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Organisers Comments
It didn't rain! Hoorah! What we did have was a bright, sunny, if rather chilly day. We had anticipated a muddy entrance and track and, on the day, only the biggest vehicles skidded – including the Army – who were the only ones to get stuck! Most people seemed to enjoy the event, particularly the courses, thanks to imaginative planning by Eric and Denise. Thanks to all who came up to say 'Thanks' - this is very much appreciated when you have risen at 4.30am on the day, having spent all of the previous day putting up tents and laying road track. My thanks are due to the magnificent efforts of all of the BKO teams – the event would not run without these experienced, willing people. The EMIT/ download team turned up trumps again with the results being on the BKO website by 5.30 pm on Sunday – impressive! Thanks are due to Julian Lyne (SOC) who brought his sturdy results stand up from the South for us – assembled it, ran and then waited for the event to finish before he dismantled it, loaded it on to the roof of his car and went home. The Rotary Club helped to provide the Car Park field and were very useful manning the Car Park exit. By the way, if an event states no exit before a particular time, it is for a reason – in our case , we were using a narrow track and people were still coming in for their runs at 12.30pm and were justifiably annoyed at being held back to allow for impatient people trying to leave early. The Army must be thanked as they provided many items, including the maps for the Southern Championship prizes; the water and a lot of equipment plus some super pictures/posters. Thanks also to the farmer who removed his cows for us and also filled in many potholes in the entry track and the field to provide a (nearly) bump free entrance. Apologies to those who felt that we should have had a Finish in the field, but all competitors need to arrive safely at the Finish and the possible route in to the field would not have been suitable for many Juniors, without mixing with the cars – which we could not allow. My penultimate thanks are to Alan Yeadon, without whose support, patience and invaluable assistance, I could not have organised this event. Lastly, thanks to you all for coming!
Note: If anyone who did not manage to come on the day but pre-entered, would like their map, please would you let me have your address by post or Email, please, so that I can send it on to you.
Lost property: two pairs of O-shoes plus assorted gloves - please Email the Organiser at 
Liz Turbin, BKO
Controllers Comments
When I was asked to review the suitability of the area for a National Event, I was concerned whether it would be possible to set sufficiently testing courses given the extensive path network. I certainly think that Eric and Denise Harper's courses did a good job in avoiding long path runs on the optimum route for the more technical courses. I hope that you felt yourself sufficiently tested. There were certainly many competitors that I saw during the competition who were not finding the navigation entirely straightforward.
My thanks are due to the planners for completing their work in good time and to Liz Turbin, organiser, for anticipating and resolving all the questions on my checklist before I had even asked them.
Hedley Calderbank, HH
Planners Comments
Thanks for all the positive feedback about the courses and the event in general. I think the area came as a surprise to some people and gave them more of a challenge than they were expecting.
The thread on Nopesport relating to the event raised a couple of issues. I was going to respond directly there but, in the way of Nopesport threads, the original discussion had moved on and it had become a discussion on the merits of EMIT / SI which I am not going to comment on other to say that from the planners perspective EMIT is excellent
I agree that the level of detail made the 15000 map difficult to read but thought that this was possibly just my old eyes not being able to cope with 1:15000 any more. When the proofs came back from Alan Halliday a couple of weeks before the event he commented on the visibility of the brown lines so we agreed to increase the thickness of the contours and I also increased the size of the point features. As to the overprint obscuring the paths on the long legs I did check that all junctions were not obscured even though some small runs of path may have been obscured. However the check was done on the computer so even though it appeared alright it might have not been so obvious on the map.
The use of 1:15000 maps for specific age groups at National events is mandated in the guidelines so even though we would have probably only supplied 1:10000 maps if it was a Regional event this was not an option here. In hindsight as we made the M21N also the Red course it might have been better to print that course at 1:10000
I must apologise for the overprint obscuring a couple of tracks on courses 19 and 20. In mitigation the start and finish of the tracks were visible on the map and the controls were sited to ‘lead’ the competitors down the correct track.
Could we have had the finish in the Assembly area? In hindsight possibly yes. But when we decided to use the field, in June, the area that you walked through from the finish to the field was covered in bracken about 7 foot high and I did not know what was underneath the bracken. The bracken only died down in the last month. Having chosen what we thought was the best place for the start to provide an interesting set of options for the first controls we were constrained as to where we could put the finish. We wanted to make sure there was no interaction between runners and cars so we had to put the finish before the field.
The one complaint that was voiced on the day was that the Orange was too hard. It has long been the practice to combine the Orange with the M/W 12A courses. As it was a National event we were conscious that the National event course should both follow the guidelines and should be a true test and we were encouraged in this by Hedley. I think Denise planned an excellent course. The wide variety of times, and the number of long times, especially amongst the Orange competitors would indicate that the course was too hard for a lot of people. It was suggested to Denise that she should have put on an ‘easier’ Orange just for the Colour Coded competitors. This is not route that I personally think we should be going down
Our thanks to Hedley for his positive comments and suggestions throughout the process. Also to those who helped me get in the controls before sunset. Denise and I didn’t want to involve anyone else in putting out controls but Denise became ill a few days before the event so we coerced our son Alan, now only an occasional Orienteer, into helping us. Fortunately his navigation and ability to read a map is still good. Thanks to him.
Eric Harper, BKO
Yet more from the planner
The top (Grimsbury) part of the map was last used for a Badge event in the early 80s. Due to an unfortunate incident we lost permission for the area for nearly twenty years and it was only when the local army group were allowed in that we were able to get back in with them and start using it again. Feedback from a small colour coded event that we put on in 2004 led us to think if we could extend the area south to join up with the western half of Bucklebury that the area would be big enough and also challenging enough to be used for a National event.
The courses were always going to be constrained by the availability of parking. We did contemplate bussing in from the Newbury showground but the lanes are narrow and there was no really suitable dropping off point. As of about this time last year we got permission to park at a school to the east which would have meant a 20 minute walk each way to and from the forest. From a planning point of view that gave me more flexibility and would, using 2 starts, have enabled me to have started most of the longer courses in Bucklebury and that would have meant going through the mostly dead running immediately to the north of Bucklebury only once. As it turns out the number of entries we got would have overwhelmed the available parking so it is a good thing that we didn’t pursue that option. When the field at the top became available, around June, we decided to use it even though I had already planned most of the courses based on the starts in the middle and south. The constraints of starting and finishing in the top corner somewhat limited the planning options and meant that only the longest courses would get down into Bucklebury.
