Weren’t we lucky with the
weather! The sunshine in the woods set the autumn leaves glowing orange in the
light. We had just loaded the last of the kit into the cars when the first few
spots of rain arrived.
Thank you to Mr Aleck Hay of Duns
Castle for giving us permission to run in his wood; and to Sport Duns
(Chairperson, Councillor Frances Renton) for the use of the car parking at the
old Berwickshire High School and Iain Lothian of Scottish Borders Council for
opening up the gates for us.
Thank you also to Paul Caban of Interlopers for help on Start and for collecting
in controls, to ESOC/Interlopers and Simon Firth for the use of their
generator, and to Janet Clark, ESOA, for sorting out the trophies and prizegiving.
Ewart Scott (ESOC) stepped in to Control at rather
short notice and put a big effort into suggesting corrections to the map as
well as the expected tasks of checking control placings
and courses, for which we are very appreciative.
Many people expressed their
enjoyment of their course when they were downloading and I passed on to Pete
your appreciation of the efforts he had gone to, to make best use of the nicer
bits of the wood, and avoid the bits where the mapping could be improved. It is so nice to be on download when good
comments are made!
As always, orienteering only
happens when members of the club rally round to make it happen so everyone who
competed would, I am sure, like to thank Pete (planner), Ian and Julian (car
parking), Tim, Jonny and Matt (Registration) Saartje,
Trina and Terry (Start), Neil (download), Jack (setting out the picture course
and various other tasks) and Robin (for many tasks in the preceding weeks as
well as the more obvious one behind the computers). With everyone rallying
round to collect in controls everything was in by 3.30, well before dark.
Sheila
Given the variable map detail and
undergrowth for the time of year, planning at Duns was probably never going to
be as straightforward a task as might be expected. However, Pete made very good use of the whole
area and provided challenging courses at the appropriate level. Indeed, final versions of most courses had few
significant changes from their draft form.
Notes in the pre-event
information gave an accurate indication of what was on offer, which some
competitors commented on. The ground
roughness certainly suggested slower running speeds on Green, Lime, Long Orange
and Orange than might have been expected.
However, course lengths and times in the main were comparable with a
previous ELO event here in 2006.
Certainly the best parts of the
forest were used, offering a mix of terrain, forest colour, gradient, control
features and picturesque views.
Sheila’s organisation left little
to question.
As with other small clubs in
Scotland, it is a credit to ELO that such events are put on to such a high
standard.
This was my first experience of
using Purple Pen and a steep learning curve.
Thanks to Pete and Robin Strain for swiftly answering many queries.
Ewart Scott.
As well as all the competitors
and helpers at Duns today I would like to particularly like to thank Ewart Scott for his help and attention to detail as
Controller and for going far beyond the call of duty in identifying map
corrections.
In planning the courses I aimed to include as much route choice as possible -
so I hope to see plenty of variety when you enter them onto RouteGadget.
Pete Younger