Minchinhampton to Cooper’s Hill – from League 3 2020 to League 3 2021.
Last year I agreed to plan a league event, I said to Greg, as long as it was in the summer in the Forest. Instead, I had the exact opposite of Minchinhampton Common which has a fringing of forest (well, few trees round the edge). The event then was particularly well attended due to the fact there was lots of flooding and many others in the vicinity had been cancelled because of a combination of that and the start of Covid-19 restrictions. It was fortunate really that it was brought forward as otherwise it would’ve been cancelled. Slightly different events, Minchinhampton was a middle distance event while Cooper’s Hill was standard. 181 runners came to Minchinhampton where we shared the common with many other members of the public. It was fortunate that we were told we could move the logs and park in additional areas alongside the road adjoining the reservoir as so many extra runners turned up on the day. At Cooper’s Hill we had the advantage of planning ahead to use the tarmac car parking at Prinknash Abbey. Of course this year we had to have everyone entered before the event so we had a good idea of car numbers, sadly we didn’t know how many members of the public would be there! 221 competitors came to Cooper’s Hill on what was a lovely, sunny day. The forecast had not been good and I had endured hail and cold rain when putting controls out on Friday so I was pleased and relieved the weather was fine!
As you have possibly read before, my original plan was to use an open field in which to finish, but this was vetoed by the owner. Then the plan was to distance the start and finish runners by using parallel paths each one way for orienteers, until a week before the event the upper path was fenced off. I turned up on the eve of the event to put out the flags and stakes, only to find the helper car park had been fenced off and gated. Fortunately Greg came up trumps with an email to the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust and allowed us to be the only people to use it.
I was very pleased to have lots of good feedback from the courses. Only 8 people were disqualified for having wrong controls. I admit there was one path near number 49/the top of the hill which I had intended to add to the map, but I found it a little too late so hoped the warning in the preamble about extra bike paths would cover for my minor incompetence. While walking round today I found lots of elephant tracks in addition to the original paths through the beautiful bluebells.
I saw that lots of the young runners really enjoyed the finish run in down the gully; I saw them finishing over and over again racing against each other when no one else was around! I was glad to look at the tracks on Routegadget and see people taking route choices I’d never thought of in the planning stage.
We needed an extra control collector as we packed up, so for the third time that weekend I went to a number of controls in the west of the area. It was nice to have a walk and talk with my mum! Sadly, I forgot to ask the collectors going for a couple of yellow controls to pick up the smiley faces we had used to mark an unclear path. I went back today to pick them up and found the closed car park open once more! Maybe GWT had changed their mind?
The biggest incident of the day fortunately didn’t involve any of the orienteers. As we were coming to the end of the day there was a road traffic accident on the corner about 150m from Prinknash Abbey access where we were crossing the A46. As we were marshalling the road crossing we were wearing yellow high visibility jackets and the drivers were mostly willing to take our advice and turn round while the road was closed.
Finally, I must give a vote of thanks to all the volunteers who stepped up, from those marshalling the crossing and parking, to starters, enquiries and download and control collecting! And of course Greg for the permissions and map. And my parents for helping me out at every stage!
I’m now looking forward to planning the next!
For further information about the motor bike accident click here.
Samuel