Jukola/Venla

[ifor]

A great weekend away well done to everyone taking part. Some personal worsts for me at the main event. My longest time out on a normal O event 3.34.45 (but the longest on my leg was 6.37.04) and my longest split at 78.33 anyone had a slower one?

[Scott]

I think provided all the good folk from different clubs don't get together and form a "superteam" when they could have ran for their clubs as their clubs had enough folk it would be good to be more relaxed about this rule.

If people wanted to start forming "superteams", what is there at the moment to stop all the good folk from different clubs just getting together and agreeing to join the same club?

[Becks]

See EUOC and SHuOC and SYO at various stages. Why does it matter? The best people race together and get better, and if partipication is increased, there's loads of people to race against for those not at the sharp end. I really don't see why anybody cares. This obsession with distances behind the winners and prizes for every category is about as strange as road runners and their fondness for entirely useless medals. You pick your actual competition and that's why you race. My Mum and Mrs H are a wonderful example of this.

Jukola is a joy to race in, full stop. While we're still obsessed with EWTs, horses for courses and prizes for adults (kids are different), we'll never successfully run a race as amazing as that.

[frog]

The hassle factor. All the good folk entering a relay as a team is less hassle than becoming a club, joining the SOA, having a constitution etc.
Cyclists I know have done this, but mainly in audax circles where the definition of a "club" is fairly flexible, and the club's constitution can just be "our club's constitution is that we don't have a constitution". Audax events are supposed to be non competitive though.
Perhaps it's a nonproblem and someone should propose having adhoc teams competitive in UK relays. I'd support it. It obviously works well in Finland and may encourage nonorienteers to get together and have a go.

[Scott]

The hassle factor. All the good folk entering a relay as a team is less hassle than becoming a club, joining the SOA, having a constitution etc.

I didn't mean forming their own club - the whole point of the current "open" clubs is that anybody can join. So there's nothing to stop the entire GB squad just leaving their current clubs tomorrow, joining KERNO and winning everything, if they were so inclined. And this is already happening on a smaller scale anyway - I know of quite a few juniors/young seniors who have changed their open club specifically in order to be able to run in a more competitive relay team.

As Becks says, I don't think it's going to lead to end of the world, as long as there are enough well-matched teams to provide a bit of competition. After all, an awful lot of the top teams at Jukola contained people with pretty minimal geographical ties to the town/region of the club they were representing.

[Spookster]

Some personal worsts for me at the main event.

And I hear it didn't start very well at the airport either. Presumably the security personnel there hadn't heard of home-made high-powered headlights/batteries? Bad luck.

[SeanC]

The other day I was looking at dates for some local events for next year, and spotted this:

http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/event/event_detail.php?id=58481&bSearch=1&evt_name=&evt_postcode=&evt_radius=0&evt_level=3&evt_type=0&event_club=0&evt_start_d=21&evt_start_m=5&evt_start_y=2011&evt_end_d=0&evt_end_m=0&evt_end_y=0&evt_assoc=12&evt_newcome=0&evt_family=0&evt_start=1305932400&evt_end=0&&perpage=10page=0



An alternative to submitting a proposal to (events?) committee for a complete change is to publicise the fact that non - club teams will not be listed or considered as non-competitive, but will not be eligable for the normal Harvesters prizes. It might encourage some interesting teams. Maybe a Kent Night Cup or Deeside Night Cup team? A "rest of Scotland" team (for those not in EUOC or FVO)? etc etc. And maybe more teams from abroad?

[AndyC]

Pardon my ignorance -but as the venue is North of 60 degrees and given the time of year did it ever get properly dark?

[Spookster]

Pardon my ignorance -but as the venue is North of 60 degrees and given the time of year did it ever get properly dark?

The event started at sunset, which was 2255. Sunrise was about 0300. In the assembly area during the night it was quite dark, but not absolutely "pitch black". In the forest it certainly was "properly dark".

[madmike]

A great weekend away well done to everyone taking part. Some personal worsts for me at the main event. My longest time out on a normal O event 3.34.45 (but the longest on my leg was 6.37.04) and my longest split at 78.33 anyone had a slower one?

Ifor,
can better (worsen!) your 3.34.45 at least 3 times, including 4.00.46 for Eddie H's Deep Black at Culbin.

However, I am struggling to match the 78.33 split other than here:

138.54 ----
---- ----
---- ----
---- 79.09
218.03 ----

on M21E at Aussie Champs 09 where I went for 79.09 between punches but missed out 3 controls to get back before the course closed - not a proper split though

[mharky]

I though there was a local club alliance rule for BOF relays anyway?

[mharky]

See EUOC and SHuOC and SYO at various stages

You can add INT to that list

[Scott]

I though there was a local club alliance rule for BOF relays anyway?

Yes, although hardly anybody seems to take advantage of the alliances at the moment - I'm planning to actively publicise them for 2011 to see whether we can get a few more clubs to apply. But part of the problem is that for a lot of clubs it is the Harvester specifically for which they have trouble raising a full team, and not relays in general - they don't want to be in an alliance for the JK/BRC etc.

[AndyC]

Pardon my ignorance -but as the venue is North of 60 degrees and given the time of year did it ever get properly dark?

The event started at sunset, which was 2255. Sunrise was about 0300. In the assembly area during the night it was quite dark, but not absolutely "pitch black". In the forest it certainly was "properly dark".

Thank you

[frog]

How many clubs can get together for a local club alliance and can they just do it for certain relays and not others? That sounds a way round the problem. Where (vaguely) is next year's harvester?