this was the case for this weekend. Wilfs were certainly doing a good trade last weekend at the JOK/HH events.

I agree with Ifor's comments - you have a pretty good idea what you will be getting in the New Forest but there was still plenty of scope to make errors (both big and small) at the individual and the marshy areas provided a physical challenge as well. All winners(*) fully deserve the title of British Champion.

Nice to run on a new area for the relays and a fun mixture of marshy woodland, fast woodland, intricate thicketed areas and ultrafast heathland.

Well done SCOA. I personally am a fan of the British and JK rotating around the regions and have no problems at all with the sort of areas we have seen this weekend being used. However this debate will be back with us soon.

(*) By which of course I mean L and A course winners excluding M/W 18-21 etc

[Paul Frost]

The RouteGadget for both days is here:
BOC RouteGadget

If you visited the relays RG before and couldn't match your course to the numbers I have now edited the file and inserted the b-ABC type description that is on your map.

If you want to compare routes with someone on another gaffle you should select "All classes" in the dropdown course menu the select the names you want to compare. This only works if they have posted a route.

[Tatty]

Beaulieu would not give permission for any other caterers apart from their own. I didn't actually see tham sell anything - we took our own after queueing for 45 minutes on saturday.

[Ravinous]

I took my own both days! But my fellow car companions who drove me stood ONE HOUR! in the queue on Saturday and called into a garage for Sandwiches on the way to the relay on Sunday.
I am guessing Wilfs wouldnt have wanted to come down for just one day.
Tim Wilkinson does a mean bacon and egg butty, but the like are not conducive to 'fast' food production. He is quite local and comes to the army events. He and his team must have been knackered by the end of play on Saturday!
Wilfs latest - there is a buyer lined up - a local caterer in the Lakes who is not an Orienteer but will carry on with servicing O events. More will be made public when money has changed hands - I guess it can still fall through!? but sounded pretty good. I am pretty sure Wilfs will be at the JK. Afterall, an Orienteer orienteers on his/her stomach!?!?!
Wilfs has a new website too if you havent seen it....http://www.wilfs-cafe.co.uk/

[Paul Frost]

Someone asked if you can find out the actual distance run compared to the pixel length.

You can work it out by checking how many pixels to the 1km on the map. crop the map image to a know distance like the scale bar or grid lines then see how many pixels wide the image is. This gives you the pixels per km, then divide the route pixels by the number and you should get your answer.

I just did a quick test and got 370 pixels per 1km for day 1 and 390 pixels per 1km for the relay. You can check it by looking at a top performer and using their pixel count to compare to the stated course length.
Course 14, 10.2km, Paul Addison, 6th, 4178 pixels divide by 370 = 11.29km

[DanH]

Wilfs were at the Open 5 race in Malham on Sunday - much closer to home so hard to justify the travel down to the New Forest.

[HOCOLITE]

I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and feel those who criticised the event and did not attend missed out. My only critiscism is that the maps only had the course no. and gaffle on. THis meant if you picked up the wrong map you could not check the classes on it and after the relays it was a little tricky to allocate the maps to absent personnel.

The first issue possibly led to a junior in our club running the M Class instead of the W one. She completed the course as she had also got the control descriptions for that course. I also know that a very experienced senior also picked up the wrong map.

[DM]

Another satisfied family here. We haven't done anything in the New Forest before so found it different to the steeper hills and tussocks we are used to. Agree with the comments about caterers, I was deterred by the long queue.

HOCOLITE; regarding course numbers, how about writing course number and start time on the back of the hand of juniors? Helps them get the right map, and the ink soon washes off in the uncrossable marshes.

[madmike]

how about writing course number and start time on the back of the hand of juniors? Helps them get the right map, and the ink soon washes off in the uncrossable marshes.

Why just juniors - 3 times I've started off with the wrong map (inc BOC2007 )and one of them was someone else's fault