JK 2007 Review

[Mrs H]

Just responding to Adventure Racer's request to separate out general comments from the Relay thread and picking up this idea for starters
Mr timE said

As this was effectively an event run from the centre by British Orienteering it helped me greatly to have the entries done centrally and also Peter G ran all the prizegivings and Alex Ross the enquiries/card issues. Is this the way for the future with a central co-ord team who do all the big events?

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole weekend. Didn't miss the event campsite too much as HOC/BUOC invented their own as I'm sure many other clubs did.

There are certainly issues which need looking at which would probably only come to light through usage - these need to be defined not criticised (such as how do you persuade the crusty infront of you that their punch will register without them holding the card in for five minutes - more control units perhaps?)

I thought all the planning I looked at was good, the assembly areas were awesome - some of the signage and directiions were a bit confusing.

Allan's idea for a central organising team is very interesting - but how do you square it with these people - Alex Ross and his wife did not run as presumably Mike Forrrest didn't. How could it be fair to expect peope to give up their time (presumably voluntarily) to put on an event year after year and never get a crack at taking part - or if they do, in a severely p

[HOCOLITE]

I think it was revealing which clubs assisted in the event and which didn't If every one gives a little of their time it makes things run smoothly, of course there is always the ignoramous who needs to mouth off if they are given a mispunch. They never consider that the person at the receiving end is giving up their time to help everyone.
There were definitely a few probs with the organisation but overall a superb event. Weather obviously helped. The F of D is smashing in the sunshine.
Hope all got home safely. I guess the weather might have added to travel probs on Monday pm.

[HOCOLITE]

Oh yes one great big plus. Prizes for 1-3 in all classes. There were some really thrilled people there, and they were not only juniors. A shame the podiums could not have been raised in some way so the winners could be seen, however it is not a perfect world.

[Adventure Racer]

Just wondering whether anybody else here did colour coded courses or knows somebody who did? My partner went round yellow on Sunday and only had pictorial descriptions - it says in the details that written descriptions were avaliable at starts, but she only found loose pictorial ones. Is this down to written descriptions being forgotten, her not finding the right ones (it would be nice to have somebody to help CC starters out with things like this in that case - I was busy on a bus to my start), or simply having run out?

On a side point - this very definitely isn't a complaint, just a comment - it's a shame they ran out of maps on most of the CC courses. She normally does orange at the moment, but only yellow or red were left at 12:30 - late, but not that late.

[Adventure Racer]

On my course (course 6 M35L) on Sunday I'd suggest the lines should have been cut a lot more around the complex little hill in the East where 14/15/16 were. There were two purple lines crossing right over the top of the bit of map for the approach to 14, resulting in it being a bit of guesswork. I imagine there may have been similar issues for other long courses with a 1:15,000 map (had a look at a 1:10,000 for this bit, and it was a huge amount easier to understand). I should point out that I had some of my best splits on these controls, so it's not like I'm complaining because I got it wrong, and I'd actually have welcomed more bits like this!

I should add that overall it was a very enjoyable weekend - inevitably it's a lot easier to pick out the few parts where things weren't quite right than highlight the majority where they were spot on. Thank you.

[Tatty]

All our thanks should go to all those involved. Without the SWOA and BAOC, who were the main organisers, there wouldn't have been a JK. Can you imagine Easter without one?? The original region pulled out with just over a year to go, so this was the response from those concerned. Yes, there were problems, but I bet most of you went home happy to have been there, and thankful to attend. It may have to be the way forward as some regions don't have the area or man power to go it alone. In SCOA we only really have Star Posts, and how many people would say "not again"!! Unfortunately we will never get access to use the New Forest at this time of year. However we were able to help this weekend, so at least can feel we did our bit.

[Toni]

I'm sure that the organisers could identify loads of things that didn't go smoothly but as an athlete the organisation seemed great. Many thanks to the volunteers for all their work.

The one issue I had with the weekend was with the 'professional' mapping for Saturday and Sunday - I haven't spoken to anyone who made a positive comment about the maps and have spoken to loads of people who described them in less than favourable terms. I was surprised by the map corrections in the start boxes for a brand new map and I found it frustrating out in terrain when the map bore little resemblance to the ground. (numerous streams/ditches that weren't on the map....contours that were inaccurate.... clearings on the detailed green hill that were ignored.....random inclusion of platforms....)

I have heard of a few clubs that have had to resort to volunteer amateur mappers having to make corrections to 'professional' maps (in a few cases needing to almost remap the area). Surely amateur maps are better for the sport than 'professional' maps of this quality. I'm surprised that more time/effort was not put into making sure that a map that would be seen by so many people was accurate!

[Spookster]

The one issue I had with the weekend was with the 'professional' mapping for Saturday and Sunday - I haven't spoken to anyone who made a positive comment about the maps and have spoken to loads of people who described them in less than favourable terms. I was surprised by the map corrections in the start boxes for a brand new map and I found it frustrating out in terrain when the map bore little resemblance to the ground. (numerous streams/ditches that weren't on the map....contours that were inaccurate.... clearings on the detailed green hill that were ignored.....random inclusion of platforms....)

I have heard of a few clubs that have had to resort to volunteer amateur mappers having to make corrections to 'professional' maps (in a few cases needing to almost remap the area). Surely amateur maps are better for the sport than 'professional' maps of this quality. I'm surprised that more time/effort was not put into making sure that a map that would be seen by so many people was accurate!

I thought the maps were fine! Once I got used to the level of details that were mapped, everything seemed to fit.

There's a story behind the extra boulders, and how long the 'professional' mapper was given to do the maps. Best not to allocate blame between professionals and amateurs unless you know the full story!

[Ravinous]

My Father ran EOD Orange Sat and Sun and had no written descriptions on Saturday (he started late - 1330 ish) but said there were 'acres of them' on Sunday (starting in the middle of the start period). Hindsight is always wisest - they obviously had thought and prepared both types but were perhaps surprised at EOD numbers for the Orange. Maybe 2 courses should have been planned? Now they have numbers from this year to plan for next year.
Might have been nice to have EOD courses at Sprint Day and maybe Relay too - individual courses? Both days he sat out and didnt want to run the relay as a novice with the pressure of being in a team.

Mappers - I had no problems with any map on any day. Which I guess is me saying they were good. Warming down running my course again on the sprint map I found a small section of path that no longer existed and paths slightly different (50m x 20m area) but the area looked newly landscaped and I am sure it didnt affect anyone.
I generally feel that we have some excellent professional mappers, but like any professional, they need time to do their jobs well. They also try to make a living from our modest sport. Clubs and event organisers can try to save money and often feel that money saved in mapping is a good thing. I am not sure on the situation with the JK, but I know of other maps which have had a professional doing them but were not so great simply because the club would only pay for a day or 2 of the Pros mapping time when more days were needed. Some amateur mappers may well make great maps but will do so often by spending much more time on the job than a Pro. There is certainly room in our sport for both however. Also, when the pro hands over the Ocad file, anybody can make changes, for better or worse, which is not actually the original mappers work, yet his/her logo is still on the front.

Waterproof maps - they were great! No being blinded by the sun reflecting off the bag & blood proof after my battle with some hawthorn bushes.

[Homer]

I agree the maps for the main individual days were fine.
However I wonder whether anyone else found the sprint map somewhat ambiguous?
Was it drawn to latest ISSOM standards? I was very unsure, having read the execellent article in CompassSport about sprint maps, whether the dark green on Friday's map was meant to be crossed or not. I deliberately avoided it just in case but looking at other routes it appears others were crossing it anywhere.

[FatBoy]

I didn't have a problem with the FOD maps. I got used to which sort of ditches were mapped and which weren't after a while - there are so many ditches in central FOD you can't hope to map all of them.

Most of the organisation seemed pretty good so anything stated here is constructive feedback rather than criticsm.

Times given to get to the start were excessive - particularly blue start on Sat. Good job it was warm otherwise the 35 mins less it took me to get there than suggested would've been uncomfortable. Please suggest times based on most people rather than the slowest (and state so), as slower people will add time on anyway. Blue start was only attended by people on long courses.

The waterproof maps were ok, although I think probably a good job I had 2 maps both individual days. Purple was coming off both part 2 maps by the time I finished. A few rips and stained bits on all maps (sorry to whoever ended up with my part 1 map from Sat).

The biggest gripe with the weekend though was lack of printed results. No final results for the overall individual or the relay were ever posted. It's all very well having wireless access on the day (which I don't believe was advertised in advance so I didn't bring anything to read it with - and do I really want to bring a laptop to an event?), but I didn't find out either my overall individual result or my relay team's position until I got home. It doesn't take much to print a final set and paste up before packing up the download.

Anyone know what happened to Phil Winskill's early splits on Sunday? Looks like he started early or some technical issue? Either way don't think he should've won M21L...

http://www.cix.co.uk/~neper/jk2007/day3/crse2-5.htm

[Jon Brooke]

My 3 year old was very quick to point out that the fallen tree symbol used on the day 3 string course wasn't up to IOF standards. My wife did have a few problems with the extra ditches on the main map that day too. Other than that we had a great couple of days (day 3 and relays). In particular it was nice to be able to drive out of the car parking areas with no delay afterwards.

BTW does anyone know who the idiot in the silver Volvo estate was who drove out of the assembly area on day 3 (around 3pm maybe) with wheels spinning, and accelarated straight across the road crossing with utter disregard for competitors - whilst on the phone! I was frankly aghast and would suggest taht if he holds any kind of position in any O organisation, that he is sacked.

[awk]

Like everybody else commenting so far, I really enjoyed a brilliant weekend. Thank you to all those concerned, especially given how it all came together in such a short time.

As this is a review thread, my highlights and things to think about are as follows. They are, of course, just one person's perspective, and what I thought might have been not so good, somebody else might have thought great, and vice-versa:

Highlights
+ The areas. OK, Day2 was a bit muckier and scrappier in places than I expected from the map (and that early lovely bit!), but there was a really enjoyable variety at the best time of year. The relay area was a stroke of genius.
+ My courses were generally great, really enjoyed them, particularly Day 3 in New Beechenhurst.
+ The event arenas were excellent (enhanced by the PlanetFear presence and all those club banners -what a plus they've been! Great to have all those facilities at Day 1 too)
+ Parking - we were lucky to be nearby on Day 2, and thus had very little walking any day. A very welcome bonus at such a big event.
+ This I know may be disagreed with by a number of people, especially given the issues on Day 2, but I've now got reasonably used to Emit, and liked it - the new cards make such a difference.
+ The atmosphere. This was a really enjoyable event to be at, helped by much of the above, plus the commentary.

Not so much a highlight, but we didn't miss the event centre one bit. It simply put more emphasis on the importance of the assembly area each day.

Things to think about
+ I have to agree with Toni - I didn't get on with the Day2/3 maps at all, for all the reasons she listed. Not knowing the background (which Spookster touches on), I certainly wouldn't want to apportion responsibility, but they felt a bit rough edged for whatever reason(s).
+ On maps, I would have loved a larger scale map for the relays - really struggled to read it even with a magnifier.
+ As I said, I thought my courses were superb, and one of the best was the relay. My run was marred a bit by what I'm 95% certain (having been assured by quite a lot of other people!) was a misplaced control (no. 90, cairn) which included some quite creative mapping, as both cairn and indistinct wall it was on were so indistinct as to be invisible (and I had time to look!!). Given that it was a pretty unnecessary control anyway.... I wasn't overly fond of the very tight clustering of controls (didn't affect me, but seemed gratuitous in places, and didn't help the gaffling), and thought the mini-relay needed simplifying, but appreciate that it was a difficult area to do so (they definitely needed a larger scale map if nothing else!).
+ Something went wrong with the punching system, which left loads of youngsters upset and tearful on Day 2. Obviously something to be learned there.
+ We struggled a bit with the signage to Day 2 - needed to be a bit more prominent? However, loved the prominent welcome signs at Day 1!
+ The one day where the atmosphere seemed to struggle a bit to pick up was at the Day 1 Sprint. Obviously don't know the full story, but if the finish had been moved down into the bowl, and the start had been immediately adjacent, then I think that would have improved things? Certainly those were things that added to last year's sprint race quite a bit. (But wasn't it great to have a 1000+ entry?!).

But, but, but, these are simply offered as suggestions that would have, from one person's point of view, improved an already super weekend. Once again, thank you all for a JK worthy of the name.

[Ravinous]

Sprint Map - All the green on it was forest fight green so fine to fight your way through. There was none of the very dark impassable green, so you were fine to cut through hedges/bushes etc.

[awk]

The biggest gripe with the weekend though was lack of printed results. No final results for the overall individual or the relay ]

Day 2 results were up at Day 3, and overall individual results were up at the Relays. Or did you mean having final results on the day? Depends when you mean by 'final' results.