Planner’s Comments
Eight years ago I planned the last “Badge “ event held here, Bignor Hill and bussing was used then .Now a “Regional”with SI dibbing and 10.6 K all in Houghton without having to use manned controls. - Ain't progress wonderful.

The forest is at its best now so postponing from October was probably the correct thing to do but ten months to plan an event does seem a little excessive.

My thanks to Tim for his help advice and stamina and all the forest team.
Pat Maher


Organiser's Comments
This Houghton event was the rescheduled Houghton and Rewell event that was cancelled last autumn. With the removal of Rewell from the competition area the loss of the issue of crossing the busy A29 both for competitors on route to the start and during the competition made life considerably more simple. The biggest issue became car parking as the grass area that was used wasn't confirmed until the week leading up to the event. There was a chance that parking would have been on the forest track which all competitors would have crossed several times during their run. Not an ideal situation.

I wasn't aware of any real issues on the day and the thanks for that goes to controller / planning team of Tim and Pat and to all SO club members who volunteered their services for the day. I will highlight Kenny who created the concept of an adult string competition although I'm not sure how many adults took up the challenge. A big cheer too for the early and late shift teams on the car parking duty, and the others who joined in, who squeezed all competitors cars in and then guided them out despite the sloping grass area, the rain and the hailstorm.
Dave McTurk