WIM Urban event at Poundbury
Saturday 9 April, 2022
Dick Keighley writes: Great day at Poundbury today. Many thanks to the WIM team, particularly Di & John Tilsley, the planners, Chris Branford the Mapper and Organiser & their helpers, and to Richard Sansbury QO, our Controller.
Photographs by Mike Kite on Flickr
The gestation period & birth of this event have been difficult, to say the least…! Originally conceived in 2019 as a SEOUL (Southern England Orienteering Urban League) event for April 2020, it was cancelled in March 2020 due to Covid, although quite a lot of the planning of courses had been done. It was re-scheduled for April 2021 but then cancelled again! Meanwhile, Poundbury was continuing to expand, with more areas being developed, so there was some map updating to be done. Gave us an excuse for getting out in the fresh air during various lockdowns!
Fast forward to October 2021 & we again fixed a date for the event, but this time it had been “upgraded” to a UK Urban League event (as well as well as being a SEOUL event). St John Ambulance (an ideal venue for registration/download etc) was not accepting external bookings so we looked elsewhere & found the recently opened Pavilion in the Park in an ideal spot! Despite the room being “compact & bijou”, the real bonus was the café! More map updating needed to be done, due to new buildings springing up everywhere - one day a building site was all boarded up with no access, then the next it was unveiled, all completed! Map updated, courses were tweaked to use new areas & things were progressing well….
You have a choice: Read on for the long version….. skip 3 paragraphs to cut to the shorter version!!
However, communication with The Duchy of Cornwall was proving to be challenging. Poundbury is built on Duchy of Cornwall (Prince Charles’) land and doing anything there, be it living or working (or particularly trying to run an orienteering event!) you are bound by a 52-page document detailing a “Design & Community Code”, stipulating what you can & cannot do….!!
We had held 4 previous events on Poundbury & all I did was to ring my contact at Poundbury HQ & say “Just letting you know, we are running an urban orienteering event around Poundbury - all controls & routes are in public areas…” to which they replied “Great idea. No problems at all.” However, my contact had moved on to pastures new & I should have had an inkling of future problems with the first email reply I received from them, asking for my emails from 7 years ago, confirming previous agreements! But with the cancellations, I had put it to the back of my mind & waited until we could re-schedule… twice….!
This time, however, they wanted to know & check everything. Weeks passed with emails flying between us, face-to-face meetings when it appeared we had answered every question with a suitable/correct answer. Courses were “controlled” by our excellent & very helpful controller, Richard Sansbury (QO) & sent to the Duchy for final approval, with a clear timeline of when they needed to go to the printers. 5 weeks passed. Email reminders were sent which failed to elicit a response. The day the maps were due to go to BML for printing, they finally emailed a reply to me, stating that one of the controls was in a private courtyard & must not be used. (I hasten to add there was absolutely no indication that the courtyard was private. Chris, when mapping, had actually had a positive conversation with an interested resident and as planners & controller we had also all been through the area several times with no comment!) So, the 2 junior courses had to be re-planned/adjusted & 2 new control sites found, controlled, agreed by the Duchy & were then sent to BML within 36 hours…. But even after that they still wanted another “urgent” meeting to look at the final details & a much more detailed risk assessment that they required. They earliest they could meet us was just 4 days before the event! Fortunately that meeting was concluded quite quickly & we got the final agreement that everything was OK as far as the Duchy were concerned. After all that the event day itself was easy!
Headcam video of Course 2 by Jon Steed
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| Harry Bratcher-Howard's GPS track on Course 5 | Mike Christopher's GPS track on Course 3 |
The day dawned bright & sunny, but with a chill northerly wind. No matter where you go on Poundbury, the wind will find you! I think the chill wind caught out many particularly whilst queueing for the toilets…. 23 controls each were put out in the morning by the 2 of us on bikes in two hours & the 46 were controlled by Richard on his bike in less than an hour and a half.
Many apologies to those who spotted the finish control close to the Pavilion when sussing out the area before starting, to discover, when running towards it to finish, that it wasn’t there…… Moral to note: navigate to the finish using your map; don’t presume! My (Di’s) mistake entirely - brain fog on the day (& a few days earlier when making a cropped map for WIM helpers) & I reverted to the original location for it….
After the event, we had just 1 control where we assumed, judging by the damage to the gripple wire, that an unsuccessful attempt was made to remove it - not near a private house, but on a fence of a children’s play park. We had one complaint about the event from a resident of Poundbury during the afternoon via the WIM public Facebook page, which was quickly responded to. I have had no feedback, so far, from the Duchy.
The positive, complimentary comments from many, many competitors about the area & courses were very pleasing to receive. It really is a great area for some interesting challenging navigating, but do we want to have to negotiate with the Duchy again….? NO!!
However, give us time to get over this event first…. then we might…. possibly…..!!
Many thanks to Loop Technology for coming up trumps with some very suitable parking at fairly short notice; Dorchester Town Council who were very positive in their support of this event; to Fran Leaper (a friend & Poundbury resident) who emailed many hundreds of residents to inform them of the event; to Chris Branford (& of course, Lynn) for the background work of initial mapping, organising & advising throughout the long planning process for this event; to Dick Keighley, as ever, for his computer work before, during & after the event for download/results etc; to all the WIM (+1 WSX) members for the help on the day; to Mike Kite for being our photographer & Waffle-er; and to Richard Sansbury for being the sort of Controller you really want when planning - his advice definitely improved the courses & supported us throughout.
Di & John Tilsley
