The organisation and planning of large orienteering event continues to throw a series of challenges to the teams, and this British weekend was no exception. However, if you can gauge the success of an event by the number of people who seek you out as controller, or by the expressions on competitors faces then I think both the planning team and organising team did an excellent job.

There was some confusion over the mapping of a private driveway through an OOB area. The course was drawn with a broken line (as per the rule that indicates the line should be broken to avoid OOB). Some competitors took this route even though this was a private drive and within the settlement OOB screen (well done to those who turned around).

I think I should have picked this up earlier since under rule 1.7.6 the course is to be planned so that OOB can easily be avoided. However maybe we should not be mapping detail within the settlement screen, when it is OOB. In general the mapping within this screen is often suspect as the mapper may not have been able to access the private garden! So the lesson learned for me is to make sure there is no doubt about OOB, which probably means a clear purple marking.

The many landowners and numerous out of bounds, some of which caused over 1000 maps to be reopened, drawn by hand, and checked two days before the event, just added to the challenges of the planning and controlling effort. A combination of challenges we hope gave you all a race that found the best orienteers, worthy of their titles.

Steve McKinley (SN)