Organiser

Being more used to organising coaching sessions than major Junior events it was with some trepidation that I took over the organising of this annual Score Championships.

As a venue Hylands Park was ideal as it offered ample parking and good open parkland with good boundaries suitable for the most inexperienced runners whilst still enabling a challenge to the more experienced. We were able to keep the assembly within easy reach of the start and finish so competitors were not spread out too far.

Being a Junior event we wanted a younger planner and Eleanor West was persuaded to take on this task. I think all the participants will say she delivered a great course despite some last minute work commitments which lead to some admirable time juggling. I hope she has now managed to get some sleep!

Thanks also to our controller Bruce Marshall for his overseeing of our activities. As an experienced controller we were able to benefit greatly from his past endeavours.

As Essex Stragglers is one of the smaller clubs, volunteers can sometimes be a little thin on the ground and I needed plenty to attend to all the duties - especially the start - so I was very pleased that our members rose admirably to the challenge. I hope all the participants found plenty of help and support when it was needed. I certainly noticed no major hiccups and am sure that all the stations ran smoothly.

Even the weather was kind with the rain of the night before clearing away early to leave sunny intervals for the duration.

With Michael Napier doing his usual brilliant job with the results the prize giving took place as soon as the last runner came in - it was so quick it took me by surprise!

All in all there was a good atmosphere and many of the schools came and complimented the club on putting on a great event so again well done to all involved.

And thank you to all the competitors and spectators who made the sometimes long journey to our part of the country and made this years championships successful.

Julie Laver

Controller

I've run dozens of score courses before but this was my first chance to be involved as controller. The good feature of Hylands Park is that the wide open spaces make for lots of control choice. This is balanced by the lack of paths which meant the location of the "white" course was very constrained. Eleanor understood these issues and I was pleased that the first version of the course was little different from the one competitors ran on the day.

We calculated the optimum route as 6.3km and expected some of the competitors to collect all the controls within their time limit, but not as many as the 63 who actually achieved this feat.

I have controlled events for SOS before and once again I was impressed by how well a relatively small club can put on a major competition.

Bruce Marshall (WAOC)