November Classic 2022 - New Park, New Forest

Just a quick thank you, more details to follow later. Firstly many thanks to my assistant organiser Alastair Moir for a sterling job, who I definitely think I could not have managed without. Thanks to Roger Crickmore of WSX for his controlling of the event, and especially to Kevin Bracher who planned excellently on a challenging area. The challenge being created by the major constraints placed on us by Natural England overseen by Forestry England. I wanted the event to achieve a big event feel with an assembly area and the finish central to it. I think it created a good atmosphere, despite the frequent rain showers throughout the day attempting to dampen our spirits!

Finally for now I need to say the event would not have taken place without the volunteer help of around 60 people. My thanks goes out to them, especially the team leaders for investing so much time into the event. I am proud we could host this event incorporating the SHI, UKOL, SCOA Championships and a junior selection race for Interland 2023. Oh and the normal November Classic ranking event!

And a PS to WSX OC thanks for partnering with us to host the urban event on Saturday at Friar's Cliff in Christchurch.

Planners Report

I hope you all enjoyed the November Classic this year and had good runs. The weather turned out much better than the forecast with some dry bright spells between the heavy rain, great if you dodged the showers not so good if you were out in the open.

I was very happy when I knew I would have a brand new area of the New Forest, never mapped before, to plan on. That was before we were given all the restrictions for ecological reasons which reduced the map area considerably. We ended up with what was in effect two separate areas linked by a narrow corridor.

This restricted planning options and so only the longer courses reached the western half of the map. I do not think anyone would have thanked me for taking you on a long walk to a remote start and then running everyone back through the restricted narrow section.

From green down I had to plan courses on the eastern half of the map. Apart from the OOB that all courses had to cross early on the eastern area had some of the best terrain and I think I used almost all the possible control sites. It was also great to have a run in and finish inside the Assembly area, this always adds to the feel of the event.

We decide that everyone should have an A3 map so even though you may not have run on the western side you still had the full map.

We were hosting several competitions from the Senior Home internationals, UKOL, SCOA Championships and Junior Selection Race as well as the Classic itself and several Club championships so I tried to make it as challenging as I could but fair.

A big thank you to my forest team and particularly Bill Davidson (Assistant Planner), Roger Pleasant and Steve Pullen who Hung controls Friday,Saturday and Sunday. Thanks also to Roger Crickmore our Controller. His help and advice was spot on.

We have noted a couple minor tweaks that are need on the map for future use and hope to be able to use the area again in the future. If we can find parking on the western side of the map we can offer the chance for shorter courses to run on that half of the map.

Kevin Bracher (Planner)