The Planners and organisers comments are now available below

Results for the event are now available on the EMIT web site

RouteGadget is available for the event on the RouteGadget Site 

David Jukes also took several hundred photos from the event.

These can beviewed on the Flikr web site

Planner’s Comments

When we first decided to use Yateley for our autumn event, there were some doubts as to whether or not there was still enough of it left to hold this level of event. Gravel extraction in the northwest meant that most of the best blocks of woodland were OOB or obliterated, and felling had removed some more. However, we decided that there was enough left.

During the summer it became apparent that further parts of the area were not going to be very useable due to the undergrowth. Several features that I had initially earmarked as possible control site turned out to be too inaccessible (or even undiscoverable) due to luxuriant bracken.

The real kicker came a fortnight before when a meeting with the Forestry Commission revealed that they could not give us permission to use the Northern part of the area, as they no longer had anything to do with it. It is now being managed by a wildlife trust as lowland heath habitat. The trust was actually quite willing to let us in (not many ground nesting birds about at the end of September!), however, the terms of their lease meant that they had to seek the landowner’s permission, and this was not forthcoming. This necessitated a complete re-planning of the Green, Blue and Brown courses with little more than a week to go before the date of the event. The only practical option for the 2 longer courses was to use double-sided maps and take them around the area twice.

Still, at least the weather was kind to us on the day! My thanks to all who helped, especially Controller Andy MacGregor of BADO, whose advice and assistance was absolutely invaluable.

Organiser’s comments

The distance to which the trackside parking extended was a little more than anticipated but though there were a few comments about the length of walk, in the benign weather I don’t think this was too great a hardship for the later arrivals.

The largely featureless area available for the string course in the end turned out to be quite popular. The children found it easily runnable so could try for fast times as they repeated the course. And they had the decency to leave a few sweets over at the end.

All helpers arrived on time and undertook their jobs (and others) with aplomb leaving me with little to worry about. Thank you all.