Harvester 2011

[graeme]

Jukola/Venla have the same sort of 'image' as perhaps the Great North Run and the London Marathon have. Something that you will perhaps do ONCE before you die!!

Only for foreigners. For the majority Jukola is the one event they do every year.

In this sense it's more like the JK. It is inconceivable that the Harvester could usurp the JK as the one event everyone does, so its doomed to remain a niche event. The question it has to address is whether to be a unique national event attractive to a small hardcore willing to travel 5-6 hours for a big adventure, or "just another weekend" targeted at maximising people from the local region. At the moment, it's certainly the latter.

As gross says, the "night" aspect of Jukola isn't critical, its the numbers and the atmosphere.

If we want a mass participation relay with the numbers to give the same feel as Jukola/Venla, the JK relay is the only option. Ideal would be a 4-5 lap relay, for teams of 4-10 - with the option of changing runners at the spectator control to keep individual distances down.

[andypat]

In this sense it's more like the JK. It is inconceivable that the Harvester could usurp the JK as the one event everyone does, so its doomed to remain a niche event...........

If we want a mass participation relay with the numbers to give the same feel as Jukola/Venla, the JK relay is the only option. Ideal would be a 4-5 lap relay, for teams of 4-10 - with the option of changing runners at the spectator control to keep individual distances down.

Interesting idea Graeme - can you make it happen?

[graeme]

Not yet.

The senior competitions group proposed it at one stage. The idea being that BRC would be the proper, full on age class competition; so the JK should be different, and in the spirit of a festival. Fans of multiple courses and age classes liked it because it meant we'd have a full range of courses at BRC. Fans of mass participation liked it because it would give us a proper mass participation relay

But it got lost in some committee or other in the multilayered bofocracy.

I don't think anyone can make anything significant happen at national level at the moment, a problem which the governance review is supposed to fix. Then the board will be able to do novel things.

[Dave]

isn't it a bit too out there to think a 4 leg relay would ever work at the JK?

[afterthought]

I expect there's someone here who remembers when it was the JK Relay was changed from 3 legs to 4 because the number of teams was getting too high.

[Spookster]

I don't think anyone can make anything significant happen at national level at the moment, a problem which the governance review is supposed to fix. Then the board will be able to do novel things.

But we still need a Harvester 2012. In the absence of anyone (yet) proposing to organise it according to the existing rules/guidelines, I'm fairly sure offers to run something else of a similar nature would be considered...

[Tatty]

THe JK Realy was changed when SCOA held the Relays on Hawley & Hornley. It was at the requset of the landowner to reduce the number of competitors on the land at any one time Hubby was the Organiser and Bob Joiner, SOC, now I believe OD, was the planner.

[afterthought]

Thankyou Tatty, maybe the occasion is in the records as " 1982 - Yateley Heath"?
http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/page/jk_champions#JK_Relay
has Hawley and Hornley as 1999, and I was thinking of much longer ago!

So probably the change from 3 legs to 4 legs was because of one land owner, but it was adopted as a permanent change. The story that rather than seed teams all could run if it was made a 4-leg race did seem credible at the time given the large crowds on relay days.

I think it was 4 legs in 1983 when OK Orion won an event more memorable for some for the car parking after heavy snow. (It is fair to say it wasn't the only JK disrupted by weather.) And it was certainly 4 legs in 1985 when we enjoyed the unexpected victory of Walton Chasers; Dave Smith and three juniors (Dave Peel, Stephen Palmer and Andrew Kitchen were 18.)