Hilary Palmer Event Organiser and Member of Nottinghamshire Orienteering Club

Report by John Palmer, Member of Nottinghamshire Orienteering Club

“It is great to back orienteering in a forest” was the most common reaction after the Burntstump local event organised by Nottinghamshire Orienteering Club (NOC).  Burntstump Country Park is a small forest surrounding a cricket pitch but it is a forest with hills, trees and undergrowth.

Many of the 55 participants had been doing MapRun and the odd urban event “but it is not quite the same”.  “We really appreciate NOC putting on the first real event in the East Midlands” after the lockdown.

Many said they were “rusty” and needed to remember the basics on the tricky loops planned by Hilary Palmer in middle race style. There were small errors aplenty because of the need to use compasses; not often needed on urban courses. Hilary said that the courses were planned for an event in April: “They needed a bit of tweaking because of patches of head-high nettles and brambles but it was not much work to do that”.

All the participants seemed delighted to be back doing what brought them into the sport in the first place - activity in the natural environment.

The pre-entry system using a spreadsheet worked well. There was no entry fee so no need to use the event entry firms. Because as it was for British Orienteering members only, NOC picked up a couple of new members for that very reason.

It was a bit of extra work getting around the COVID 19 precautions but in the end, it worked well. Two minutes start intervals this time although one minute would have been ok with the large start boxes. Pre-entry meant no registration on the day; just a start list.  This took away a lot of the work for volunteers. Download linked with a long cable from inside a car prevented any unnecessary contact and there was hand sanitizer there and at the start.

It seemed that everyone enjoyed their runs but also the opportunity to chat after an almost 6-month gap and meet old friends albeit socially distanced.  No results and the spread out of start times meant there was little problem with that.

So we are back in the forest – not quite back to normal yet but we can hope that it will not be too far away.