We’re on our way to Sandringham!
On 31st March, Happy Herts Juniors won through to the final of the Yvette Baker Trophy (YBT).
It was a fairly cold, definitely breezy day when 16 Happy Herts juniors travelled eastwards towards Southend-on-Sea. The occasion was the East Anglian round of the YBT held at Hockley Woods and organised by Essex Stragglers Orienteering Club (SOS).
There had been some doubt earlier in the year about which round of the competition we should enter, the South East event at Enchanted Place in Ashdown Forest or the East Anglia event at Hockley Woods. For various reasons HH chose the latter.
Early arrivals on the day pitched the HH tent and waited for things to happen. First to arrive were the Fielding’s with Kevin, having been committed to cooking dinner on Mothering Sunday, anxious to get in an early run. By this time the wind was getting up and the tent seemed eager to escape its moorings.
With more arrivals, we needed to identify someone to run the yellow course and with the cooperation of Harriet and Hanga we soon resolved the problem and everyone started to drift off to the start. And so the morning wore on with all our expected competitors arriving and setting off for their run.
Soon – or at least it seemed like soon – competitors were arriving back with their tales of ‘what if’ and ‘I never saw that path’ and so on.
The results were taking a little while to appear and we soon became distracted by a gust of wind that lifted our tent skywards and deposited it – not very neatly – back to earth. With the help of some of the finishers we retrieved it but it soon became clear that some of the legs had suffered irreparable damage. We therefore settled down to a wait in the open air.
Fortunately there were many good runs that day, so we didn’t have to wait long before it became clear that the HH results were good enough to register a comfortable win (895 points out of a possible 899) with WAOC second and NOR third.
At this point, and with no shelter, there seemed no point in hanging about so we all headed off westward to a less breezy area.
Congratulations to our winners Angus, Tegan, Hannah and Rory and those who came second Hanga, Robin, Borse, Harriet, Matthew and Francesca.
And now the really important bit; The final is at Sandringham on July 7th.
We will need a good turnout of juniors – all juniors are welcome to join us and we do plan to have a replacement tent available.
If Frances (the club’s Junior Coordinator) hasn’t heard from you in the next few weeks, be sure that you will hear from her as she gets together the entries for the competition – a competition that will bring together teams from the best clubs in the country.
But to save Frances chasing you why not send her an e-mail to juniors@herts-orienteering.club , confirming that you will be joining us in Norfolk.
Note the date, 7th July, and just say ‘Yes, I will be there’.
