Congratulations to all OO Trophy winners and runners-up.
The Trophies and certificates will be distributed to recipients as soon as possible. You can download your certificate by clicking on your name in the winners table:
| Senior Women | Name | Age Class | Club | Points | Junior Women | Name | Age Class | Club | Points | |
| 1 | Sarah Rollins | W35 | BAOC | 100.7 | 1 | Becky Young | W16 | HH | 74.4 | |
| 2 | Inara Gipsle | W60 | TVOC | 85.3 | 2 | Aimee Darley | W10 | GO | 67.6 | |
| 3 | Janet Rosen | W55 | HH | 80.5 | 3 | Bryony Harding | W20 | HH | 55.8 | |
| Senior Men | Name | Age Class | Club | Points | Junior Men | Name | Age Class | Club | Points | |
| 1 | Roger Thetford | M50 | TVOC | 99.5 | 1 | Frank Townley | M10 | SN | 89.8 | |
| 2 | Alan Velecky | M45 | SO | 96.0 | 2 | Dane Blomquist | M16 | BAOC | 86.2 | |
| 3 | David Rollins | M45 | BAOC | 92.7 | 3 | Mark Purkis | M18 | SAX | 69.2 |
Firstly I want to say that to plan orienteering courses on an area such as Furnace Pond and Woolbeding is a marvellous experience, one that I would heartily recommend to everyone who loves forests. Be brave, take a deep breath and try it.
The club has made good use of the southern areas on past events; however the northern area of Furnace Pond has not been used since BOC2006 and I wanted some courses to go through this area. However the forest here is tough and not suitable for the shorter courses; therefore I established Woolbeding as the southern limit of the map, allowing for an A3 Portrait to include Furnace Pond at the top. I wanted at least for the three longest courses to go here; however a further constraint was the BOF rule of 100 metres of climb equates to 1 km horizontal distance. The steep escarpment in the middle of the map effectively lengthens courses (Planners’ beware!!) so I was unable to run the Blue course north and needed to curtail the short brown. This was unfortunate as I had to cut out a couple of really good legs. Generally I felt that most courses offered a degree of route choice and a variety of terrain to run through.
The area is tough on a good day – so coupled with the high winds, driving rain and the blizzards that beset us on the day of the event, this hopefully made for a memorable run. Many thanks to Mike for Controlling and for his helpful suggestions and also to Alastair for being totally relaxed about just about everything – after all, it is about having fun.
Neil Harwood
What a grim day!! This is the first GO event that I can remember for a long time when we have had such awful weather, but sadly we can’t pre-book the weather, otherwise I would have requested a dose of the Spring like weather we had on Saturday afternoon as that was just perfect.
Despite the taxing conditions, we had a very good turnout on the day. so full marks to everyone who braved the elements and came along and I hope in general enjoyed the event. It is a pretty tough area as most of you would have discovered, but saying that it is one of the better areas in the South East and on a good day quite a delight to run over.
No GO event would be complete without the hardy band of Gophers who still managed a smile even though their teeth may have been chattering with the cold. A lot of work goes on both before and during an event, and Sundays race could not have happened without the support from the club. I won’t list everyone but special mention should be made of …
Neil Harwood for planning what looked like great and challenging courses … sadly I didn’t get to run one but have a map or two tucked away for a sunny day J
Linda, James, Keith, Jim and Nick for mapping, hanging controls, collecting controls, checking controls and supporting Neil so efficiently.
Mike Elliot for controlling our event despite managing to damage himself night orienteering a week before.
Christine, Gareth and the start team for getting everyone away into the great unknown for a gruelling day.
Tim, Jon, Jeremy, Barbara, Deborah and team for handling the vital IT stuff which we rely on so heavily these days.
Dave Robbins for looking after squash, clothing and the finish area.
Paul Szarvas and Pete Couldery for putting out a string that I suspect was sadly underused on the day.
And last but by no means least, Gary Strowbridge who not only looked after parking on the day, but also did a lot of hard work securing land permission, access to the hospital site and a host of other jobs that most folk would be unaware of. Gary was as much if not more of the organiser for this event than me, and I think it would be fair to say the event probably wouldn’t have happened without his hard work.
So have I missed anyone ? I hope not. If I have, apologies, and thanks for your efforts.
As well as the team from GO, we should also thank the land owners who allowed access to the area. These were Mr Mark Camm, Mr R Mariner and Mr Blackburn on Furnace Ponds and Mr & Mrs J Caulfield for the Western part of Redford. We would also like to thank Mr Ray Strading of the City & Country Group for permission to use the hospital site for car parking and assembly.
Hopefully you have all warmed up and dried out now and had time to reflect on your runs and posted your routes on RouteGadget. GO have a few other events planned for later in the year, so please check the web pages for details, and we hope we will see you at other GO events in the future.
Alastair Doyle
tbd
Mike Elliot (MV)