Boxing Day Score, 26th December 2023

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Organiser’s Coments

Like last year the weather was kind to us – a mild 8c with occasional weak bursts of sun.

Congratulations to Harold Wyber of CHIG (M35) for placing first this year. He whizzed round all the controls in 52.26 minutes, 28 seconds quicker than second place Nick Barrable of SYO (M45). Fastest woman was Laura Parkes of HH (W21) who scored 470 points.

As last year, the Boxing Day event attracted many younger competitors. Luke Bennett of DFOK (M16), who also visited all the controls in time, and Tegan Frampton of HH (W18), provided the top performances, amassing 610 and 450 points respectively.

There are plenty of photos to see taken by Tony Barr (here) and Neil Gostick (here).

Don’t forget to markup your route in RouteGadget here.

Thanks to Neil Gostick of HH for planning the course and to Ronan & Julie Cleary (LOK) for controlling the event, organising permissions and presiding over the mass start. Thanks are also due to Kevin and Laura Parkes (HH) for organising the IT without a hitch. Thanks are also due to the duo of first aiders Hedley Calderbank and Mike Bennett of HH who, between them, provided continuous coverage.

Once again we are grateful for the co-operation of Southgate Hockey Club, Bridge Security and Berkeley Homes for parking permission. The latter is responsible for the upmarket new housing development in the centre of the park on the site of what was most recently a campus of Middlesex University.

Finally, many hands made light work. Ben Gostick, Ian Byford, Sébastien Flesch, Tim Bywater-Lees assisted Neil in putting out the controls and the Flick family, Yen Nguyen, the Hodsons, Laura Parkes and Danny Figg collected them in afterwards.

See you all again next year!
Catherine Galvin (LOK)

Planner’s Comments

From what I saw and took the odd photo of, everyone seemed to get out of our event what we hoped for.  A competitive run out, at everyone’s level on a pleasant Boxing Day morning.  Plus the opportunity to compare routes keenly afterwards.with friends old and new.
I tried a few mild innovations, for example two controls close together to give a large can I go and get it choice (which from the sounds of some conversations worked), and a control close to the finish / start for split starters to hand children over (which we used to do) that didn’t work quite as intended as virtually everyone made a beeline for it at the word go all but knocking me over.
I heard some people say they liked the control sites, maybe because they were different, fair (we had remapped round them and chosen features that were clearly there – always a planners conundrum).  Hopefully they weren’t just easy, though Trent Park isn’t Culbin and provides a more fast navigation challenge in pleasant countryside.
The main thing is that people looked to enjoy themselves, which makes it all worthwhile.
Then lastly, Thank You to Catherine for Organising, Ronan and Julie for their careful high quality Controlling of my Planning, and Jenny for supporting me whilst I set about planning during the last so many weeks.
Happy Xmas, Best Wishes for the New Year, and see you next year,
Neil

Photos from Tony Barr – more from Tony and Neil Gostick