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Great Brook Farm, Carlisle
  September 19, 2010
Meet Director: Bill Pullman

A beautiful late summer day at Great Brook made for excellent conditions for an O event. With over 150 individuals and groups on the courses and approximately 200 folk in all, it certainly ranks as one of the busiest events on the NEOC calendar. It seems self evident that you can’t have too many helpers and my appreciation to the folks noted below for their help. While we had our “A teams” of experience on registration and start/finish, there are clearly opportunities for process flow improvement and little things like computer malfunction can certainly scupper good intent. Having said that, to the course setter and control placer, epunching is a boon, as is having a standard set of OCAD mapping and course setting tools.

This year we used a 1:5000 map for all courses, with field-checked updates from the summer (northern part Bill P and southern part by Tim P). The scale and quality of printing made for the most legible GB map yet. While the inevitable focus for NOD should be the easiest courses (and I am pleased to note that no glitches were apparent on W/Y/O), the course setter elected to set two “sprint-type” courses in lieu of the standard green and red advanced. As a solution for reducing “dead-running” around the farm complex trails, remote starts and start windows were used. This certainly added complexity but hopefully increased the course enjoyment value. Other than a couple of minor observations, the sprints were well received; the odd “spare” control, out of bounds areas and a butterfly loop were all employed to add interest.

Predicted winning times on all courses held up well. On the sprints, despite a MP on a “gotcha control”, Ross Smith sneaked under 14 mins for Sprint 1 and just on 17 mins for Sprint 2. However, Carl Underwood took combined honors for the men on the day and Sam Saeger likewise for the women. Ethan Hall dominated the White course, Caroline Luis took the Yellow, and Neil Bostrom the Orange. [Ed. note: This was previously mis-reported as Larry Ducady on Yellow, and Caroline Luis on Orange.  Larry Ducady ran all the courses, but I don't have his time on White.]

A major surprise was the number of folk electing to do the Orange course (52 maps used, 40 printed); in prior years white has received the most patronage, and consequently too many white course maps (50 printed, 30 used) and not enough orange course maps were printed – everything else was about right. Not sure why this was, as most takers on Orange were not newcomers- perhaps sprint courses are not viewed positively either from technical difficulty or implied speed perspectives?

Anyhow, a big thanks to the following folk (no order intended) who helped out on the day and as usual without whom, events like this would not happen: Jeff Leiserson, Ian Smith, Pete Lane, Kelly Guarino (co –director), Joanne Sankus, Andy Hall, Magnus Bjorkman, Ian Finlayson, Jim Paschetto, Tim Parson, Ben Parson and Bob Dangel. A special thanks must go to Steve Carlin, Head Ranger at Great Brook, for his support, patience and guidance. I sincerely hope I have not forgotten anyone!

Split times for e-punch competitors are here. (Problems with the Club PC prevented the posting of "fancy" split times and RouteGadget for this meet.)