Event: Park/Street
Location: Silver Ridge (Wallsend)
Map: Brickworks Park/Brickworks Street
Planner/Organiser: Carolyn & Russell Rigby
Weather: Intially very hot then unsettled with thunder, lightening, and heavy rain.
Entrants: 50
Rego: Diana Charlton
Start: Ian Rigby
Finish: Denis Lyons, Kerry Bacon
Technical/Results: David Messenger.
Control Collection: Russell Rigby, Damian Enderby, Steven Todkill, Others??
A new map....a Club get together...a spectacular sound, light and water show.... what more could you ask for?
Our traditional Draw for Partners event leading to Club Presentations came to the suburbs this year with a different format. A Friday twilight event meant the usual relay format would make way for a Park event and a Street Scatter-Score course.
Brickworks Park at Wallsend is a great little park, with many saying “Didn't know this was here!” The surrounding streets provided a challenging Scatter-Score area. Winning times of 15 and 25 minutes respectively were anticipated – after all it was a social event. The Draw would take place post-race and for those who ran both courses just one of their times would count – and that to be randomly allocated.
Friday was hot – 41C at Wallsend at 3pm and the storm clouds threatened. Early arrivals planned their runs, selecting starts to allow for recovery between. But which course to run first? Strategy came to nought when the rain arrived. The “light and sound show” deterred a few from a second run, understandably. The Young Orienteers on their Blue course posted great times, encountering some large puddles on the way, but visibility was a greater hurdle for some who ran the Park during the downpour.
Josh B showed he is returning to speed with the fastest times on each course. Bolter for the night was Angus R placing 5th in the Street and 11th in the Park. Back in the comfort of the Community Hall eyes previously glued to the photos of the year turned to the Draw. The usual audience oohs and aahs were heard as names were drawn. However the luck of the draw was with Alex M and Rob V who took home the chocolate ahead of Damien W and Glen C (hoping for a 3rd consecutive win) and Josh B and Kendall O'C.
A lot of time and planning went into the evening – but it was a great night. A big thank you to Diana C for Rego duties, Ian R for bravely defending the maps at the Start, Denis and Kerry for deciphering and interrogating at the Finish, Margaret for Admin, David M for technical input and Russell R for yet another good map and Park course.
Thanks also to Energy Australia for allowing us to use the park area at the back of their offices.
See Carolyn or Russell at the next street event if you want your map back, or a fresh copy that hasn't been turned to papier mache.
Results - Individual
Results - Draw for Partner
Results - Statistics
RouteGadget - Park
RouteGadget - Street
NOY 7 - Dark Hill
Event: NOY7
Location: Dark Hill, Seaham
Planner: David Kitchener
Entries: 103
Weather: Perfect
Setup: The Kitcheners
Rego: Anne Kitchener
Finish: David Kitchener, Denis Lyons
Control Collect: David Kitchener, Denis Lyons, Shane Jenkins, Others?
Another new area for the club thanks to the generosity of David and Anne Kitchener. Since building their home on this property David has had it in the back of his mind that we might just be able to use it as a viable orienteering area.
Well finally Denis mapped it and now we have actually competed ther. A great assembly area at the lower part of the property ensured that it was mostly all up from there, but generous setting seemed to limit the climb.
The over 100 entries was surprising as this map is slighly further afield than our usual but the extra travelling didn't seem to be a deterent to a lot of folk.
The Gardens
Event: Club Minor
Location: Hunter Botanic Gardens
Planner: Ian Dempsey
Entries: 84
Weather: Perfect
Setup: Margaret Peel, Mick Kavur, Carolyn Chalmers
Rego: Margaret Peel
Finish: Ian Dempsey, Denis Lyons
Control Collect: Maria Orr, Peter Orr, Ian Dempsey, David Kitchener.
As our bush maps face ever increasing pressure from housing and other development we have to look towards different style of orienteering in areas that maybe don't support traditional bush orienteering. Ian Dempsey recognised that the "Hunter Botanic Gardens" might just fill this need.
To this effect he negotited access and mapped the area earlier this year and what a great idea it turned out to be. Perfect weather and a fabulous new area and pre-marked maps combined to make a perfect day, well except for maybe a few little navigation errors from some of us.
Most courses started with some very detailed and tricky navigation in the gardens themselves, followed by some longer route choice legs through the surrounding bushland. Personally I loved it and I think that was the general concensus as well.
Thanks to Ian and the Gardens managment for a great day.
Location: Abernethy (Brokenback Ridge)
Planner: Stuart Kurtz/Andrew Haigh
Vetter: Nicole Haigh/Brock Smith
Entries: 92
Weather: Cold & overcast with some showers
Setup: Andrew Haigh, Nicole Haigh, Staurt Kutz, Brock Smith, Mick Kavur, Carolyn Chalmers
Rego: Nicole Haigh
Finish: Andrew Haigh, Brock Smith
Control Collect: David Messenger, Shane Jenkins, Josh Roberts, Kelly Kurtz and Kate Dynon.
Today's event was a great example of teamwork. While the Haighs volunteered to organise and set this course they sucessfully delegated and spread the workload into easier pieces for several people - thanks guys. Andrew speaks below and gives some insight into orienteering from the organisers viewpoint.
from Andrew Haigh........
Broken Back East - Weather cool still and Cloudy. 10 minutes rain, just enough to wet all the gear.
We decided that 8.15 would be a good time to arrive to set up, seeing as we had put out all the controls and tape streamers late Saturday afternoon. However we were not the first to arrive, Mick Kavur was already there, keen to help us set up the admin area. Soon after Carolyn Chalmers arrived similary keen to help. Even with a remote start we were all ready to go by 8.45. Great effort everybody.
Initial business was very slow with only 20 people starting before 10.00 am, I was concerned that numbers may be down due to the distance and the gloomy looking weather, but I was more worried that nobody had returned to the finish yet.
This year the setting team was more than just Nicole and I. We were joined by Brock Smith and Stuart Kurtz. Stu is relatively new to bush Orienteering, (Came to the sport through the summer series). Stu took on the Challenge of setting all three red courses. We had no complaints so we can only assume that he did an excellent job. I struggled to put together the easier courses. The blue is easy enough, but the Orange and especially the Green I always struggle with. It is hard to set a course at a level that you never compete in.
Despite our early initial planning, I ended up installing OCAD9 the Tuesday before the event which resulted in several late nights entering the courses and nearly repeating Arthur's scaling problem from earlier in the season. Speaking of Arthur, today was not his day either. He planned to do the Medium red, but accidently drew the Short red course, after several controls with the wrong numbers he realised there was a problem, but thought he must of written down the wrong descriptions. Only after finishing did he realise that he had infact drawn the wrong map. He still managed a repectable time for the short course though! Several other regulars also had trouble - Geoff P had a poor mark up, putting a circle in the right place then crossing it out and drawing it in the wrong place. This resulted in a good deal of time cursing me before the control was located. Karen B, fresh from her European travels had even more trouble, returning with her last control mispunched. She was not alone punching this control incorrectly but she was the only one not to later see the correct control and repunch.
As at setup, plenty of volunteers stayed behind to pack up and collect controls. Thanks to David Messenger, Shane Jenkins, Josh Roberts, Kelly Kurtz and Kate Dynon. Poor Dennis Lyons missed out, as we did not have any left for him to collect.
Thanks to everybody that came and all the kind comments received and thanks again to the setting team of Nicole, Stuart Kurtz and Brock Smith.
Event: NOY5
Location: O'Donnelltown
Planner: Malcolm RobertsVetter: Josh Roberts
Entries: 98
Weather: Overcast/Cool
Setup: Carolyn Chalmers, Mick Kavur
Rego: Margaret Peel, Helen Welbourne
Finish: Denis Lyons
Control Collect: Sam Howe, Shane Jenkins, David Messenger, Denis Lyons, Robert Preston, Steven Todkill
Sugarloaf No1 has to be one of our toughest maps in that it takes in the sometimes steep side slopes of the Hunter areas highest peak, Mt Sugarloaf. Fortunately our setter, Malcolm Roberts was fairly generous and didn't have us climbing too much. Initially the Short Red would have seen a tad more climb but with some suggestions from son and vetter Josh, it was trimmed back making for a much more pleasant run. Great work guys.
Thanks also to our many helpers on the day especially the control collectors and also the weather gods.
Don't forget to go to the routegadget site and draw (or upload gps data) your route on the map for head to head racing. If you have splits then you need to enter the cumulative times not the actual split. Go on it's fun, entertaining and educational all at once.