East Pennine Orienteering Club

Comment board for Royds Hall Event

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This page is now ready to accept comments on the Newmillerdam event.   For example .....  What did you think of the event?  The area?  The organisation?  The courses?  How did you do on your course?  Which routes did you take?  Where did you go wrong, and how did you get back on track?
To add a comment click here. Sorry, this Correspondence now closed. 12/02/06 Go back to the event summary page.
Comment by Janet Ramsden of NA.
Submitted at 16:28 on Friday 10-Feb-2006.
SUBJECT:   Discourtesy
As a resident of Norwood Green I have to voice my feelings on The Royds Hall Great Wood Event.
Vehicles parked on the pavement made life very difficult for pedestrians but even worse was the fact that not one orienteer offered to close car doors which were totally blocking the pavement. I admit to slamming them, I had a very elderly dog which I was not prepared to take into the road,the response from the car users was abusive. Even children saw fit to ask me why I objected to having to struggle to use the path.
A wheelchair bound friend at the top of the village found it impossible to get through.
As with previous events, the conclusion has to be that orienteers in general are a very inconsiderate, discourteous, self important group of people.
Many Judy Woods regulars have commented that it seems unfair that their quiet Sunday walk should be disrupted to this extent. Would it not be possible to use private estates?
Comment by Anthony G of EPOC.
Submitted at 19:30 on Wednesday 8-Feb-2006.
SUBJECT:   Start times
I think that at a district event with a flexible and efficient start as at Royds, we could try the following changes at the next event.

Start times 10.30 - 12noon.
If courses are ready allow starts from 10.15
Registration finishes half an hour earlier
Courses close 2pm
Kites in half an hour earlier
car park empty earlier
Organisation in the bath by 3pm
Results on the web 3.30pm. Wonderful
Comment by Peter Pozman of Claro.
Submitted at 18:48 on Wednesday 8-Feb-2006.
SUBJECT:   Brown course
Oh God! 2.10! I'm an even worse orienteer than I thought. It did occur to me that I might try a shorter course next time. The physical challenge involved is considerable and I've certainly learnt something about the effect fatigue can have on one's ability to navigate.
Thanks for your hard work in organising and am looking forward to the next EPOC event.
Comment by Chris Burden (Controller) of Aire.
Submitted at 22:40 on Tuesday 7-Feb-2006.
Neil and others are quite right in indicating the physicality of the white course and the vagueness of some of the paths.  This was a deliberate choice I encouraged Ivor to follow after he initially raised the possibility of leaving the made up path on the escarpment top.  I appreciate that the course pushed the guidelines towards (and just beyond)there limits, but remembered the enjoyment my own children had had many years ago clambering around those valley sides.  Nothing wrong in giving a bit of a sense of adventure. On reflection I think the addition of one control and the repositioning of one other in the valley area would have helped, although neither seemed to cause any great problems on the splits for the white or the yellow course.  

Looking at the results it's pretty clear that hardly any children (if indeed any at all) went round the White without adult supervision. (I think that is possibly true for most events these days.) At least I hope nobody is allowing a child who is not at least 9 this year to go round without someone with them! Most of the 10s went round in pairs with some adult oversight.

The Yellow course followed a very similar route in the valley with fewer controls and the times were generally pretty reasonable, so I think on balance we took a slight risk but got it right.

Apologies to the competitor with colour blindness.  Ocad produces a rather nasty red (magenta) which it calls purple. The ocad purple is notoriously difficult for those with colour blindness. We managed to get the control descriptions a real purple but managed to overlook the courses on the map.

Finally apologies to Peter Pozman for the control which had been removed.  I hope that by now you have been re-instated in the results.  It was me you saw at the site of the missing control 104.  I had rushed there hoping to intercept the control collector who had been asked incorrectly to collect this control in, as we were aware there was one competitor still due to visit it.  For the record we met at the site at 2.10.  

You asked why it had been removed.  In urban woods controls become very vulnerable once the wood clears of runners.  At Esholt recently 3 controls were uprooted and flung a considerable distance from their sites into undergrowth.  We were lucky to find them.  Esholt is in an area which is less prone generally to vandalism than Royds Hall.  The units cost in excess of £60 each, so I hope you can understand the eagerness to collect them in once the wood quietens.  I think there is a good argument for having a closing time of 2.00 p.m. for courses in urban areas, although the convention is 2.30.  If competitors feel they are likely to take more than 90 minutes in an urban wood, I feel they should either try to get to the event earlier or choose to run a shorter course.  This isn't the first time this situation has arisen in an urban wood recently and is unlikely to be the last.
Comment by Anthony of EPOC.
Submitted at 21:22 on Tuesday 7-Feb-2006.
SUBJECT:   Comments
I have just added the Planners Comments!
Comment by Neil Conway of Aire.
Submitted at 10:58 on Tuesday 7-Feb-2006.
"the white course was a bit of a physical  challenge for my 3 year old"

I should make it clear that my daughter really enjoyed her course - particularly charging down the steep slope. It was me that was worrying about it.
Comment by peter pozman of claro.
Submitted at 07:47 on Tuesday 7-Feb-2006.
SUBJECT:   brown course
Great area and everybody was really friendly. I haven't done that much orienteering but I was disappointed to find a couple of my controls had been collected in before 2 o clock which made me even later than I was already!Perhaps collecting controls early when there's only a couple of runners still out should work forward from the back of the course.
The children on the white course were not the only ones to drop their maps out of the bag and have to go back and find them!
Because the last course I had done had a total of 23 controls my brain packed in after 23 and with the dropped map and all I really made a meal of finding 24; this was the only time I didn't bother with my compass!Still it's all good training.
Comment by Neil Northrop of ShUOC.
Submitted at 23:18 on Monday 6-Feb-2006.
Great little area and great planning. Thanks all.
Comment by Maurice Calvert of AIRE.
Submitted at 11:57 on Monday 6-Feb-2006.
SUBJECT:   White Yellow Courses
My son decided he wanted to hold his birthday party at an O' event.  Royds Hall was ideal (apart from slightly too many loose dogs).  We brought 6 children who had never orienteered before.  We sent them pairs around the White course and then (in different pairs) around the Yellow course.  Without exception they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
Problems I noted:  
* We had to hire 12 SI cards (well we thought they should have one each).  I had to fill-in my phone number and address 12 times of those little slips!
* A couple of the children dropped their maps out of the unsealed poly bags.
* At control 2 (both White and Yellow) I had to stop ALL of them continuing on the main path instead of turning North onto the rather indistinct minor path.
* By control 8 they had tended to merge into a large group with other children searching for controls in "pack mode" - first one to find it shouts to all the rest!  There were upwards of a dozen children all having a great time, but not much map-reading going on, on the steep slopes of the stream where the paths were rather vague.
* Some parents with young children really struggled on the White course - pity there was no String.
We had a really good day out and some of the children might come again.  It was a beuatiful wood and the helpers were ever cheerful and helpful.  Thank you EPOC!
Comment by Mike Winter of AIRE.
Submitted at 11:50 on Monday 6-Feb-2006.
SUBJECT:   Great event for a return to Orienteering
Thanks for an excellent, well organised event, friendly volunteers and a great venue. It has been over 20 years since I last went orienteering, and this was a superb way to re-engage with a sport I loved so much as a youth. My wife and young family also had their first taste of orienteering, successfully completing the white course, which although they came in last place, did have a 2 year old girl who walked the whole way round whilst jealously guarding the dibber! This made rapid control punching somewhat difficult...

In terms of my own course, I did light green and had a thoroughly enjoyable run, with a good result. My only problem being confusing controls 1  11 on the map whilst heading in from control 10. This is due to my red/green colour blindness, and my losing a red '1' somewhere in the map. I found myself perfectly located at control 1, wondering what I was doing there! Did anyone else have this problem? I find some reds much easier to distinguish than others, but I can't be the only orienteer with colour blindness....
Comment by Jill Bell of IND.
Submitted at 09:28 on Monday 6-Feb-2006.
SUBJECT:   White course
First event I have done unaccompanied by children (and only my third), but I stayed on the yellow course, perhaps I'll be brave enough to do orange next time, I'll certainly be back!

Just a comment about the white course, I was surprised to see a young girl trying to find a control on that steep bit near the bend in the river close to the end. It was quite a way down the hill, she soon disappeared straight up the hill to the next one with only a small groan about the climb, I think my 9 year old would have got lost.

Nice to see primary schools getting involved, my daughters school is about to start some sessions.
Comment by Anthony G of EPOC.
Submitted at 22:28 on Sunday 5-Feb-2006.
SUBJECT:   Names
I fully agree with Davids point about christian names on the entry slips. Oddly I thought I had dealt with this one ages ago. However, now new slips will be first name.........
Comment by graham lloyd of epoc.
Submitted at 22:01 on Sunday 5-Feb-2006.
SUBJECT:   coal mining in Royds
When I was planning an event here many years ago, we did a partial re map, mainly because, so the story goes, some careless woodsman some how managed to set fire to the coal deposits still under the woods, the fire eventually burnt it self out some time later, though the fire brigade did attend. Those of you on blue ran through the fire site at control 6!

Hope you all find this interesting.
Comment by Neil Conway of AIRE.
Submitted at 21:42 on Sunday 5-Feb-2006.
"I wonder what those knoll-top pits were once upon a time"

They are bell pits, remnants of an early and fairly simple form of coal mining that involved digging a hole and piling up the earth around the edge. They are fairly common in coal mining areas.

Oh and a very enjoyable event in a very pleasant wood, although the white course was a bit of a physical  challenge for my 3 year old (and I imagine a technical challenge for unaccompanied children - some of those paths were very vague).
Comment by David Alcock of AIRE.
Submitted at 20:39 on Sunday 5-Feb-2006.
SUBJECT:   great event; registration slips
Thanks for a great event in a brilliant stretch of forest.  I wonder what those knoll-top pits were once upon a time (possibly craters from excess bomb drops in WWII? Or remnants from prehistoric buildings?) - does anyone know?  Well organised and planned.  My schoolchildren enjoyed it a lot.

Got lost to no 2 on blue course (rushing too much). Then flowed well.

Wonder if control descriptions could be separate, for insertion into holders?  They could still appear on the map, of course!

Agree with comment re litter.  The tape holding my laces together came off, and I picked it up.  Shame it sounds like some were littering.

Incidentally, I took children from my school, and I reckon the registration slips could do with changing. Four out of eight of my pupils were not from Christian backgrounds, and one (from China) even asked me what a 'Christian name' was!  So, perhaps once this stock is used up, could ones with 'first name' on instead could be made to replace them?  Just a simple suggestion, hope it doesn't sound too pedantic or picky!  :-)  By the way, I don't think the word 'Christian' is offensive (!), simply that it's not inclusive enough in this context.
Comment by Jenny Whitehead of SYO.
Submitted at 19:23 on Sunday 5-Feb-2006.
SUBJECT:   Control descriptions
Great event (especially the toilets!) and course - thanks to everyone involved. Not so impressed with the number of 1st part control descriptions from the brown course that I collected on my way round - it's still dropping litter even in a race!
 

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