Discussion: OMG

What an epic! The problem with orienteering is that it is such a detailed technical sport and everyone expects things to be perfect. Which they were on the day. The problem is that events like this one need a person who pays exceptional attention to detail (like you) to run them. I seem to remember reading a similar story after the Golden Ponds event.
I really enjoyed the events and hope we can get to use those maps again. The Bendigo (and other) non-attendees don't know what they missed.

Well done Neil. You did well and seem to do a lot of the hard negotiating for the club and major events. Easter last time was another one.

My thoughts on entry fees. I agree your late entry fees are spot on. Capitalise on people's in decision/ laziness/ wanting to wait for the weather report. It's not that hard to get a entry in on time and are far often too lenient to those that don't.

As for how much. Maybe the bush event fee should go up? Maybe $40? As much as $30 might not be 'good' value it still is relately cheap. Like you say the effort going into the event is still just as much. But if it does go up can someone please make sure that the money doesn't just sit in a bank doing nothing for the sport.. what about some real marketing from ov. What about updating the out of date flyer etc.

Anyway that leads onto levies. Same deal. Having money in the bank is useless for the sport. Let's do something real with it. Most probably know that the money is with the states and clubs not oa. So the either do something with it that helps the sport or give it to someone that will work with it. I do think that if the right people got there hands on a amount of money they could come up with ways to grow the sport.

Note this isn't a crack at Bendigo in anyway cause if I'm correct we have either stayed level or went down in bank values over the past years. But this is because money has been spent on thing to develop the sport puls there has been park and street challenge take off in Bendigo.

I will defend OV having their nest egg. As directors they need to ensure our organisation is not trading while insolvent. As they hire staff, they need to be in a position to pay for long service leave and any potential redundancies if the future does not work out as planned. Its a different story if a club has a couple of hundred thousand in the bank and it has been there for many years. Not quite sure what that is about.

> . I seem to remember reading a similar story after the Golden Ponds event.
I just went back and re-read those comments. Should have re-read them three months ago.

You could have saved a lot of time and effort by just copying the notes directly :)

I call it PESD - 'post event stress disorder'. I used to get it after running major fire training events, such as running the week long residential camp to train 200 unemployed Latrobe Valley people to become firefighters midway through the 2006 Alpine fires (some of these people are still on workcover after collapsing midway through the fitness test, which comprised walking around the oval). You end up totally exhausted and a bit down. But you will feel better in a couple of weeks and most likely do it all again.

But you will feel better in a couple of weeks and most likely do it all again.

I've heard that running a marathon can have much the same effect.

Childbirth is the classic. Its that sudden dose of endorphins at the end that the male partner doesn't share. I ended up taking a photo of someone nameless's face while she was in the midst of her third labour. I remember being screamed at something to the effect "don't you dare" and my response was "I won't let you forget this moment like you forgot the last two".

Love it!
But now you're only got 3, when you could have had 10.

My life is not worth showing the photo.

I thoroughly enjoyed the events. Thanks to everyone!

We need more bush sprints - no gates and lower likelihood of construction work!

Lower likelihood of route choice too?

That depends on the map... this one give lots of opportunities for route choice, and unlike the usual small school campus, you haven't learnt all the tricks by the second pass through the terrain.

Agreed. When there l was wondering whether the controls could be in the underground bits - of which there were lots. I'm not sure how you map these or whether you just ignore them.

Ignore them. Its mapped to sprint specifications which say you only map one level. This makes them very overhanging cliffs.