Turf Hill & Millersford Sunday 14th September
These are the corrected results. Official's comments, Schools League points etc will follow during the week.
An asterisk (*) before a runner denotes a competitor in the Yvette Baker Trophy.
Regular Schools League competitors who have changed schools for the new school year, please let me know.
Yvette Baker Trophy results (corrected 10.30 Tuesday)
SOC 894 points
BOK 792 points
I have been very impressed with today’s event. Turfhill & Millersford is an underrated piece of the New Forest. It is scenically attractive and more so since many of the conifers have been removed. Apart from Hampton Ridge it has more contours than most other parts of the Forest and with sensitive planning & the judicious use of Godshill Wood it is not at all difficult to produce the sort of challenging courses we saw today.
The organisation was exemplary and many thanks to Keith Henderson & his willing band of helpers. The handling of the unexpected demand for maps was just what I would have expected. The courses were technically sound & imaginative: something we always hope for but don’t always find. Sue & Kirsty must be congratulated for the hard work they put into this event.
It has been pointed out to me that control 545 was in the wrong gully – admittedly not very far from its intended position but a mistake I should have spotted. It appears to have been more obvious to competitors on the Green & Blue courses than on the Brown course but it doesn’t appear to have affected the split times and in my opinion doesn’t merit any voiding action. My apologies to those who were unsettled by this mistake but I hope you will agree that a small human error like this should not detract from an otherwise excellent event. Well done WIM!
Robert Jackson (SOC)
Organisers Comments
It was evident from the number of orienteers attending this event that we were all itching to take the opportunity to run on this scenic area. Thanks to the late Nigel Thompson and recently John Warren it is a fine map. Daunting in bad weather but we were fortunate on Sunday. Those from the west must have been pleased that the mist cleared as you travelled east.
I apologise for the shortage of maps. Even though I allowed for printing more on all courses than had been achieved in each of last seasons Galoppen events, we still fell short on Blue, Green and Light Green. I apologise to the Wimborne team who worked valiantly at registration under difficult circumstances. Thank you to all those who generously responded to our request to re-cycle their maps. I can arrange to ink- jet print replacement maps and will happily respond to any request. To encourage athletic newcomers to the sport Sue and Kirsty provide a red course and I am pleased to see that it was fully subscribed.
Addressing issues that came up: the publicity leaflet claimed that the extra £2 for senior non BOF members was to cover insurance. Challenged, I admit this is incorrect. It is the official view that the surcharge encourages membership, however I don’t know of a grass roots orienteer who believes that it does.
There are diverse views on the provision of squash and water at the finish. One was that we should not provide it where the car park is so close to the finish. Furthermore we should not use plastic cups in a gesture to saving the environment. Sorry that the water and squash ran out. Clearly liquid refreshment was needed. Factors were: warm day, more participants than expected, and quite tough long courses. Perhaps we should separate need from want and take refreshment at the finish only if we need it. Provision would be just on the basis of health and safety requirements.
This leads me to congratulate Sue and Kirsty on the courses. Apart from the one misplaced control kite (545), your responses indicated that they were well planned and challenging. Robert Jackson was good enough to volunteer to control this event and we are extremely grateful.
My thanks to all the WIM members who
helped as officials on the day.
Keith Henderson. keith-kate.alwayslate'at'virgin.net
Planners’ Comments
Having overheard a comment that Godshill and Turfhill could be boring Sue determined to make her courses as technical and interesting as possible and I think you’ll agree she did just that, so congratulations to Sue.
Working with Sue on this event has been good fun, we were able to discuss possible route choices and course length, shape and technical difficulty. One of our worries was the height of the bracken, every time we visited the valley it seemed to have grown taller. On one of our excursions into Turf Hill wood Sue disappeared altogether! Fortunately most patches of bracken have started to die back now, which is good news for events in the New Forest this winter.
Thanks to John Warren who kindly updated the map, one of my requests was to review the stream at the top end of the valley on the Turf Hill map which, over the past years, has become drier, It was downgraded to an intermittent wet ditch but following last weeks monsoon it returned to it’s former glory and acquired ‘stream’ status, luckily it was back to a ‘wet ditch’ by Sunday.
Jo and Patrick organised and planned an excellent string course which used WIM’s SI schools kit, so splits could be compared - competition starts early!
Many thanks to all the volunteers (OK I did have to apply a little pressure to my boys who weren’t that keen on getting up at 6.30am to put out control boxes!) who gave up their time to help make the event run smoothly.
One control gave some runners a problem, this was in a gully on the south side of the valley and unfortunately was further down the gully than marked on the map, we apologise for this and hope you will view it as an unfortunate mistake.
Kirsty and Sue