Results for NOC Badge Event and FCC Race, Sherwood Pines, 02/02/2003

Organiser

8 am. All the roads were open. All the road signs were out. The route to registration was being marked. It seemed that everything was well on schedule! How wrong can one be? Shortly after, I was deluged by helpers informing me that the road was closed, a diversion was in place and the O signs needed altering. For those that followed the diversion signs onto the housing estate I can only hope that you liked what you saw, want to move to Nottinghamshire and will soon be joining NOC!

While all this was going on my team leaders were working efficiently, getting everything set up and were probably cursing me for not being in the right place to solve any problems that they encountered.

Once the event started I felt redundant. Almost everything seemed to run smoothly and I would like to thank all the helpers for their hard work. Fortunately the computer crash occurred when I was not at download. For those who left dibbers at download, I hope that you have now received yours back.

The main downside was that an Orange fleece, trimmed in black and left at the start was taken, before the owner returned from his run. If you picked it up by mistake, or find it in your possession or know anything about its whereabouts would you please contact me urgently on 0115 941 9603 or by e-mail Clarke.rj@nottinghamhigh.co.uk so that we can organise its return to its owner Chris Sellens.

Jim Clarke

Planner

I hope that you all enjoyed your courses. There is a wide variety of terrain in Sherwood Pines, some of which can be really very pleasant, particularly the original mixed heathland that used to be so characteristic of this part of Nottinghamshire and Sherwood Forest; I hope the courses helped you to find the better parts and that you left with a good impression! I also hope that you didn't mind too much the long walk from the finish. My original plan to have the finish immediately to the east of the registration and download was torpedoed by the recent appearance of works associated with the construction of the aerial walkway. Neither did I think it was appropriate to have finish in an alternative area to the west where there are so many Sunday visitors.

I am very disappointed by the problems some of you had with the horse riders, all appropriate permissions had been granted to us and I had discussed the courses in detail with the head ranger. This left a shadow over the event for me, but these days there are so many people using these forests in so many ways, conflicts can arise.

To the NOC committee, please think carefully about the strain on the system when organising a two-day event at this time of year when daylight is so short and only one set of SI equipment is available. The system has struggled with time schedules at all stages; my thanks to the controller John Hurley for his forbearance, assistance and for keeping calm.

Finally, I wish to express my sincere thanks to my colleagues who gave their time to assist with setting the controls and the volunteers who helped to collect them in. I very much appreciated their offers of help; it made a big difference!

Tony Horsewill

Controller

To come ...

John Hurley (DVO)