Kilnsey is complicated for other reasons.  We learned at JK 2016 that relying on a field for parking in March/April is not a good idea.  Emergency arrangements were needed just before that event when it was clear that a nicely sloping parking field with top access and a lower exit used for maybe a thousand cars for the Kilnsey Show in the summer would just be too wet in March/April.  Threshfield Quarry is massive and can swallow up lots of cars on hard ground.  But it means a long walk to a start and from a finish.  It was thought that this would put a lot of people off, though in the end it didn’t.  Cars for the event easily fitted into the quarry with hardly any hold ups even though much of the parking near the quarry entrance was initially taken up by Fellsman Hilke competitors returning from their event.

Kilnsey South rises to 450m.  With a north wind and rain it can be a serious concern.  Competitors were warned when the event was first advertised that a waterproof hooded top might be compulsory.  A few days before the event all competitors were informed that such tops would be compulsory.  It was very cold on the day when the start team went off to set up and early starting helpers went off at 10 o’clock.  Later starters were a bit luckier.

The area is used for farming sheep and cattle.  This gives two problems.  There are lots of walls and fences to keep the animals where they should be, and where would the animals be on the day of the event?  To a non-farmer, the latter seems simple, but farmers often don’t know where their animals will have to be, as it depends on the weather, the progress of lambing and so many other jobs that have to be done.

Yorkshire Dales walls and fences are big and they need big stiles to cross them where there are no gates.  Competitors on the longer courses were treated to a variety of ladder stiles, milk crate steps, a crawl through and a specially built step stile near the end capable of taking 700 plus competitors at a rate of 4 or 5 a minute.

The highlights of the day came as the first competitors returned smiling and giving very positive comments about their courses and the arrangements.  At the same time the weather started to improve.  And then when it improved further the ice cream van started doing business and it was warm enough for competitors to be standing around looking at results and discussing their courses.

CLARO is a small club and this was the biggest event the club had ever taken on.  Some much appreciated help came from elsewhere, but members rose to the challenge and did an excellent job on the day.  For the rest of the year the club will revert to hosting evening and family events with regionals in June and September.  This will be a relative rest before helping with the JK in 2025.

Northern Championships 2024 results. 

Kilnsey planner Vicky Bailey's perspective

Planning on Kilnsey was a challenge for all the practical reasons Mike has mentioned, but also because as planners we had two hard acts to follow in the shape of 2016’s epic acts-of-God JK and AIRE’s sunny summer special in 2018. It seemed appropriate then that our event served up something in between; on the day, a moderately grim start melting into a modestly mild finish; in the lead up, a catalogue of every other available weather, never friendly enough for shorts but nothing so hostile that it saw us off the hill. No sun, no hail strikes, but come the day: a sunburst of primroses.

With the assembly area already fixed we were limited with how much we could vary from AIRE’s event, which had used the same quarry for car parking. Early efforts to find a novel start location were quickly abandoned – you didn’t want a longer walk to the start, did you? But for the finish we gambled on a short walk back to assembly for the fun of a combined finish with the White and Yellow courses in the caravan park. This also left us with a little more length in the courses, which meant a better share of Kilnsey proper for the shortest senior courses before the inevitable march off the hill. For the longer courses, Mike and Chris’s efforts with permissions and crossing points opened up access to additional areas not used since the JK – a big help for keeping things fresh. Planning tactics evolved over the thrashing-out process. Our early strategy of avoiding long legs crossing the walls resulted in somewhat bland Middle-style courses that lacked “story”. In the end, using the walls to set up macro route choices provided better structure, and made for some entertaining post-race analysis on Routegadget. Every crossing point was worth it, Mike, honest!

The most memorable part of planning at Kilnsey has been the efforts undertaken by so many volunteers to overcome its challenges. Fathomless feats of endurance and ingenuity! An alphabetised schedule of animal-dependent crossing point logistics. A 60kg sheep-proof control marking solution! Dauntless control collectors taking on longer loops than their original courses and a map layout for every permutation of scale and paper size. The amount of time and care that goes into these events is in equal parts scary and inspiring. My tip for anyone considering taking on something similar is to get yourself a co-planner. Find one who always finds time to be slightly less busy when you are super busy; who has a seemingly exhaustible supply of patience, and a very good recipe for flapjack – then no amount of trans-Pennine weather tantrums and late-night PDF checking can get you down for long!

David Williams, the planner, identified a possible field for the arena, which we had never used previously; the field just to the south of the one we eventually used.   This allowed him to use the best of the area. He structured the courses Jan–March 2023 at the same time coordinating with Tony Thornley producing the completely revised map off new LIDAR data. By this time a year ago to allow review in competition condition the courses were more or less fully planned and controlled. Having had input during April 2023 from David Bowman assistant planner and Mark Garside (WCH) controller. Subsequently courses and map were given constant minor amendments and updates to take account of the storms, wet conditions and middle distance RWT rule changes.

The parking field has become a regular for us over the past 15 years, when we hold Regional events at Danefield.  We knew it was well drained.  It has coped admirably with the cars for all previous events.  We’ve checked it regularly throughout this very wet winter, and never had any doubts about it coping, despite having to accommodate three times the number of vehicles we have previously.  It meant quite a long walk to the arena, but we knew it was 100% reliable.

Last year by March the original assembly field was in prime condition.  This year we did a final check three weeks before the event, just before the map proofs were ready to be printed.  There was a strong chance the field would never drain sufficiently to take vehicles and 900+ pairs of feet.  This was when our brilliant hosts, Sue and Howard Cliff really came into their own.  They suggested we use the paddock and agreed to build us the bridge across the ditch leading to it.  It proved the best of arenas.  The grass didn’t cut up, and it was more compact than the original field which doubtless helped create the splendid atmosphere of the event.

The change of assembly field resulted in a few slight last-minute adjustments to the map, but did not affect the planning of the courses apart from the run-in.

We were able to pull the event off just using Aire members, which made recruitment and organising a good deal simpler than is often the case for a Major event.  From what I saw and heard on the day, all the teams did a pretty seamless job. 

At Danefield we were delighted to hear so many compliments about the courses and the organisation.  The rain held off, although a little more sunshine and a warm wind from the south would have been appreciated. I guess you can’t have everything.

We were pleased to see that both Rob and Lindsey King’s String Course and Maze were well used.

Results from the British Middle Championships 2024. 

Aire’s next large-scale events are the Sprint and Urban events in Leeds on 6–7 July 2024.

And the Dales Weekend in the Malham area on 14–15 September 2024.

This finding comes from Sport England’s ‘Active Lives Children and Young People’ report into the activity levels of the nation’s children and means that 3.3 million children are now meeting the new recommended Chief Medical Officer Guidelines - 279,600 more children than last year.

Government guidelines recommend that children and young people should get 30 minutes of their daily physical activity in the school day and 30 minutes outside of school. The figures show that there has been a rise in children getting active outside of school over the last year, with 57% (up 4.6%) doing an average of 30 minutes or more a day outside of school, compared to 40% at school.

As part of our 2016-21 strategy Towards an Active Nation, Sport England is already investing £194m in children and young people, within its remit of responsibility for sport and physical activity outside of school from the age of 5.

Activities outside of school that are on the rise include active play, team sports and walking.

At the other end of the scale, 2.1 million children and young people (29.0%) are doing less than 30 minutes of physical activity a day, and while that number is decreasing (by 3.9% over the last year) it is a reminder of how much more needs to be done. In the middle, another 1.7 million (24.2%) children are ‘fairly active’ taking part in average of 30-59 minutes a day.

The inequalities that were surfaced by the first report last year remain, with children from the most affluent families more active (54%) compared to the least affluent families (42%) while boys are more active than girls at every age from five up.

The survey also shows that active children are happier, more resilient and more trusting of others and it has also shown a positive association between being active and higher levels of mental wellbeing, individual development and community development.

Active Lives Children and Young People provides the most comprehensive overview of the sport and physical activity habits of children in England. It looks at the number of children taking part in a wide range of sport and physical activities (ranging from dance and scooting to active play and team sports) at moderate intensity, both at school and out of school. The report is based on responses from over 130,000 children aged 5-16 in England during the academic year 2018/2019, making it the largest study of its kind.

ACTIVITY SETTING – AT SCHOOL VS OUT OF SCHOOL

• There is a difference in the amount of sport and physical activity that takes place at school, compared to activity levels outside of school – 40.4% of children are active at school for an average of 30 minutes per day while 57.2% of children are active outside of school for the same duration – an increase of 4.6% on last year.
• At school, increases have been seen for years 3-6 (ages 7-11) - however secondary school age young people have seen no change and the youngest children (years 1-2) have seen a decrease. This is seen across boys and girls.

The report also shows that significant inequalities remain when looking at children’s activity levels:

FAMILY AFFLUENCE

• While there have been increases in activity levels across all levels of family affluence, children and young people from families who are less affluent are still least likely to be active (42% of children in this group are active for an average of 60 minutes+ a day, compared to 54% of children and young people from families of high affluence).
• They are also least likely to enjoy being active – 43% of children from low affluence families say they enjoy being active vs 59% from high affluent families (a 16% gap).
• Boys from the least affluent families are more likely to be active than girls.

GENDER

• While there have been increases in both boys and girls’ activity levels, boys are more likely to be active then girls with a gap of 319,200 between the numbers of boys who achieve the recommended amount of sport and physical activity (51% or 1.8m) and the number of girls that do (43% or 1.5m).
• In years 9-11 (ages 13-16) there has only been an increase in activity levels for girls, and not boys, with an increase of 3.5% (29,800 number) doing an average of 60+ minutes a day.

ETHNICITY

• Asian and black children are most likely to do less than an average of 30 minutes activity a day.

Other interesting points to note are:

AGE

• How positively children and young people feel about sport and physical activity generally declines with age.
• Activity levels peak when children are aged 5-7, and again at the end of primary school (age 11-12). Children are more likely to be active at these points than at any other time during their primary or secondary education. Children and young people aged 13-16 (years 9-11) are the least likely to be active.
• There are more active children than less active children across all age groups.

TYPE OF ACTIVITY

• Active play and informal activities remain the most common way for children in younger age groups (Years 1-6) to be active.
• Team sports become more common as children get older. By secondary school age, team sports are the most common group of activities.

MENTAL WELLBEING BENEFITS

• Active children and young people are more likely to report higher levels of mental wellbeing.

ATTITUDES TO SPORT AND ACTIVITY

• The first Active Lives Children and Young People survey showed that enjoyment above all other elements of physical literacy is the biggest driver of children’s activity levels.
• The new survey shows that girls are less likely to enjoy being active than boys with the biggest gap between the genders found around confidence and enjoyment.
• More physically literate children are more likely to be active.
• More physically literate children are happier, more resilient and more trusting of others.
• The number of positive attitudes is the key driver of how active children are.

The full Active Lives Children and Young People report is available here.