Forum

Worthy of discussion and thanks for raising it.
My feeling is that 3 technical courses (TD5) are enough to cater for our attendences. Instead of adding an extra (yet another green) course, I think we reconsider the length of our current courses. Currently we have no guidelines for colour coded events and I assume this will not change until we have a controller of technical standards.

There is always extra effort with extra courses, planner time, controller time, counting contours, printing numbers, extra map box, extra strart column, extra control descriptions...extra confusion etc, the list goes on. This is why I currently don\'t support adding another course.

When I am involved with planning either as planner or controller, I am keen to have Green course at the shorter end of what we usually get (hasn\'t always worked out that way), and brown course can\'t really be too long (within reason of course!) and the blue about half way in between. For Cushbawn, the Green course was 3.9k with 180m climb. Even at that, only 3 compeitors were less than an hour, so while I was satisfied as controller, it would have been no harm had it been shorter.

So if the Green course is reduced in length to cater for the likes of PF, will it be considered too short by many of the current Green course competitors? Perhaps shorten the Blue course a little so some may move up to Blue?

Thanks for pointing us to the discussion document John. We are in need of some guidance and this is useful! This seems to be boiling down to whether we replace Green with Short Green rather than introducing Short Green as an additional course. Though I wouldn\'t change the course name, keep it green but have it equivalent to Short Green. Talk about confusion!

Is the issue partly that the light green is too easy? It\'s been said to me, not just about Sunday\'s course. I know that planning involves compromises for all courses. It\'s cetainly a challenge in most places to make a technically challenging but not too physical a course. If the light green had gone down across the road it probably would have had too much climb. And I know my kids and probably others found the jump from orange to light green a challenge. The Red didn\'t exist then, it\'s purpose should partly address that.

If the Green Course is shortened to get people out on a Tech 5, and the Blue is shortened to compensate for people that liked a longer Green, then obviously the brown would have to be shortened to allow people get out on a longer blue - would now be the time to mention Bring Black Back?

My perspective: I think Green/Blue/Brown are normally in a good place - the lengths and times seem good to me. Light green might seem easy to seasoned orienteers, but coming the other direction, theres a big jump up in technical difficulty from Orange to Light Green, and i never considered Red as stepping stone from one to the other (is it meant to be?). If theres sufficient demand for a shorter Green, I think we as a community could accomodate it, but I\'m not sure if theres enough demand?