Not enough Officials!

[Homer]

I would trust the planning team to spot if a control had gone missing overnight.

Only if they were checking on the morning. In this case I don't believe they did.
I still prefer an independent check by the Controller (or his trusted representative) on the morning.

[Roger]

Are controllers like Roger and Homer checking controls both on the day before and on the morning of the event? Or just on the morning of the event?

I would only check on the morning of the event

Snap.

But, having turned down the "opportunity" to control the British Champs that you planned Neil, the events that I've controlled have usually had
* few if any controls put on the previous day
* not more than about 14km to get round the lot, so I've been able to do them all on the morning.
The exception was one Concorde Chase when most were out but I was running the Southern Champs XC on the Saturday; a Sunday pre-dawn start and 20 minutes of headtorch assistance did the job.

For tomorrow's event some stakes are out (no looking, you locals!) but no boxes until tomorrow. In theory I could have checked that the stakes were in the right place today, but each site would still have to be visited twice tomorrow so that didn't seem a good use of time.

[Arnold]

We had an interesting dilemma at the London City Race this year where early starts combined with late opening of some of the parks makes it impossible for the controller to visit all the sites between hanging and first start.

The answer was to do "buddy" hanging & controlling, ie two people hang say 10 controls each, and then control each others'. That's what they do in Venice too. It worked fine for a City Race because all the control sites are 100% unambiguous (shouldn't be any risk of 3 depressions on the ground but only 1 mapped..)

In terms of forest events I've found the easiest to be:
- Hanging Saturday morning (no boxes)
- Controller checks stakes Sat afternoon
- Boxes Sunday morning. Assuming no one moves anything, only risk is wrong box on correct stake, but you have to trust the planning team to do that.

Of course if you can do all that on Sunday morning then even better, saves you going twice. But sometimes that's just too much.

[70plus]

"not more than about 14km to get round ..."

Hmm, between first light and 9:30 - not for me I'm afraid. Getting round is one thing, but extra time needs to be allowed to sort out problems without putting starts back if poss. I remember checking at Swynnerton and finding an entire 'Pond, S side' control floating in the middle of the 20-metre pond. Took quite a few minutes to find a long pole, fish it out, etc. Luckily that was on the previous afternoon. Replacing missing controls takes time even assuming one has a full set of spares.

[Knee Deep Mud!]

Some contrasting views on checking controls here!

All the events I've planned have generally followed the following format:
1) Most controls hung on Saturday.
2) Controller checks these have been put out correctly on Saturday.
3) Vulnerable controls put out on Sunday morning.
4) Controller checks these controls (and any left over from the day before) on Sunday.
5) Planner plus other helper(s) rechecks all those controls put out on Saturday to ensure they're still there. Controller has already checked these on Saturday, so can better spend his time checking the on the day organisation in the time remaining.
6) If helper reports any issues, then they report to the planner who checks and rectifies any problems (possibly double checked by the controller, but only if there was a problem with the original hanging that resulted in the controller moving it then.)

On the general issue of lack of controllers, whilst I have the planning experience, I've always been put off by the requirement to organise, as that is something I have no intention of ever doing, as its not something I'd find enjoyable. However, if this requirement was changed to 'having experience of the various aspects of the organisational side of an event' then perhaps I might consider putting myself forward. I've certainly worked my way round most of the 'on the day' aspects of an event - car parking, registration, results, start, finish etc.

[Homer]

I've always been put off by the requirement to organise, as that is something I have no intention of ever doing, as its not something I'd find enjoyable

I always felt the same but, in the end, just grasped the nettle. Organising isn't that bad; as has already been pointed out it's only a job of delegation.
In our club it is organisers that are hardest to find and this requirement goes some way to help fill this gap.

[Adrian]

I've always been put off by the requirement to organise, as that is something I have no intention of ever doing, as its not something I'd find enjoyable

I always felt the same but, in the end, just grasped the nettle. Organising isn't that bad; as has already been pointed out it's only a job of delegation.
In our club it is organisers that are hardest to find and this requirement goes some way to help fill this gap.

The requirement for controllers to organise an event once every ten years is sensible and far from onerous. Since a Level D event could just be a table, a stopwatch, some maps and a dozen people, it's hardly a difficult hoop to jump through.