White Rose (and Harvester!?)

[yted]

I've no official position in EBOR these days but have often wondered in the past if the WR (50th this year) and the Harvester wouldn't go well together. Too late for this year obviously but let's take it as an example:
There is a large campsite/car park field in the middle of Dalby Forest. White Rose night score Friday evening, Classic Sat am. Then the H could start say 7pm. It would need planning with 3 loops per lap for the first 3 runners per team with a spectator control in the camping field at the end of each loop. Then, team's could be stopped as they passed through the spectator control from say 9.30 onwards. Each team would stop at the end of a loop (so the same team member may have to start their next loop the following morning) or at the end of a lap (in which case the next runner would start the following morning).
The following morning, the race would start again from 8am (if someone stopped mid lap at 9.30am) to 8.30am (if they stopped at 10pm) or perhaps a little later.
The WR Middle could take place in the afternoon followed by prize-giving and bbq as usual with the sprint Monday am!
No one would be forced to do both the WR and the H (though many would try I suspect).
Good job I'm not an EBOR committee member as we barely have enough volunteers to do the usual WR these days.... I should have suggested it back in the early 2000s.
PS Still cheap but prices go up 11th August.

[SeanC]

That sounds like a bit too much O squeezed in to one weekend for most people, and many clubs might struggle to then get a Harvester team with half at least choosing to do daytime events.

But maybe if clubs combined to reuse the map, area, even controls on successive weekends that might be a way of cutting down the workload and 'sweating the asset' (ie a nice new map)? Eg weekend 1 another nearby club - eg AIRE/CLOK etc organise the Harvester at Dalby, leaving everything in place except the tent and electronics for the White Rose the following weekend organised by EBOR. Non superhuman orienteers could then do both events.

Or the same pattern at other events, eg the week before or after a SOL event, or a Cumbrian Gallopen, Cadihoe Chase etc?

No doubt this would be kyboshed by some embargo rules though.

[Scott]

This year quite a lot of people told me that they had skipped the Chasing Sprint in favour of the Harvester, so I suspect you would find that participation at the White Rose events on the Saturday and Sunday would take a similarly big hit.

[rf_fozzy]

CLOK are already involved in WR weekend these days.

I'm no longer on the committee, so I don't presume to speak for them, but AIRE have our Dales events in early/mid Sept, plus the fact that we have a number of major events in the near future (and have hosted many recently) and I suspect would stretch our volunteer base too far.