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From Cannon Hill Park – to Witton Lakes – to Handsworth Park – to Pype Hayes – to Rectory Park – every day the sun shone and the people came. Thanks for coming, and special thanks to Catherine, Andy, John, Ruth, Bob, John and Dave for helping. It went well but we know a few things now that’ll make it even better next time. 
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In case you’re wondering about the wisdom of putting on a seemingly random and potentially exhausting series of events, some planning has gone in to the enterprise. First of all, the week chosen is Love Parks Week. Secondly, the Parks Department are putting on tours of Witton Lakes and Rectory Park on Tuesday and Friday. Thirdly, Wednesday is Birmingham’s Be Active day. Fourthly, Cannon Hill Park is the venue for this year’s Community Games. Fifthly, the schools are breaking up and parents and children are looking for things to do. Sixthly, it’s the week before the Scottish. Seventhly, it’s an opportunity to advertise the club nights that are starting in Sutton in September – which is one reason why the events are more on the north side of the city. (The other being it’s where I live!)
Next Thursday the venue for stage 4 of the Birmingham Parks O-Ringen is Pype Hayes, whose main claim to fame these days is that the park hosts Birmingham’s November-5th bonfire every year. The orienteering map on the COBOC website was drawn in 1988, and the park is almost unrecognisable! Well, there’s still the hall, the pond and the car park…
A clue to what’s gone on can be found on the council’s website, where it says “The park is also the site of the ward’s millennium woodland.” Suffice to say, there are a lot more trees in the park today than there were in 1988. Also, they’ve recently been spending Lottery money building new footpaths to create a link between Castle Vale and Sutton.
The event on the old map will be a good excuse to practise your compass work…
Update: To give you a sporting chance, we’ve decided to use the 2004 map. We’re too kind…
The details are now online for next week’s Park O afternoons. This morning I was at Friday’s venue: Rectory Park in Sutton. About time! I’ve never been there before and I’m running an event there next Friday…
The good news is that it’s a lovely little area, perhaps my current favourite among the five places we’re running round during the week. The map is one of John Mansfield’s, who did a lot of work for SOLOS and then COBOC back in the 90′s. It’s a nice map and not a lot has changed – there’s a funky new footpath between the car parks, and none of the sports pitches are marked on the ground any more – it’s just a shame that whoever overprinted it with the Permanent Orienteering Course couldn’t centre the circles properly.
I wonder when the last orienteering took place in Rectory Park? The ghostly permanent-course posts certainly have been out of use for some time: some of them are missing, some have their numbers removed and some were completely overgrown with ivy. I had a nice time looking for them and you will too.
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Alan Halliday was printing the leaflets for the Birmingham parks events so I went to collect them at OD’s Memorial Park event. Not an especially exciting venue if you’re a Droober, I’m sure, but it was my and Catherine’s first visit, and it was a lovely evening to boot. Stupidly I forgot to check the map scale and mucked up the first control… The other mistake I made was the map’s fault though. (Really!) Meanwhile, Amy Kirk very kindly escorted Catherine round the Yellow course.
On the lookout for suitable O shoes for Catherine, I was in Sports Direct and I saw they have Karrimor Summits for half price. But it’s never that easy. Even though Catherine understands that she can’t have them in pink (!) there’s the issue of laces. She’s not had shoes wih laces before, and if I tie them for her, what if they come undone? What effective shoelace clips are available?
We could get the next size down, which has a velcro strap instead of laces, but she’ll’ve outgrown them by the end of the year. Decisions, decisions…
Finally another one! Inspired by the bundle of maps donated to me by Roger Keeling. Thanks, Roger! As before, all the maps are from West Midlands areas.
Update: approximate distances by road from the centre of Birmingham:
1. 50 km, 2. 65 km, 3. 35 km, 4. 25 km, 5. 90 km, 6. 60 km, 7. 45 km, 8. 80 km, 9. 95 km, 10. 95 km, 11. 10 km, 12. 45 km.
I went to the SEE in the Lickeys yesterday evening and I won the Green. Although I’ve been tootling around some Orange courses with Catherine lately, this was my first proper run out since I injured my ankle, and it seems to have held up okay.
So, that’s the good news out of the way. A closer look at the results suggests that my performance was hardly impressive. Firstly, I’m younger than almost everyone who ran Green. Secondly, 58 minutes for 4.2 km is slow. Could it even be the slowest winning time this year on a Green course? Thirdly, I got lost twice, the second time so badly that I stood still in bafflement for over a minute. (It was quite a shock on the way to #15 to come out on a path and the compass said I was looking south-west…)
The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between these two assessments. John, the planner, had clearly done his job well and devised a tricky course in area that most of us should know pretty well. Apart from a couple of the guys on Blue, everyone found it tough. (Which goes to prove one of my old orienteering maxims: if you’re finding it hard, so’s everybody else, so don’t give up!) The results 3 years ago were pretty similar, though that night Colin Spears edged me out by 10 seconds. The youngsters will be here in November for the qualifying round of the Yvette Baker Cup and it’ll be interesting to see whether the Lickeys have the same disorienting effect on young brains!
Finally, I hope he doesn’t mind, but a word about David Hemmings. I caught David up at the second control, and I realise the same thing happened at Kingsford in ’08. That night I blasted round in 42 minutes (but didn’t win!) while he had a few problems. Last night was a different story – it was nip and tuck between us all the way round and in the end I was lucky to beat him. Good to see that some of us are improving!
In a moment of madness I said I’d devote the first week of the school holidays to a series of informal events in local parks. (Even though BOF isn’t paying me to do it!) Dave Ellis and I have organised it and some kind folk from COBOC and HOC have volunteered to help. The events will take place between approximately 2 pm and 4 pm, and each afternoon there’ll be a 1 km and 3 km course and a short score. We did think about using SI but our experiences at Aston Hall have put us off – if there is SI it’ll be limited to the 1 km course.
Programme (subject to final permissions):
Sun/Mon 24/25 Cannon Hill Park
Tue 26 Witton Lakes
Wed 27 Handsworth Park
Thu 28 Pype Hayes
Fri 29 Rectory Park, Sutton
The events are free and there’ll be prizes (dunno what yet!) for children who attend on more than one day, as well as for the Adult Of The Week. For more info, or if you’d like to help, email coboc1@gmail.com
Now that BOF’s plans for England-West have been published, I need to add a couple of points to my earlier post.
Firstly, Walsall hasn’t been included but Sandwell has. In fact, I think Walsall might be a good venue. There are two schools in the area with active O clubs, and if weekly orienteering nights started in the town soon (rather than in 2013) we might be able to build on that. Sandwell is also a good target for increasiing participation, but perhaps not by the club-night model. What would work better there, I think, is an initiative based on a programme of events, such as the park-race series I’ve mooted.
With these regional plans, BOF seems to be putting all its eggs in one basket. Everything, and all the money, seems to be geared to building participation through club nights. Why can’t some of the target areas follow the successful Malvern model, building participation through a series of events? Is that because it’s easier for BOF to justify spending the money on coaches than on organisers?
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