Controller’s Report for the Orienteering Event at  Parawanui, Santoft Forest 16-6-2024

6 Courses, planned by Wayne Gray, controlled by Carol Ramsden. 

Red Long, Medium, Short and Orange 1:7,500, Yellow and White 1:5000.

Coordinator/Organiser on the day Georgia Ramsden.

Permission to use the forest. Rick Weymouth organised through Aaron Calvert at Earnslaw

Timing. Georgia helped by Russell Higham.

Thanks to other helpers on the day: Wayne Hosking, Yvette Cottam, Greg Sawyer, Jenny Gray, Jakob and Mia Abernethy, and Denise Higham. (I might have forgotten someone)

Also additional thanks to members of other clubs who helped with control collection.

Weather. Still, cool and sunny as you can get in a pine forest.

Competitors.

Close to 100 competitors. We had a group of at least 5 who came from Taranaki, and around 10 from the Wellington/Hutt Valley region who all competed in the Red courses.

Of the rest, the largest field was in the Yellow course, largely thanks to Jakob Abernethy and his family who have been putting in a magnificent effort in the schools promoting orienteering and running introductory training both there and at events.

Quite a few did a White course and then a Yellow. At least one 12 year old did a Yellow and then walked the Orange course while being shadowed, perfecting his navigation and map reading skills.

A few people chose courses a little too hard for them but returned safely and the organisers and helpers were packed up and heading home around 3.30 pm after a 9 am start.

Behind the scenes.

It might take about 40 hours of work for the planner to prepare an event like this.  This includes planning courses, checking the area for the proposed control sites and routes, and suitability for competitors of all ages and abilities.  The planner and controller work closely together checking each other’s work both in the field and on paper. Of course, the original maps have to be prepared by the mapper, which is another huge job. Once the courses are set, the maps for the courses have to be prepared to a high standard and sent to the printer. The controls have to be put out the day before if the event is in the forest, the event centre set up early in the morning, and then after the event, everything collected, packed up and taken back to town again.

For the Parawanui event, the planner and controller spent 2 days out in the forest in the weeks leading up to the event, the whole day before putting out controls as well a being there all day on the day.

The coordinator organised a lot of the background stuff including getting helpers for jobs that anyone can do. These jobs include transport of gear to the event, helping set up the event centre and or packing it up again, loaning out the SI cards, helping collect event fees at registration , setting out the direction signs and collecting them back in again and setting up and or packing up the toilet tent.  Also people are needed to go back out into the forest and bring all the controls back in again. (This is usually a much easier task than running your course).

If any of you have an hour to spare at an event, feel free to offer to help at one or more of these small jobs.  More offers of help will, lighten the load on our small team of experienced orienteers so that we can continue to provide you with some mental and physical challenges out finding your way through the terrain with your maps.

Wanting to progress your orienteering?

We are planning on a training day in September where people can learn some of the steps needed to progress from Yellow level to Orange. You will learn to recognise contours, how to navigate to the more interesting features further away from tracks or fences, how to read and understand the pictorial descriptions of the control sites  rather than the English ones and much more.