Potteries Orienteering Club

I have been mapping Stone area for quite a while and always planned on having an urban event. My first thoughts were to make it a non punching event with written answers, but having competed in a number of these events, I realised that lots of people actually prefer to punch or dib their controls. It did require Brenda and myself, spending 2 hours on the Sunday morning, driving around the area wiring all of the controls to fences, posts etc. I was a little bit disappointed with the turn out, as there are not many orienteering events taking place at the moment. I think perhaps that quite a few people do not like score events and also they consider urban as not requiring the same navigational skills. Never mind, I hope everyone who did show up enjoyed themselves. I spread the controls out so much because I wanted people to really have to think which controls to go for. I tried to tempt people out of their comfort zone by putting the high scoring ones just that bit further, so the commitment was just that little bit greater. It was not just a case of which order to do the controls. I know being on the wrong side of the canal caused some a little problem with their timing, as did the wait at one of the railway crossings.

The Easy course did not have a great deal of use, but with the directive and common sense of not having youngsters crossing roads etc. I decided to make the extra effort and draw a different map and plan an off road course. It did require, I felt, 2 manned sections where the course went under the road bridge by the River Trent and also the road bridge by the Trent and Mersey Canal. I thank Janet, Laura and Terry for giving up their time to watch these areas for me. Thank you to Rachael for putting results on the washing line.

I did have some help collecting, thank you to Jon and Gerry and also to Katie and Ralph.

Thanks also to Gareth for organising the Scout hut key for toilets and the rest of the Lloyd family for handing out info when people arrived.

Thanks to John H for putting the results in order on the board, John P for getting the results to the web and Dave for putting the results on the web.

Standon Bowers OEC supported the club as usual, by allowing me to print maps at their expense.

A really big thank you to Brenda for her support before, during and after the event.

Henry Morgan