Results for East Midlands Champs, Longshaw, 09/12/2007

Comments: Organisers, , Controller .
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Organisers

Organising a National Event is always a challenge, as the reputation of the club depends on how it goes. Longshaw is even more of a challenge because of the distances between the car parking and assembly and the estate itself.

Last time we organised an event at Longshaw we had to dig the car park out of the snow the day before and, true to form, it snowed at Longshaw when we were staking out and waiting for the marquee and toilets. Ranald and I stayed up there in the van overnight to make sure the marquee didn't take off - pitch black and very cold! It is at times like this, you question your sanity.

Sunday was great - no wind or rain and the DVO machinery went into action. We had excellent team leaders and around 70 helpers. Because of the river crossing, we had to change people's duties at the last minute to cover this. Thanks to all those helpers who were so flexible in what they did and when they did it and, in some cases, gave up their runs - the event wouldn't run without this flexibility. Thanks especially to Ranald, Roger and Simon and Di (from LEI) who were great at doing all the odd jobs that crop up and helped us clear up afterwards.

It was a pleasure to work with John (planner), Mark (controller) and Mike (entries) - who all helped us through the maze of things to do. We all had dining room tables covered with lists for a fortnight before the event!

You will have seen that the times were adjusted on the website results. The call up clocks had reverted to real time, so the timed starts had to be adjusted by three minutes; the punching starts were ok.

Since the event we have had positive comments from a number of people and on Nopesport - so thanks and well done DVO.

We would like to say thanks from the teacher from a school in Sandbach whose pupil got stuck in a bog. He asked us to thank the unknown lady who tried to extricate the 15 year old (she retired after the incident) and the two gentlemen who pulled his pupil out of the mire.

Viv Macdonald and Margaret Keeling

Controller

Staging a major event on such an exposed area in early December is always going to be a calculated gamble. As I had never been to Longshaw before this event, I decided to run around the area with the planner exactly 52 weeks before, to get a feeling for the vegetation. 2006 was a milder Autumn, so the bracken was still troublesome in some areas. With this year's wet summer the bracken in October was still well over head height, but some hard frosts and snow in November managed to make the area much more runnable than I had feared.

Padley Gorge was crossable the weekend before the event, and will probably be crossable again the weekend after. However on the day there was no alternative but to have the timed out section, which worked as well could be expected, as the route down to the bridge was too treacherous to race. We did consider having a max. time limit, but this was too complicated because of the wide range of age groups.

Finally the weather on the day was a huge relief to everyone involved, one day earlier and I seriously doubt whether the event would have been held.

My congratulations to DVO for staging the event so well, and much of the praise should go to John, Viv and Margaret whose huge efforts were justly rewarded by the many positive comments. Finally a thank you to all the competitors for complying with the organiser's requests, and especially those who have vocally supported the need for this. A whistle is no inconvenience to carry, and certainly helped a young man attract attention when he got stuck in a marsh (see Ranald's comments on nopesport).

I certainly look forward to competing at the next Longshaw event.

Mark Garside (Walton Chasers)

Any queries, errors, or omissions should in the first instance be addressed to Michael Napier tel (0115) 928 9663, mobile 07771 660892,

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