What is it with the North East?

[Neil m37]

i think anyone who went to the Kyloe event today will understand why the NE doesn't have the best reputation ever for terrain!!

What did you think was wrong with it? Physically tough ok, but there's nothing wrong with that, and a decent orienteering challenge. I enjoyed it.

[Supersaint]

Agree with Neil m37, the area was tough, but so what - it's the orienteering that's the challenge, and that was pretty darn good. The M21L course was really well planned, a great use of electronic punching to get lots of short legs with plenty change of direction, interspersed with long route choice legs. And i loved the brashings, they make you feel 'hard' bashing through them and getting cut to shreds

[seabird]

This is turning into an Aire tribute to the NE, but to add to it.

In the past 3 months I've enjoyed in the NE
1. Phoenix Force Ten Long O. 2 days of fine hill orienteeing in a beautiful setting with beautiful weather.
2. Micro O at Hutton Low Cross
3. 2 days of varied and interesting orienteering at the October Odyssey
4. Nothing to add to the comments about Kyloe. Physically hard and challenging planning.

The most varied programme of O from any one region, I would contend, to be offered in reasonable travelling range of Yorkshire over the same period. (And it took us 2.5 hours to get there!)

The NE had had a rotten run of bad luck with weather at their major events of late. Great to have a run of good weather. The views from assembly were spectacular.

[Mrs H.]

. The views from assembly were spectacular.

easily the best bit as far as I'm concerned - it felt more like an assault course than an orienteering course at times. Was very confused by the felled area to the north east of the start which was marked as white with green hashing, retired between control 4 and 5 in fear of injuring myself and not being able to get my family home.
I know you can;t please all the people all the time - and obviously the "hard men" out there enjoyed it - although I heard plenty of grumbles, but if the NE wants to attract more than a handful of die hards to future events they are going to have to do better than that.

it was the view from the assemblt area, the friends I met and the cream tea at the tree house at Alnwick Castle which made the day.

[HOCOLITE]

As I'm sure you've been told Mrs H. The alternative was a really great event in good terrain although bracken still pretty high although dying down, well planned and well organised except that not all the WCH organisation follow nope sport so thay did not expect orienteers from EMOA area DEE etc to come they severely underestimated the map requirements on virtually all courses. There were some upset people who did not run and others who did different courses to those they intended(me included-I did enjoy the green though) most people just waited and enjoyed it. Could have been disastrous if they didn't have a fairly local facility to print the maps though, as it would probably have caused the W Mids champs to be voided and cocked up the WML as well.

[Guest]

Mrs H wrote:

'but if the NE wants to attract more than a handful of die hards to future events they are going to have to do better than that.'

The NE would be greatly indebted to Mrs H if she could spend a bit of time in the region and unearth some hidden gems of beautiful runnable forest or moorland, with oodles of contours and no brashings or bracken, to which access for O is available during the summer months.

The clubs in the NE have been trying since the first English Championships in Hamsterley Forest in 1967 or thereabouts.

However, many thanks to Seabird for their kind comments!!

[stodge]

Totally off topic but in reply to Hocolite,

Ref running out of maps at Birches Valley

Many apologies to those who had to wait for a map.
Although we printed another 200 on the day about 5 miles away, we were in fact only approx 30 short in the end. The fact they were A3 slowed down the process. Again apologies we should have seen it coming .…

Practicing what I preach about not providing excuses but looking to fix it for the future, we are reviewing the number of maps we print and will look at having a backup printer on site (although this may be restricted to A4 due to cost and power consumption).

Lets look to the positive and hope district events attracting 450 + people continues…
We had a lot of people new to Orienteering yesterday.

[Mrs H.]

unearth some hidden gems of beautiful runnable forest or moorland, with oodles of contours and no brashings or bracken, to which access for O is available during the summer months.

The clubs in the NE have been trying since the first English Championships in Hamsterley Forest in 1967 or thereabouts.

looks like guest has provided the answer to the question posed in the title of this thread - mind you if he thought it was summer up there this weekend it just proves how hard the NE people really are!

[graeme]

More anonymous messenger-shooting going on I see. My family didn't come, and given the walk to the M10 start and the roughness of the woods, I'm glad they didn't. I wish I hadn't.

It a fair point that you can only use what you've got, and that given the area and the map the planner had to work with the courses were decent (though it would have been nice if the red line had got out of the walk before the third leg).

From the car park the National event competitors could see Greensheen hill, which has in the past provided some much needed respite as part of Kyloe, and Cockenheugh wood used for the relays which is indeed a gem of beautiful runnable forest. Simonside, Bewick, Callaly, Dipton have all offered good events in the past (and would be better in the spring). Is it just that North East landowners are a lot more miserable than elsewhere?

Graame

[Becks]

I spoke to the planner about yesterday and I thought he did a great job with the area he had, but also said I was sorry that I would't be coming back. I was tired and navigating like a muppet, all my fault, but can't say I enjoyed the area at all.

BUT Saturday's area had enormous potential in my eyes. Get it remapped at 1:5000 and have a cracking sprint race there in amongst those rocks and out on the moor. Fantastic it'd be. I'll be down the A1 like a shot!

[graeme]

From the planners comments...

Alan Heppenstall as mapper had to tackle almost the impossible in terms of mapping vegetation boundaries

i.e. the vegetation boundaries weren't really mapped sharply enough to navigate by/avoid. Mapping them without an aerial photo is, like the man says, almost impossible. Similarly the contours and track network (from the OS and 1985 JK map) were thereabouts right, but didn't inspire real confidence. I'm sure Alan did as good a job as possible with the base map he had, but shouldn't we now be running our National events on maps based on up to date photogrammetry?

Graeme

[Guest]

Graeme says 'I'm sure Alan did as good a job as possible with the base map he had, but shouldn't we now be running our National events on maps based on up to date photogrammetry?'.

Earlier on in this thread, John Morris commented:
'Major events in the NE of England regularly fail (financially)'.

Catch 22 position for the NE really!

Perhaps some other wealthy regions or BOF would lend/give the NEOA some money to pay for those pg plots!

In the back of my mind, I can recall some comments 20 years ago, about how the NE-run JK on Kyloe in 1985 made £750 (which troubled BOF somewhat), when the following year's JK in East Anglia/Thetford Forest made £15,000!!

So, NE is too far away for people to travel to, the terrain is tough and, in some people's opinion, not 100% A1, the weather is wet and miserable (sometimes), access restrictions mean events are run in March or November etc.

All of this results in fewer people attending NE run events, so they make less money (for the clubs, Region and for BOF), so there is less money to pay for PG plots etc etc etc

Any ideas?

[neil m37]

Graeme the contours and tracks were fine. The vegetation wasn't always clear enough to navigate by but then it wasn't mapped as distinct - so that is what you should expect.

In an ideal world all events would use brand new maps based on brand new pg plots and surveyed and drawn by the very best mappers, but for all sorts of reasons they don't. The Kyloe map was perfectly adequate, even considering it was a National event.

There has been another National event this year where the map wasn't adequate, to the extent that it made the event unfair and the results a bit of a lottery (Neil m37 2nd in a UKCup race?). I recall the deficiencies of the event were discussed at some length at the time, but nobody suggested that the problems were due to the event being in Scotland, or indeed that all Scottish events were poor.

[RJ]

I think the NE is getting a raw deal out of this thread. The real problem with diminishing returns and NE events is the numbers game. We simply don't have enough orienteers in the country. Once we have doubled the membership all events will become profitable again and we can reinvest the surplus in new maps etc.

The NE are doing things right.... NATO has just got clubmark. There are strong junior/school links/development in various clubs. But there are only a limited number of valuable volunteers to take on the tasks; not enough to ensure everything is up to standard; and they all get tired. Certainly a little less criticism would help.

The sport is changing. Soon all events will be electronic with overprinted maps produced to demand. We can offer a wonderful experience to all competitors. Perhaps if we spent less time examining our navels and rather more on selling the sport to others we might appreciate what we do have!

[Mrs H.]

Why do you assume that schools development is the answer - people have been pouring hours of volunteer time and funding into it for years - and main stream club numbers are still in terminal decline - it isn't working!

There is very little evidence to suggest that schools involvement results in any useful number of children getting their parents to come along and the whole family end up orienteering.

far better to court the families to start with - gain their support and then let them go into the schools. Here at MADO we have one primary schools where the children went in and demanded orienteering after being at one of our events - Hocolite duly went in and arranged coaching. We are also fielding a full team at the British schools for the first time in 7 years thanks to pressure from MADO parents.

Schools development per se is more likely to wear volunteers out - family development will revitalise schools interest and create more young volunteers ( we already have it happening here).