Berkshire Orienteers

Organisers comments 

An outstanding event for many reasons but from the organisers point of view the wonderful efforts of the tractor drivers and their helpers plus the many competitors who literally mucked in to release the cars from the car parking field will be the abiding memory. Thank you so much to everyone who took part. 

Concorde Chase is BKO’s main event of the year and combined with the Saturday urban makes a great orienteering weekend. A lot of time had been taken by our planner, Richard, to create some excellent courses in this lovely forest area. Terry, our controller, had also checked progress carefully and kept us looking at the details. 

Although we've successfully used this carpark field for both JK and BOC Long Champs in the past, this winter has proved wetter than previous years. We hired tracking for the field entrance expecting this to be sufficient for our needs.   The weather on Saturday was dry and sunny and the forecast for Sunday was not cold but with rain later. We decided to go ahead, and the event itself went very well thanks to all our helpers on the day. Unfortunately, the heavy rain exacerbated the muddy conditions in the field so, although earlier competitors exited successfully, it soon became apparent that we had major problems. Our regular 4x4s were finding conditions too difficult so the local estate manager produced 4 tractors. Thanks to them everyone got rescued even though it took a long time. We apologise for the long waits that some of you had, and we are very grateful that so many people waited so patiently in such awful conditions. The helpfulness of people who pushed cars out, encouraged others and kept cheerful showed orienteering at its best. Also thank you to the many people who got in touch afterwards expressing their thanks for the event. 

Jane and Fiona 

We have a couple of items of lost property - found near the start 

One strap, black about 1 foot long with a logo" RUN WITH CONFIDENCE" 

Two straps about 2 foot long joined together with a two spring type latches rainbow coloured 

Controllers Comments 

On behalf of all competitors, I’d like to express my sincere thanks to Jane and Fiona and the BKO team, the tractor team and those competitors who joined in to help get every vehicle out of the increasingly muddy assembly field. The last time I helped with an event on Cold Ash was as Joint Coordinator of the 2019 JK. That was the one where our biggest concerns were dehydration, heat-stoke and sunburn! 

Despite some initial concerns when I became aware of media interest, I was grateful that the coverage focused on the positive aspects of the situation, particularly the willingness of the local farmers to turn out and use their skills with good humour to get every vehicle out of the field. It was heartening to see the camaraderie, high spirits, and mutual support of all those involved. 

BKO took on a lot to offer you a weekend of orienteering. They were supported by a few helpers from other clubs, which I sense they appreciated. 

Richard’s courses seemed to fully meet expectations on this varied and quality area. I only heard positive comments from finishers. The major control checking took place in the weeks leading up to the event when conditions were cold and firm underfoot due to frost and snow. On the day, tracks, paths and the forest generally were noticeably “softer”. 

I was a little concerned about the Yellow course used by younger age classes as this included some legs that used ditches and a taped section where there was a gap in the path network. In other regions, a lack of path network and use of non-path linear features is more common. The juniors appear to have coped well with this. 

A huge “Well done and thank you” to the BKO team for providing a memorable event and congratulations to the new SCOA Champions. 

Terry Smith, SOC”