Wednesday evening events / Saturday morning events                          

You will find help and information on planning and organising on the Club webpage www.octavian-droobers.org/members/eventofficials  

Contact Bruce Bryant to get the map to get you started. Even if you already have a map file for the area in which you are planning, check with Bruce to make sure that it is the most up to date version. 
Nearer the event, equipment can be obtained from Graham and Liz Urquhart although there may be a set of equipment being passed between organisers of the events and kept separately from other equipment. Ask the organiser of the preceding event. Map printing is completed by LinkMailing. Please give them enough time. Further guidance on this process is attached to this letter.

The Club has drawn up a default risk assessment for all areas and this can be found on the above webpage. Please read this through carefully, and add to it or delete as appropriate to your event. It is a requirement for event insurance that a risk assessment is completed for each event, and signed off by a controller. Please email it to me when completed, and I will act as controller. Remember when completing it, orienteering is a risk sport, and as long as the conditions are reasonable and competitors are made aware of anything unusual, there should not be an issue.

The events should provide colour coded courses suitable for everyone from the absolute beginner to the experienced orienteer, usually, yellow, orange and green/blue. You can decide whether to put on a green course and a blue one, or just a green depending on the area. If you want, you can plan a different type of course for the long one, to make the best use of a small or less technical area – map memory, score or Norwegian – or something different. 

Start times are usually 6.30 – 7.30 – but be warned, enthusiastic competitors arrive early and do cause you pressure when you are trying to finish setting things up. If you can get things set up ready for an earlier start, particularly if your event is towards the beginning or the end of the summer, it may make things easier. The cost for competitors is senior £4.00, juniors and students free and £1.00 for everyone for emit hire. You may find it difficult to organise everything on your own and therefore are encouraged to request assistance or ask me to find some help. 
 
After your event, please send results to the Club website webmaster@octavian-droobers.org and the Droober editor, Sue Hallett editor@octavian-droobers.org for the magazine. Treasurer Trevor Simpson will need a list of competitors (result list will do) indicating those who had a free entry. He also needs a list of names of helpers who did not run and this is usually achieved by recording thanks with the results (for insurance purposes) Trevor also needs surplus income and any claim for expenses with receipts where appropriate. 
 
If you have trouble contacting any of the above Club officials or are otherwise uncertain what to do, please contact me on liz.phillips30@btinternet.com or tel. 02476 373507. Please do not struggle alone, we are here to help. Indeed, asking for help early often saves problems later.
Again thanks for organising and have a good event.     
               
Liz Phillips
OD Chairperson

Guidance notes for preparing maps and submitting for printing

The following guidance has been agreed by the Club to ensure our maps are a good standard and meet British Orienteering requirements. Recent practise shows it works well.

Contact Bruce Bryant (brucebryant@btinternet.com) to find out where to obtain the most recent map file for the area you are going to be using. 

If you are using one of Bruce’s maps then he will send you the latest OCAD map and a Condes file for you start the planning process.

If the latest map is obtained from one of the other OD mappers, usually Mike Hampton or Phil Kirk, also email it to Bruce who will return it with a corrected colour table, plus a Condes file set up for the event. You should use this Condes file when doing the course planning. Do not start the event planning using a Condes “new event” file as this will not have all the correct settings.

If you don’t have Condes 9, download it from the Condes website and use the OD Condes license:
(http://www.condes.net/index.php/download/) 

Club: Octavian Droobers
Code: K3QF6-I3MEP-L7CXI-DQ58U-MRDA0-KLI3K-WUKI2-E3

Plan the courses as usual using Condes. If you are inexperienced at using Condes, contact Barry Elkington or Bruce for help and advice or have a look at the Condes website: http://www.condes.net/onlinehelp/

At the moment (subject to review) we are still printing maps with “Print5” although now a company called LinkMailing. Rather than sending the OCAD and Condes files to LinkMailing, the final step is to generate PDF files of each of the courses that you need (including all control maps for your own use plus an extra couple for others to assist with control collecting if you wish). 

Condes 9 can now directly export pdf documents without requiring any other software. These can be either separate files for each course or it can produce a multipage pdf with all the courses in one file. For these level events - and to help control costs - we typically use A4 size maps, printing the control descriptions on the reverse if necessary, rather than enlarging the map to print them on the front. If you do need to put descriptions on the back of the map due to a lack of space on the front of the map, it is better to do separate 2 page pdf’s for each course. 

Condes 9 can create a “combined” page of control description sheets if you choose to give competitors separate descriptions. These can either be printed on ordinary paper using any laser printer (if you have access to one, but please do not use inkjet prints) or printed on waterproof paper by LinkMailing. Please ask them to supply to you uncut – or they will charge an extra £15 for cutting them!

Having produced the pdf files, check they are exactly what you want (do a test print on your own printer if you can) and then send the files, with the number of each you want printed, to james.elkington@linkmailing.co.uk  but also cc’d to info@linkmailing.co.uk to ensure that they are aware of the requirements

Turnaround has been variable of late, it may be only a couple of days, although to be safe it is best to allow a week or longer. If you have any problems, please let Liz or Bruce know.