CSC Eyeballs out.

[graeme]

Nothing wrong with the Pines. Especially if you get the right planner.

Not easy though. I armchair planned for the Chasing Sprint there, and on the first visit all the courses and most of the sites went straight in the bin The best/fastest bits are all mapped as green. It is challenging and fun to plan on: I've never planned on an area where working hard on the planning (obsessing about flag placement, running all the route choices) made such a difference.

It would be fantastic if you mapped Center Parcs of course...

Graeme

[harry]

Richard planned a really good Brown course there last year(?) Amazing that you can be kept off the paths AND out of the grot. Maybe it is about time we changed the name of the area again - wasn't it Clipstone previously? Blidworth could also do with being rechristened - isn't that what they do with White Rose areas?

Centre Parcs! Have NOC ever approached them? Surely they would love a permanent course - another activity for people to do & in return we could have an event there every couple of years in their off season?

[Carnage Head]

I reckon the area was mapped very well indeed - v detailed green and hatched green clumps to tick off on the 'runway'. (But I wonder if the clearing containing Brown control no 23(47) was a bit bigger in real life - probably my tired navigation at that stage.) Well planned, too.

Interesting wood-chopping/fire-lighting group between controls 11 and 12 on the Brown...

Thanks also to the helpful BAOC start team who put AIRE starters who had missed their slots (due to Silverstone delays on A43) into later start times.

[Riggwelter]

It would be fantastic if you mapped Center Parcs of course...

Especially if they included the wave pool and the rapids thing!

But would be a cool place to have a weekend event. Two days of Orienteering with all the facilities in between and accomodation with showers. And the O season must be their quietest time.

[Tatty]

Have you seen their prices??!!!

[Riggwelter]

Have you seen their prices??!!!

Not recently, but a few years back when I was into Kung-Fu there was a weekend training camp held there. I don't remember a whole lot about it but I don't suppose it was cripplingly expensive. The chalet we had slept 6 I think, so 6 sharing doesn't work out too bad.

[Red Adder]

There's nothing like a bit of creative renaming - especially when you have the large FC conifer forests we have in East Anglia. A bit of local research can come up with Chillesford & Padleywater or Barnes Carr & the Birches instead of the more
prosaic Tunstall SW or Tunstall SE. I've still got the delightful Rimple Hill up my sleeve. Of course things don't always go quite right. Rather than Rendlesham North I suggested Daisy's Walks assuming it was a throwback to the sheep walks that pre-dated the FC planations. Actually the sign at the car park was for Daisy's Walk - a forest trail named after a lady who worked at the local FC offices for many years. Oops.

[John Morris]

Returning to the quality of terrain used for CS Cup Finals...

In Scotland the practice used to be (and probably still is) to use high-quality technical terrain for CS Cup venues, at every stage - to use anything less devalues the competition.

This was one reason why Scottish clubs did not usually bother to come South for the CSC Final - a day and a half's travelling to run on rubbish!

(Having said which, I too was pleasantly surprised by Greenham Common - respect to BAOC!)

However, I would like to see the CS Cup Final confined to areas of National quality in future - it can't be that hard to arrange.

[awk]

Hmmm. Given some of the so-called National Event quality areas I've run on in recent years (and/or national event quality planning), give me Greenham Common any day.

The fact is that "National Event" is no mark of quality: the real quality of an event lies in the quality of planning and organisation. Some of the best races I've done have been at C4s, mainly because a good planner and organiser has been at the heart of the event, and conversely some of the worst have been at C2s.

[NeilC]

With my club captain's hat on my criteria for the CompassSport Cup final venue would be:

1) Reasonably accessible. I know that it's our choice to live in one corner of our island but this does affect how far we wish to travel.

2) Event layout. Great arena, parking, spectator friendly etc etc

3) Nice area. Not necessarily technical but not grotty.

I would like to try and include as many club members as possible in the final (assuming we qualify). Many of these members are not overly experienced and would be concerned about competing on very technical terrain. I would be very surprised if the nature of the terrain made any significant difference to the result of the cup or trophy so do not see the need to save the best technical terrain for the CSC final. I think there are better uses to be made of such terrain (eg National Events).

[RJ]

..... Some of the best races I've done have been at C4s, mainly because a good planner and organiser has been at the heart of the event.....

A point of view that I can wholeheartedly agree with. And I think it is often because the areas that are used for C4s are ones that have been used several times before.... the planner has knowledge of the runnability, has probably run there him/herself several times, and knows which bits work well. You can still get good courses, with challenging legs on terrain that you have been on before.

Often in this case the planner knows where the good running is, and by taking the courses that way, will give the competitors a chance to race. Certainly I enjoy a course more when given the opportunity to run, rather than fight my way through deep heather, endless tussocks or thick spruce plantations.

For me the enjoyment is not is searching for a depression in bracken or thick fight, but running and choosing a route between two perfectly good/straightforward features.

[graeme]

... C4s are ones that have been used several times before.... the planner has knowledge of the runnability, has probably run there him/herself several times, and knows which bits work well.

...as opposed to C2/3 where the planner hasn't run there him/herself several times

What do your planners get up to ?

Graeme

[EddieH]

Returning to East Anglia I remember Chris Hirst mapping an area for CUOC's C3 event. He wanted to call it Graph Paper Forest.