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Good Samaritan tracing service
From Neil Gostick (24/04/2014)
I want to inquire who helped our daughter, Gemma, when she was injured near the start falling down some steps.
I think a middle aged male runner must have essentially given up his run to go and get some marshals to collect Gemma.
Now that we are back from the hospital with Gemma in plaster, with either a bad a sprain or even mild fracture, we are piecing together the story and would like to thank whoever it was who stopped to help her.
The story has a happy ending, as Simon Maytum (SAXONS) subsequently wrote (26/04/2014):
"I gather that I am being 'traced' as it was me who helped Gemma on the Sprint day after she injured her ankle and was in some pain. Clearly upset and I expect annoyed at the fact that she was out of the race for at least that day, I was glad to have helped. I hope she makes a full recovery soon."
Unsung heroes of the JK
Many of the 3000 at this year’s JK will be blissfully unaware of how many man-hours of work have gone into making it a success, and not just beforehand either. The remainder will have a pretty good idea as they are “the insiders”, those who have played a major role in previous major multidays events themselves.
This year was no exception. Countless hours have been spent in meetings about road signs, in discussing peregrine falcons, in establishing at what stage SI cards should be checked for the Relays, in drafting and re-drafting car park plans, just to mention a few of the less expected issues. And many others of the several hundred volunteers will have their own story of duty “above and beyond” too; what follows is just one of many.
Those at the Relay Day will remember that the last 70 metres’ walk before the Arena field was up an inclined vehicle track. They may also have heard that Day 3’s rain had prevented the toilet company from delivering water to the toilets and that the caterers were unable to access the Arena field too. Those vehicles which could get in and out had left the track in a mess, with 9 inch deep ruts carved out in the mud.
We had promised the landowner to return the track to normal afterwards so an assorted collection of orienteers of a certain age from BOK, NGOC and SLOW was asked to bring shovels, spades, wheelbarrows and old clothes and to volunteer their labour two days later.
They were greeted by a huge pile of 16 tons of hoggin (hardcore) at the foot of the track and spent the next four and a half hours, much of it in driving rain, shovelling, barrowing, tipping, spreading and compacting the hoggin along the ruts.
Eventually, the pile disappeared and the job was done, save only for a couple of trips up and down by a friendly Freelander to test and further compact the hoggin.
The work was hard, the weather testing, no one had been trained for it and no one complained. It was all part and parcel of running a JK after all …
Thanks
On behalf of the JK 2014 team I would like to thank all of the competitors for attending the event in South Wales over the Easter weekend. We hope you enjoyed the varied terrain and weather.
We apologise for the parking issues on days 2 and 3 but a relatively short while ago we lost the use of the quarry – about 250 m further on from the actual arena due to the presence of protected birds nesting in the quarries. This lost us the Arena, Finish run in as well as 500 m of track to be used for double sided car parking – about 700 cars would have been parked there.
We did the best we could with what we were able to use.
As Event Co-ordinator I would like to thank the key Officials for their hard work over the last 2 years, their names are at the back of the Final details. In addition to this, there were over 500 volunteers helping out during the 4 days of competition. Some were busy a few days beforehand and there will still be a few finishing off tasks in the days and weeks to come.
I also want to thank the many sponsors and traders and suppliers, attending and setting up facilities in the locations we chose, is often not an easy thing and everyone did very well to cope with the changing conditions. A special mention must go to the First Aid team who fortunately were not kept too busy but were there until late every day making sure that everyone was safely off the hillside. It was unfortunate that the catering vehicles could not get up the track to the Event Arena on day 4 after the recent rain.
Thank you to all those who allowed us to use the land for orienteering and car parking. This includes; Landowners, tenants, commoners, residents, local businesses.
Finally, I need to mention the numerous clubs who were also involved with the event. If I list them all, I will manage to miss one out but there were over 20 clubs who supplied equipment and volunteers. They were from Wales, South West, South Central, South East, East Anglia, West Midlands and East Midlands Associations.
Helen Errington
JK photographs
Links to photographs from Days 1, 2, 3 and 4 are now available on the Photos page. We will happily publish links to other sets of relevant photographs too - just mail the Enquiries Secretary with the details.
Day 2 complaints
A number of official complaints were made by competitors who had arrived late for their Day 2 Starts and who had thus been recorded with an extended time. Some of the reasons given referred to long walks from where they were parked.
The Organiser decided not to make any time adjustments for any of these complaints as they were not the fault of the Organiser. In the case of long walks from the car park, the Event Details specifically said that "The furthest parking distance from the Event Arena is 2.5 km".
Note that BOF Rules only permit a time adjustment if the lateness is the fault of the Organiser.
A different complaint was made by a competitor in the M20E class about his first control (216) being in the wrong place. The Controller and Planner visited the terrain and confirmed that 216 was indeed correctly placed and the Organiser rejected the Complaint. The Complainant accepted this decision.
Clydach Terrace Pre-JK Event
The results and split times for yesterday evening's race at Clydach Terrace, staged by the Welsh Junior Squad, are now available on the Supporting Events page.
Day 4 Relay Parking
See the Final Details/Start Lists/Results page for important new advice on car parking for Day 4.
Media interest in the JK
S4C is the Welsh language TV station, based in Cardiff and broadcast throughout Wales. The Swansea Bay Orienteering Club publicity officer managed to get a slot on Heno, a Welsh evening current affairs programme similar to The One Show last night and Welsh juniors Lowri and Dafydd Butterworth, along with their mother Siriol broke off from Welsh Junior Squad training to explain about orienteering and say something about the JK.
Clicking the graphic above takes you to a video of the programme. The orienteering section is from about 15:15 to 20:11.
The whole programme is in Welsh, but English subtitles can be shown by (a) selecting "English" at the top of the page, and (b) clicking the "S" button at the bottom right of the video screen and selecting "English subtitles". Note that there is little attempt to synchronise the subtitles with the images!