Harold White – Coordinator

With the agreement by GEN and 3ROC last September that they would jointly organize the Irish Championships, it put the organizing team under a lot of time pressure especially when it was also agreed that we would include an IOF World Ranking Event. Given the logistics involved in staging the three day event and the extra requirements of the WRE event, it certainly took all of the resources of both clubs to cover the many diverse jobs, and it may be a pointer to the future that clubs will have to unite to organize major events.

From the outset we took an integrated approach to organizing the event, and the overall co-operation seemed to work well at all levels. I am very appreciative of the work put in by my Co-Coordinator, Aine Joyce, who played a very important role in enrolling GEN club members for the various jobs, organizing the registration and information point on each of the days, and undertaking many of the less visible but still very important jobs in organizing an event of this nature. She was one of the main back-bones of the organizing team.

The WRE application was one of the many steps into the unknown in the organization of the event in that there is virtually no experience in Ireland of organizing WRE events, and while the IOF Guidelines provide detailed instructions as to how to run a WRE, they give no guidance as to the practicalities such as how to find an IOF Advisor who has to be named on the application form, or as to how the IOF allocates dates for WRE events. When we were advised by the IOF in January that the IOC Long Distance Event had been awarded WRE status, we discovered that two other WRE events were being held on the same weekend in Europe, and we had to resign ourselves to the fact that the WRE entry would be very limited. In the end we had four male and no female non-Irish competitors, and due to having insufficient ranked women runners, no WRE points were awarded for that competition.

After some searching for an Advisor, we discovered that Ronan Cleary had recently qualified as one and he readily agreed to be the Advisor for the WRE Event. We are extremely grateful for his input and diligence in the running of the event, and adopting a common-sense approach to some of the IOF requirements that would have been difficult in the Carlingford environment. However it is evident from the Guidelines that event practices in Ireland are now well behind international standards and it raises the question as to whether Ireland needs to up its game for running major events. The main differences were the use of timed starts and independent timing rather than relying on SI timing, a different control layout with the main difference being larger control codes, and the need for regular water stations on the courses.

Since the Event, the question has been raised as to whether it was worth holding a WRE Event in view of the additional costs and workload that it placed on many people in the organizing team. My personal view is that it was worthwhile in that it raised the overall standard of the event, it provided an event for Irish competitors to benchmark themselves against overseas competitors, it provided them with an opportunity to gain WRE points (at least in the mens' class), and attracted overseas competitors to Ireland the numbers of whom could grow over time if there is any continuity in holding WRE events. If any club is considering putting on a WRE event, I would be very willing to pass on what we learnt.

The IOA Committee, and particularly the former Chairman, Dave Weston, greatly encouraged us to hold the WRE Event and I think that they should continue to do so with the other clubs in Ireland whether as part of the Irish Championships or with another event. To assist in the process IOA should encourage people to become IOF Advisors so that we have that capability in Ireland. We are extremely grateful to the IOA for the grants that we received to assist in the running of the IOC and WRE.

The WRE Guidelines set the tone for the weekend in that the first day's Middle Distance Event was used as a training event for the next day's WRE event, and the advantage to us was that we learnt lessons that we were able to implement on the Sunday.

Another unknown for us was the establishment of the event website that was an essential element for holding the WRE event in that we had to publish several Bulletins on specified dates. Sinead Roche took on the job of setting up of the website with assistance from Aine Joyce and Gavin Doherty, that brought praise from various quarters, and was a factor in attracting several overseas competitors. The gallery on the website allowed us to display a large number of pictures of competitors over the three days, and these vividly showed the spectacular nature of the terrain. We are very grateful to Gordon Elliott, John Shiels, Larry Roe, and Martin Flynn for their excellent photos.

It was realized in November that the existing map of Carlingford would need to be revised in the relay area, and around the finish area for the Long Distance Event. We were very fortunate that Barry Dalby was able to complete the re-survey in December. Other minor corrections that came to light through the planning process were made right up to the time of the event, adding greatly to the pressure on the production of the final competition maps. I can not thank Brendan McGrath enough for the long hours that he put in under great pressure in their preparation over the weeks leading up to the event and learning the mysteries of OCAD 9.

For the planning of the courses we were fortunate in having four very experienced orienteers in the form of Paget McCormack for the Middle Distance Event, Trina Cleary and Maire Walsh for the WRE and Long Distance Events, and Ted McGrath for the Relay Event. The character of the courses on the three days was different and presented their individual challenges and they were planned to provide good spectator viewing. The feedback from the competitors on the courses was very positive and best described as challenging but enjoyable. My special thanks are due to all four planners for the large amount of work that they put in preparing for the event and overcoming their many challenges including the many bad weather days on the mountain. Compared to those many difficult days, we were very fortunate that we had favourable weather for the competitions, although the organizers of the Relay event had to contend with very winds on the morning of their event making the assembly of the tents a difficult task.

I would also like to thank the three controllers, Wilbert Hollinger (LVO), Mike Richardson (DEEO), and Colin Henderson (LVO) for the three respective days, for their input in ensuring that the courses and organization met the required standards. They also were hindered by the bad weather during their checking of the courses, and Wilbert unfortunately injured an ankle that held back his checking of control sites. I would personally like to thank Mike Richardson for his general advice in the running of the event drawing on his extensive experience of controlling major events in the UK.

For the Relay Event we adopted the Scottish handicap system for the courses other than the Open and Junior classes and a debate as to whether this format should be repeated needs to take place within the IOA. It placed an extra burden on the planner, Ted McGrath, to produce five courses that would have equal finishing times despite the potential age differences of the team members.

In all over 20 teams took part in the handicap competition with them reasonably well spread over four of the five classes, with only one team entered in one class. In the end we had seven teams finishing within ten minutes of the first team and the better teams were spread over three classes suggesting that the handicap system does increase the depth of competition. However the interpretation of the rules caused problems for both the organizers and competitors, that explained why some competitors intending to do a short course found themselves doing a long one and vice versa. As a means of providing a more competitive event, I think that the system should be tried again.

One problem that caused a lot of additional work were the many changes in the detail of the relay team members right up to the last minute, and some better system needs to be developed to cope with this.

From our previous experiences of bad weather on Carlingford, safety was a major consideration from the outset. In preparation for the event, Liam Convery the Safety Coordinator, attended an Event Safety Training Day organized by Lagan Valley Orienteers that dealt with the BOF rules and processes, first aid and rescue equipment, and searching for missing persons. The key elements for us were the up-grading of the existing medical and rescue equipment; a risk assessment of the event that was regarded as high given the exposed nature of the terrain, the difficulty of access and the frequent poor weather; and an incident plan.

At the events we had the Carlingford Red Cross, the Civil Defence, Colin Henderson who acted as a safety and rescue person at the Saturday event, and volunteers to form a search party if it was needed. In addition, for the Long Distance Event we decided to use the people manning the water stations as communication points that could have summoned help in the event of an incident, and the people involved could have provided some basic assistance to an injured competitor. We were extremely fortunate that Joe and Nora Lalor, and Alan Ayling ‘volunteered' to man these stations. Our thanks go to them, and to Liam Convery, Colin Henderson, and the Red Cross and Civil Defence personnel.

Our thanks are also due to Joe, Nora, Aine Ni Suilleabhain, and Brendan Doherty for carrying the bottles of water to the water stations several weeks before the event.

As a further safety measure, we decided to use the independent timing record of competitors finishing as a means of checking that all of the competitors had returned, but the system used proved to be too cumbersome and slow. With more time and thought a different configuration of the start list would have been made this much simpler.

On the Long Distance day, one competitor had not turned up at the finish by the courses closing time of 4pm and with the weather rapidly deteriorating we were close to the point of sending out a search party when they arrived at the finish. In an area like Carlingford, competitors should heed the courses closing time, and it does suggest a vetting of competitors should be carried out for the more difficult courses. One competitor, who should know better, got ‘lost' between the finish and the download point at the Event Centre only to be found by the results team enjoying his lunch in the restaurant.

We were very fortunate to have the use of the Foy Centre as the event centre that we used for registrations, for the assembly, results, prize-giving, and ceilidh on the Sunday, as well as providing accommodation to some of the organizing team and competitors over the weekend. We are extremely grateful to the Manager of the Centre, Sean O'Redoyne, and his staff who were very helpful throughout, and to Dave in the Fusion Restaurant who kept many of us very well fed and watered.

One of the other hidden jobs was the preparation of the SI stations, the re-configuration of control stakes to conform with the WRE requirements, the processing of entries, the preparation of start lists, and results, and these jobs were taken on Nigel Campbell-Crawford and our thanks are due to him for the many days of painstaking work in preparing for the event. One of the major unforeseen problems was the late arrival of entries with over half arriving after the official closing date, and many competitors making changes to their entry details after they had been submitted. This had the knock-on effect of delaying the drawing up the start lists, and resulted in us having to have additional maps printed for some of the courses with them arriving just before the event.

We decided to use separate SI stations for each of the three days as given the regular bad weather on the mountain, we did not want to leave the placing of the controls to the last minute. This necessitated the hiring of additional SI stations from England and the tight logistics of receiving and returning them added to the time stresses in the few days before and after the event. For the record we used 230 SI stations and none failed. Our thanks are also due to Sinead Roche for her assistance with the results, Simon Mc Cormack, the event Treasurer who dealt with the entry monies, and to Declan McGrellis for his networking skills.

My thanks are also due to the day organizers, Susan Healy and Brian Lawless on the Middle Distance day, Aine Ni Suilleabhain and Brendan Doherty on the Long Distance day, and Wyn McCormack, Andrea McCormack, and Brendan Doherty on the Relay day. I am also grateful to several of them for taking on additional tasks in the run-up to the event. Also to be thanked are Hazel Convery and her start team and Andrew O'Mullane for his finish team on the first and second days. Less conspicuous on the Sunday was a very original string course and we have to thank Eoin and Nadja Dunne for running this event. On the Relay day the start and finish were organized by Monica Nowlan, Mary, and Susan Healy and their teams while the commentary was provided by John McCullough assisted by Julie and Ronan Cleary. Many other members of GEN and 3ROC, and friends, helped over the weekend in putting out and collecting controls, setting up assembly, start and finish areas, dealing with registrations, etc etc, and our thanks are due to them for their assistance.

Two apologies are due. Firstly to the competitors on some of the Long Distance courses where the loose control descriptions ran out. This was entirely my fault, and I apologize for the stress that this caused to competitors prior to the start. Secondly to Fred Calnan of CorkO who was initially credited as being second on the M75L course but was discovered to be first after the prize-giving. I have the prize to be passed on at a suitable occasion.

Thanks are also due to:-

The Organising Committee for their input, advice, and support.

The IOF WRE Jury members, David Weston (IOA), Michael Grill (Austrian Orienteering Federation), and Andy Lewsley (British Orienteering Association)

The IOC Jury members, David Weston (SET), Julie Cleary (London), and Alan Gartside (LVO)

The sponsors, Carlingford/Cooley Tourist Association and Davy Stockbrokers, the supplier of drinking water for the weekend, Tyrone Springs, and Zoltan Foley-Fisher for the loan of the digital clocks.

Ann Hosford for supplying crèche facilities.

Alan Halliday of KallKwik for his assistance in setting up the maps for printing, and dealing extremely efficiently with our late requests for additional maps.

The sheepfarmers of Carlingford, and Mr McKenna and Mr Barry for the use of their fields for car parking.

The Army for the supply and use of their tent on the Saturday and Monday.

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Mike Richardson Controller IOF World Ranking Event and IOC Long Distance Championship

It was an honour to be invited to control this year's IOC at Carlingford, and it was good to have such a large entry and to hear so many favourable comments on the day. On my previous visit, at the end of March, I had failed to find either of the two remaining controls to be checked on the lower slopes of the mountain due to the thick mist and rain, so it was a relief on the day that the prediction of our resident forecaster that ‘we would just get away with it' proved to be remarkably accurate and the first rain started to fall just as we set off to bring in controls.

Finishing times on the majority of courses were pretty close to those recommended and I am grateful to both Trina and Maire for all of their hard work in providing some interesting courses; from comments you found them challenging yet enjoyable, with some splendid views for those that reached the higher parts of the mountain.

I was very impressed both by the detailed organization before the event and the enthusiastic efforts of all those who helped during the weekend; thank you to all concerned. Apologies are due to those competitors who were inconvenienced by the shortage of description sheets on some courses, also to any who were confused by the signing to the starts, due partly to a late change in plans. Unfortunately one junior competitor managed to clear her SI card before downloading, but it was possible to retrieve her split times from the control units and she was re-instated in her class; this has affected placings on the W14A course.

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Áine Ní Suilleabháin Organiser IOF World Ranking Event and IOC Long Distance Championship

My involvement began last year at the Brockagh event. I was asked to think about being organiser and in my innocence I thought it could not be any more difficult than a league event. I was told I would not have to worry about entries, registration, results or safety, just start and finish. They never mentioned the water. We had 2 water stations on the mountain and that water had to be carried up to them a month before and hidden. Those aid stations were manned by Joe and Nora Lawlor and their friend Alan. There was more water at the Finish, 300 bottles was carried by Brendan and Eoghan and hidden in various gorse bushes on the Friday.

We marked out the two starts and finish with canes only on Friday and tagged the route from the event centre up and down the two lanes. We finished the taping late on Saturday. I met a walker coming down the mountain on one of my trips to the start, he enquired if I was going all the way to the top. I guess it is not often you meet a wheelbarrow laden with supermarket crates on Slieve Foy.

The Start was made more difficult by being a timed start and not punching as this meant more people were needed. The Start was well run by Hazel Convery with her team Pat and Brigid Flanagan, Michael Mc Auliffe, Roger Moulding and Susan Healy, and at the junior start by Ger Power, Claire Walsh and Sean Rothery. We had a couple of minor hiccups, such as running out of control descriptions on some courses but we managed by cutting them from spare maps. A gang of orienteers managed to miss the taped route from the lower start and walked through part of a junior course. We taped off the warm up area and created a - 4 box, this had a calming effect on the whole start area.

Down at the Finish everything ran smoothly under the leadership of Andrew O'Mullane and his team, Larry Roe, Eoghan O'Suilleabhain, Vera Murtagh, Claire Mc Grath and Stephen Doorley. They had a bit of a nightmare trying to match and find the competitor numbers on the start list, maybe next time if there is a finish list with the numbers running in sequence. There was a slight panic around 4pm when we thought we might have to mount a search for a missing competitor, but he arrived back at 4.30.

I found it very trying getting all the equipment on the mountain but I had great help from my assistant Brendan Doherty who pushed that barrow, hauled the water, tagged and untagged routes and kept me sane.

Thank you every one and well done.

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Trina Cleary Planner IOF World Ranking Event and courses 1 to 11 of the IOC Long Distance Championship

Slieve Foye is a mountain with intricate contour detail, a wealth of rock features, few linear features and multiple natural terraces. Planning presented a few challenges – how to get the competitors from one side to the other on the long courses, how to get the competitors across the face of the mountain on the shorter courses. The terraces gave me the opportunity to give short legs from terrace to terrace, all the time gaining height. The eastern side has very complex rock and contour detail and terracing while the western side has more scattered rock detail. The area above the Finish has little rock feature and a more “bland” appearance. I felt that each of these areas required a different approach to navigation and would test the competitor's ability to adjust to the terrain. The terraces proved to be as confusing as ever, be on the wrong one and it is very difficult to relocate. The weather was fine and the times were within the set parameters. I hope the competitors enjoyed the challenges I set and maybe had time to enjoy the wonderful views across the lough to the Mourne Mountains.

I would like to thank Mike Richardson (DEEO), who controlled the event. Mike was a meticulous controller and made many helpful suggestions. He had some awful days out on the mountain, checking tagged sites in thick mist and driving rain. As the Long Distance was also a World Ranking Event, the IOF Adviser was Ronan Cleary. Ronan checked out the WRE sites, again in some awful weather and his attention to detail made my life a lot easier.

There are some other people I must thank; Michael McAuliffe who spent two days helping to put out controls with Maire Walsh and myself. There are no handy roads so all the equipment had to be hauled up each day. Maire and I stayed in Convery's house and I must thank Hazel and Liam for their hospitality. On Sunday evening, in pouring rain, Maire Walsh, Hazel Convery, Mike Richardson and I took in some controls. On Monday, Senan O'Boyle and Roger Moulding, who had both taken part in the relays, took in the remainder of the controls, together with Maire Walsh.

I planned Courses 1 – 11 and Maire planned Courses 12 – 17. There were 88 controls, two Starts and one Finish.

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Maire Walsh Planner Courses 12 to 17 IOC Long Distance Championship

Carlingford is always a challenging area for both planners and competitors. As planner for the junior courses I found the greatest difficulty was to plan courses, which were easy, enough for young orienteers and which still had enough technical difficulty to give them some challenge. Apart from the Tain Trail there are very few line features and I also wanted to avoid too much physical difficulty and climb especially for the W/M 10s and 12s. I think I got the balance right. Practically all the juniors finished and the times, especially for the winners, seemed spot on. There was keen competition too particularly in the M14s and 16s and all classes coped very well both with the climb and the technical aspects of the courses.

The maps, thanks to Brendan McGrath, were clear and easy to read; especially the 1:7500 used for the M/W 10s and 12s. The M75/W70 Course presented me with a different problem: to avoid physically difficult terrain without making the courses technically too easy. I know I didn't get the balance perfect here as it was impossible to avoid quite a steep climb at the start and the courses were probably a bit easy too. However the competitors seemed happy enough!

I would like to acknowledge all the help and advice I got from my fellow planner Trina Cleary and controller Mike Richardson. I would also like to thank Harold White for his calm, efficient organisation of the whole event and Aine ni Sullibheain and Brendan Doherty for their huge amount of work all done in the most cheerful, competent fashion. Finally thank you Michael McAuliffe for your help in putting out controls and organizing the wonderful weather we had while doing so! Without all of you my own job would have been so much more difficult.

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Ted McGrath Planner IOC Relays

Listed below are some people who deserve special thanks.

Colin Henderson, the controller, who made my job relatively easy, and certainly much easier than it could have been. Colin it was a pleasure working with you.

Also thanks to Wyn, Andrea, and Brendan, and to Wyn's organizing team – especially both McCormack families, for a very efficient and competent job. Thanks to the map issue team of Monica and Brenda, to our starter and changeover supervisor, Mary, and to the finish team of Ted, Simon, Robin, and Susan, assisted by Julie Cleary. Ted McCormack stood for what seemed to be hours like the Metalman in Tramore pointing runners to the appropriate run-in lanes.

Thank you to our results team of Nigel. Eoghan, and Sinead in their red tent. It was Sinead and Nigel's third day and they must have been reaching exhaustion stage.

To all who helped to bring in controls, a thankless job when everyone else seems to have vanished. My thanks to Cliona, Eoin, Monica, Gavin, the two Brendans, and Susan Healy who took in ‘my lot'.

Thanks also to John McCullough, ably assisted by prompters Ronan and Julie, on the public address system.

Let us not forget our overall management team for whom the relays were just another day. To Harold, the two Aine's, and Liam for their essential work in the background.

Finally to all those who helped and are not mentioned; those in charge of car parking and other tasks not at the centre of activity. Sometimes looking around I saw the same people in several different roles.

And also our appreciation of the work done by the Army, Civil Defence, and the Red Cross.

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