Peter Palmer Junior Relays 2024

How did you find the whole planning process for this year’s event prior to it taking place?

The added complexity of the Peter Palmer JTR is the accommodation and catering aspect. To complicate matters further WCOC don’t have any traditional areas (parkland/woodland) close to a suitable school hall or leisure centre. Instead, we chose to hold the event in low lying fell fields housing competitors in tents in an adjacent field. Given the departure from the norm and the reasonably distant location, we canvassed opinion from all clubs to gauge the likely uptake if we were to go ahead. Encouragingly we had a good number of positive replies, with any who couldn’t come citing lack of juniors or travel distance as the reason, not the terrain or the prospect of a night under canvas. Tents were provided by Cockermouth Guides and Scouts – Alex Crawford (WCOC and Guide leader) did the liaison with both groups. Jane Hunter (WCOC) coordinated all the catering for the weekend.  Timeline – started in early Feb looking at potential areas, likely venue identified in May, with the event confirmed in July when planning then started in earnest.

Can you share a copy of the map area that teams had to navigate their way around throughout the competition this year?

Click here to view a copy of this year's map area. 

Who was involved in the planning process, how did they find mapping the area, and were there any obstacles to overcome?

The courses were planned by Charlie and Jamie Rennie. A combination of two WCOC areas were used: Leaps and Godworth, and Keltonfell Top.  A new map was created for the event by Pete Nelson which involved remapping Keltonfell Top (previously a 1:400 sprint specification map) to align it with the 1:7500 fell map of Leaps and Godworth.  The challenge was to make interest exciting courses of the correct technical difficulty (yellow to green including long red night legs) with fair gaffles that would test the more experienced runners but also cater for newer juniors, on what is a fairly simple area.  And I hope we succeeded!

What was the atmosphere like on each day of the event?

The weather was extremely kind to us; two weekends earlier with the tail end of Storm Lillian and I think we would been forced to cancel. Comments from a couple of the visiting teams likened it to the atmosphere you would get at a festival. A fish and chip van was organised to come on the Saturday evening (an idea pinched from last year’s organiser SMOC) which made catering more convenient for teams. A championship standard arena with spectator run-through and change-over/finish funnels encouraged everyone to gather to watch the relays

GPS trackers were used at the event. How did you come about securing these, and how did you find these worked for both participants and Team Leaders who were tracking teams?

Trackers were used at the 2014 Peter Palmers (the first one that I attended). To make the event more attractive we chose to use them here, along with live commentary (a feature of the 2018 PPJTR organised by SYO).

The trackers belong to SOA and are often used by ScotJos during training weekends. Ted Finch (FVO) coordinated arrangements in the runup to the event and liaised with Loggator (the tracking platform); and he and Steve Scott (FVO) and Ben Breeze (WCOC) managed the trackers on the day.

Altogether it went very smoothly with all juniors coping well with wearing the trackers whilst running and team managers sorting the transfer of tracker vests. The tracking made it easier for the commentators and everyone else to follow the race and added to the tension with the lead in the main relay competition swapping several times.

How did the teams progress through the courses and what were the things you witnessed from an organiser’s perspective that were noteworthy?

The lead in the main relay swapped 3 times, AIRE leading after the 1st leg, SYO after the 2nd, WCOC after the 3rd before it went back to SYO who went into the final leg with a lead of just under a minute. Exciting commentary described the different route choices taken during the final leg, and at one point used drone footage to provide updates when a tracker was dropped at a vital moment. WCOC came through the spectator control with a narrow lead over SYO.  There was a tense wait while the final controls were negotiated, WCOC keeping the lead to finish in first place.  SYO dominated both the Joan George (1^st and 3^rd) and the Daybreak bowl (1^st and 2^nd).

As part of this year’s event there was a friendly game of rounders that took place – how do you think adding social and non-competitive elements to events like these benefit the junior participants?

It’s always good to see juniors from the different clubs meeting up at big events and getting along so well together. The rounders was replaced by an ad hoc game of football, the sounds of which could be heard by those setting up the arena on the overlooking hill late on in to the evening, stopping only when the ball could no longer be seen.

What were your key highlights from the weekend overall?

The weather and the location – the views on both days were stunning; the success of the camping; the arena layout; bacon butties for breakfast.  The effort to which teams went to, to bring a team to the event – from recruiting non-orienteers to make up a Peter Palmer team; forming a 4-person Daybreak team with members from 3 different clubs and taking part even though they were non-competitive; to one team who made a 16 hour round trip to attend.

Results

Provisional Relay Results - Peter Palmers 2024 - 08 Sep 2024 (wcoc.co.uk)

Closing comments and a thank you to key volunteers

The use of trackers, commentary and radio controls, along with download required an complex technical set up, managed by Joe Sunley (WCOC).

Making their debut as event commentators - Emma Crawford (WCOC) and Issy Sunley (WCOC). Together with Charlie and Ben (mentioned above) they are all ex-WCOC juniors who all have fond memories of competing in the Peter Palmer relay and were keen to be involved.

Karen and Dan Parker (BL) who controlled the event, passing over to Scott Ashworth (WCOC) the on-the-day controller.

The Orienteering Foundation who provided a grant for the event to cover the ‘enhancements’ – commentary, GPS trackers and radio controls.

Kong Adventure who provided the bibs (race numbers).

Thank you to you all!

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Congratulations to the winners of this year's event: WCOC Warriers, to the winners of the Joan George (SYO Bee Happy) and Daybreak Bowl (SYO Bumble Bees), and to SUFFOC for taking the Norwich Anniversary. Well done to all the other teams who participated in the competition.

To learn more about West Cumberland Orienteering Club, please visit their website. The club would like to highlight their upcoming WCOC Autumn series which has just kicked off with events in local parks and towns; easy short and long courses at each venue – ideal for beginners.