East Pennine Orienteering Club

Deffer Woods District Event, 18th May 2008
 

May 22, 2008

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Comment by Anthony G of EPOC.
Submitted at 16:32 on Thursday 22-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   The End
I am closing this BB now. Many thanks for all your comments!
Comment by David M. Controller. EPOC.
Submitted at 16:43 on Tuesday 20-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   Comments
Things must have gone well at this event because no-one sought me out to complain - probably a first!.  Seriously though Emma came up with a set of really good courses - tough with plenty of climb and route choice but fair.  My only real input was to suggest a move of the start from the narrow path you all walked along to where it ended up.  The original was too narrow and would have adversly affected slower and faster runners.  Unfortunately it meant you all had a long climb straight away.

Feedback on the day and subsequently showed that everyone had really enjoyed the courses and by course closing time everyone was checked back in and the controls had been collected.

Apart from the fences that appeared at the last minute, it was a bit alarming to encounter a group of about 20 campers deep in the woods but on a direct leg on Blue late on Saturday evening.  They caused us no trouble and I hope you ran past their tents quietly so they could have a lie-in.
Comment by Lee Staniforth.
Submitted at 16:36 on Tuesday 20-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   Loo reading material (off topic)
Hehehehe!
Actually, I'd suggest the route map would be decent reading matter for the little boy's room... It's where I get my best ideas!
Seriously though: great event, great location, great organisation! The kids also enjoyed visiting the Open Farm (with Adventure Playground!)
Comment by Keith Foster of SYO.
Submitted at 16:04 on Tuesday 20-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   A perfect day.
What more could you wish for, nice weather, nice area, well planned course, a reasonable time, for me at least. Nice to see some old friends, Maurice on the start, and Ian on the computer.  Thank you all at EPOC for a perfect day.
Keith.
Comment by Richard Wren of EPOC.
Submitted at 21:37 on Monday 19-May-2008.
Local events as good as this are few and far between.  I totally agree with Jon and Pete's comments about Emma's planning, especially the old-school attitude to the number of controls on a brown course.  Route choice on almost every leg?  What a refreshing change.  Well done to everyone involved.
Comment by Amanda (organiser).
Submitted at 20:30 on Monday 19-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   loos at each control!
Good idea Lee. Any suggestions as to a good publication to read whilst seated?
Thanks to everyone for their lovely comments - pleased you enjoyed!
Amanda
Comment by Emma of EPOC.
Submitted at 20:08 on Monday 19-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   Number of Controls
It was interesting to read Pete's comment about control numbers.  I wanted to keep to a maximum of 20 and was pleased to get under that.  I appreciate that individuals have different preferences, but personally I don't like courses that have much over 20 controls.  Control picking is good and challenges accurate navigation but longer legs provide route choices - a mixture of the 2 is best, but Deffer is a bit limited for lots of control picking anyway.  Also I am very lazy and didn't fancy putting out loads of controls; as it was I only used 35 for the whole event, which goes to show that sometimes less can be more!
Comment by Peter Jones of AIRE.
Submitted at 18:03 on Monday 19-May-2008.
Thanks for a very enjoyable event.
It was a good change to have a more 'old-fashioned' Brown course, with fewer controls - in contrast to the control-picking courses which are more common on today's more detailed maps.
Though I suspect control-picking in some parts of the area would be fairly unpleasant...
Comment by Emma of EPOC.
Submitted at 17:02 on Monday 19-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   Routes
I have been looking at the routes people have put up and it is reassuring to see that on the longer courses no 2 people have taken the exact same routes all the way round.  It is good to see how people tackled different legs.
Comment by Emma (Planner) of EPOC.
Submitted at 16:38 on Monday 19-May-2008.
James - I know you did not intentionally go from 3 to 12 and my comment was supposed to be a bit tongue in cheek.  I'm sure I heard the expletive though and I hope you feel like you had 'value for money'!
Jonathon - thank you for your really positive feedback about my planning.  It is reassuring to know that I have planned suitably challenging courses for all abilities.  I did not do a Brown course at Haw Park as the area is just too small to accomodate one, so I was glad that the Brown course yesterday was targetted at the right level for the 'super' fit orienteers out there!
Comment by Lee Staniforth.
Submitted at 11:43 on Monday 19-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   Toilets
Further to the comments previously regarding lack of water at the end of the course, I also thought that toilets at each control are a must. Flushable too, not these silly portable loos! Well, really...
Comment by jonathan emberton of epoc.
Submitted at 10:05 on Monday 19-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   emma's planning
following on from her great courses at haw park last year, emma has again shown what a thoughtful planner she is ... i really felt some of her ideas were 'out of the box' and used the woods imaginatively and kept interest and concentration high throughout
amanda used the word bold to describe the courses .. i think this is a perfect description
sorry i didn't see you to say this personally
good work
Comment by James of EPOC.
Submitted at 22:36 on Sunday 18-May-2008.
Yes, impressive wasn't it!
I didn't actually make for number 12 on purpose - it just happened that at the point that I realised that something wasn't quite right a control turned up in front of me which happened to be number 12 (apologies to anyone who may have heard my reaction when I worked out what I had done!).
Comment by Emma (Planner) of EPOC.
Submitted at 22:25 on Sunday 18-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   Blue
Going from 3 to 5 on Blue is an understandable mistake given the crossover.  3 to 12 may be another matter given the fact number 3 was on part 1 and number 12 was on part 2 (and 12 was nowhere near number 4!!!)  I am very impressed by that one!
Comment by Peter Avis of Aire.
Submitted at 21:36 on Sunday 18-May-2008.
Really enjoyed the woods, the sunshine and the lack of fierce brambles. The length of some legs on blue certainly left me thinking about which route to use.  My kids enjoyed orange and light green too, which both appear to have given them a challenge. No problem with drinks either; we had no difficulty with the ten minutes walk.
Thanks everyone.
Comment by James of EPOC.
Submitted at 21:31 on Sunday 18-May-2008.
The family and I all had a great time - thanks to everyone involved.
I can comprehesively 'out-incompetence' anyone and proved it today by going directly from 3 to 12 on the Blue course. This enabled us to complete a family double by achieving last place on two different courses. You people who run round quickly get such poor value for money in terms of minutes orienteering per pound spent!
Comment by Ruth and Davy Ker of AIRE.
Submitted at 21:12 on Sunday 18-May-2008.
Bound to be a marvellous event with Amanda at the helm.... Just sorry we couldn't hang around afterwards and appreciate Cannon Hall as we had to rush home for Tamsin's ballet show!  Thank you for excellent everything including route choices - both me and Jeremy managed to go from number 3 to 5 on the Blue course suggesting equal and extraordinary incompetence.  Ah well.
lol -) (- :-]
Comment by tony audsley of wakefield harriers.
Submitted at 21:01 on Sunday 18-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   virgin territory
as a complete novice to the sport, I was highly impressed by everything. The camaraderie, friendly marshalls, great set up  superb location. I only got lost once,which really suprised me as navigation is not my strong point  on the whole in trail/fell races it's follow the leader. Thank's to everyone for a superb morning hopefully it won't be my last.  
Comment by .
Submitted at 20:00 on Sunday 18-May-2008.
After returning from such an enjoyable day at Deffer I was shocked to read the negative comment posted. Why is it we are so eager to find a negative (of which there are so few) and not a positive(of which there are so many). I wonder if this could be why willing organisers, planners, controllers etc. are so rare?
Comment by amanda.
Submitted at 19:52 on Sunday 18-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   drinks
The time taken to walk from the road to the car park was around 5 mins and i felt it was better to be able to re fill the bottles if required rather than put them 5 mins nearer. We do not have the man power to man the water unfortunately. Many events do not provide water at all. Maybe if people think they will need a drink straight after their run they should take responsibility for their own drink. Every care is taken to provide competitors with a positive experience, however as busy volunteers we have our limits!
Comment by Rebecca Davies of SROC.
Submitted at 19:26 on Sunday 18-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   Green, and drinks
Really enjoyed the technical course today, thanks.
For the drinks, I understand the not wanting to carry them, but would it have been possible to put the water by the road, rather than all the way back at the car? Cheers.
Comment by amanda - organiser of epoc.
Submitted at 17:59 on Sunday 18-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   drinks!
I am against providing individual plastic bottles of drinking water and feel it is far more responsible to provide water in a tub which can be used many times. Lifting these bottles on to a table is hard enough without having carried them accross a field. I would also prefer not to supply cups in future.  I do hope you enjoyed your day otherwise.
Comment by Kelvin Dawson of AIRE.
Submitted at 16:44 on Sunday 18-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   Green
I didn't find the climb too much at all to be honest. I also found it refreshing for a Green to have some element of route choice as opposed to a lot of recent events I've been to where Green is simply a long distance Orange standard with paths all the way.
It would have been nice to have some water at the finish as it was warm and a 10 + minute walk back to the registration area was a bit much without a drink.
Comment by Emma(Planner) of EPOC.
Submitted at 16:20 on Sunday 18-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   Climb
I do apologise for the climb, especially straight out of the start, but unfortunately it is not really avoidable at Deffer.  Glad the technical level was appreciated though!
Comment by Anthony G of EPOC.
Submitted at 14:42 on Sunday 18-May-2008.
SUBJECT:   Green
This Forum is now up and running. What did you think of the Wood? Emma's courses etc?
I ran Green, very slowly. I thought that the planning was excellent, though if anything a bit too much climb for me. Every leg needed thinking about for route choice and there was very little path running. Great!

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