Bernwood Badge Event Results

Sunday February 9th 1997

Controller's Comments:
For a small club like OUOC, with only 30 or so members to take on a badge event is no mean feat, but my early concerns that they would be short of manpower were completely unfounded. Nicky had organised’ her teams very well, and the club deserves your thanks for an excellent event on the day.

Duncan set out to complete the revision of the map and planning of the courses in about six months, but he withstood the pressure of reducing this to three months, when the Forestry Commission refused permission for the original date in May. I was very impressed, as I hope you were, with the quality of the courses he created, and I hope that you were kept off the tracks for most of the time.

Now for the Sackcloth and ashes! There is no excuse for our missing the rather bizarre control numbering on your maps for course 6. I thought had checked everything..........I just hope it did not waste too much of our race time or detract too much from your enjoyment of the day.

I am sorry that some of you were out in the forest for a long time, particularly on the women's courses. This was probably due, in part, to forestry work making some of the going slower than we had expected. However, we did apply the BOF guidelines, which unfortunately did not give us the winning times we expected.

And finally, it was great fun working with members of a club I was a member of, only twenty-one years ago!
Mike Forrest

Organiser's Comments:
This was the first time that I have organised an event - and going for a badge event was rather in at the deep end! However I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and hope that you all did as well; any polite comments will be grateful received. The major complaints I heard were about the walk to the start and finish. We decided that it was better that you had the benefit of the hard standing, as opposed to slipping around on a field, and possibly being stuck in the mud. Apologies must go to the woman who walked back to the assembly with a twisted ankle, due to misunderstandings about where St Johns had become stuck in the mud, near the finish. I am also sorry to late finishers who did not get any squash; earlier finishers appeared to have been a thirsty lot!

The event was initially going to be held in May, but we could not get permission for then. The 9th of February was the only date available, so we decided to go for it! This meant that everyone had to get things done swiftly and efficiently and with the minimum fuss. Although things may have been somewhat frantic at times, I believe that we all did a good job. This event was the first I am aware of with email and web entry systems. This was very popular, more that expected - 76 entries in total - I hope you think the system worked well. Roger Thetford has written more about the system we used for those interested.

I have a large number of thanks to make, to the many people who helped OUOC, and without whom the event would have been impossible. Firstly, Roger Thetford who early on took the worry of the pre-entry out of my hands, and then also agreed to organise and run the registration, for both of these I am extremely grateful. Next thanks to Neville Baker for his advice; and to the rest of TVOC for the loan of their equipment. Thanks to everyone who helped on the Registration, parking, start and finish, you were all great. To the Forestry Commission and Tom Baxter of Fields Farm who kindly gave permission for the forest and the parking respectfully. To all of OUOC who have helped over the last few weeks, at the event and are still helping with results. To Duncan Archer for mapping the area and planning the courses so well. To Mike Forest the controller who seemed to approve of everything I suggested. To Pauline Sinclair for the web pages, and much time spent making squeaking noses in the computer room (!). And finally to my mother who gave up the weekend acting as my wheels, assistant and aide memoire.
Nicky King

Planner's Comments:
Planning on an area like Bernwood certainly provided a new challenge to my previous events done in the north of England. I hope you all enjoyed your runs. I tried, as far as possible to keep courses off the paths, and I think that many of you found the brashings fairly tough; some of the times were slightly longer than I anticipated. But in my opinion the forest is nicer than before they started the recent thinning, when it used to be a lot greener.

It was very satisfying to see the event all the way through from updtaing the map myself last term, to planning this term. The foresters continued to work on the woods all the time, and things changed each time I went there. Running around tagging sites is not as peaceful as you'd expext with a motorway on one side and chain-saws on the other!

Many thanks to Mike for providing much helpful advice on the courses, to my parents for helping put out controls over the weekend and drive me around, and to all of OUOC for helping on the day and beforehand.
Duncan Archer.

Comments on Entries:
Caroline and I used BADGE 5d from Time Machine for our first go at processing entries. We were impressed not just with the software, but with the manual too, which contains much useful advice on administering entries and results. Terry Smith even incorporated some suggestions for improving the program within days of my making them.

Given a standard entry form with a valid BOF number on it, we were able with practice to get entries into the BADGE database in about ten seconds each. Anything else slowed us up considerably: typing a single six-digit number is MUCH faster than having to do name, club, and class. Realising how fast the forms flash past, we will in future highlight our requests for split starts, multiple copies of results, or running out of age class; BOF numbers will be clear and bold.

I expected up to 50 e-mail entries, directly or via the web page set up by OUOC web-mistress Pauline. We actually had 76, from 31 people or groups, mostly via the web page. One LOK member, for example, took advantage of his web connection to enter a batch of people from his club.

I acknowledged each entry with a standard message, including a copy of the final details once they were available. I pasted the e-mail messages into Word, ran a simple macro to strip off field names and reassemble them into one tab-separated entry per line, then imported into Excel. Excel was convenient for adding up the total amount due and producing a printed sheet for reference on the day; it was also an easy way to transfer data from my e-mail address at work onto the BADGE machine at home. As I entered the e-mail entries into BADGE in a block, I was easily able to chop out the relevant block of the 'start list by runner number' and mail it in one operation to all the e-mail entrants. Late entrants received a second or then a third block, while the very late ones (Ned!) had individual attention. E-mail entries finally closed at about 16.00 on Friday.

Only two people who entered by e-mail failed to turn up on the day. One sent a message timed just after the last runner had finished, apologising and promising a cheque in the post. The other will shortly be receiving a request for a cheque to cover 60% of his entry fee. If we don't get it, we will publish his name as a warning to anyone else tempted to offer him an e-mail entry.

I would gladly run this system again. We did not take late entries by telephone because of the problem of people booking a map and not turning up, but I felt that having an e-mail address gave us a lever to ensure payment. Taking cheques and handing out cards and descriptions on the day was never a problem, especially compared to handling the 100+ badge EODs. Not having to open envelopes and fiddle with bits of paper more than compensated for the extra data processing involved for e-mail entries; and of course the system is MUCH easier for the entrants. I look forward to the next event to offer e-mail pre-entry.

The other process I haven't seen tried before was allowing badge runs (at a reduced price!) on master maps, copying from the last overprinted map. This is surely preferable to an M21L having to drop to green or say non-comp on W40L. Lots of people took this option, vigilantly enforced by the start team. They are identified by asterisks in the results. Following the rules, no allowance has been made for the time spent copying.
Roger Thetford
JOK, TVOC

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