This article is part of a series of articles explaining what the main volunteering roles involve. The Planner’s role is to design the courses, organise printing of maps and control descriptions and ensure that all the controls are placed (in the right place !) before the first competitors start. At the smaller level D TVOC Saturday Series events the Planner and Organiser role is usually combined.
There are a whole set of guidance notes on planning events on the British Orienteering website https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/organiser_library which are worth consulting as well as a checklist at https://tvoc.org.uk/organising-and-planning-events/ so I won’t go into detail in this article but just highlight the stages involved and important things to think about.
1) Consult with the mapper (early) and check out the area
It is important to get hold of the latest map, find out who is updating the map and their planned schedule. Which part of the area do we have permission to use and are there any Out of Bounds areas? Visit the area as early as possible to get a feel for what the area is like – which are the nice bits to run through and where is there unpleasant undergrowth. Ideally for a larger event, visit a year in advance, so you can see what the vegetation is like at the same time of year that the event will be held. In any visits to the area, if you notice areas of the map that have changed (e.g. new paths, felled areas, changes to vegetation that affect runnability etc.), make a note and send them to the mapper so they can check those areas out next time they visit.
2) Think about the general structure and lengths of the courses
First of all consider suitable positions for the Start(s) and Finish taking into account where the event parking will be (juniors and older competitors won’t thank you for a walk to the start that is almost as long as their course). Are there any road crossings required? Where are safe crossing places and will they need to be marshalled and timed-out? In particular avoid road crossings for juniors.
Appendix B to the British Orienteering Rules specifies target winning times (Black course 67 min for a top M21E or British Long Champs/JK 90 mins for M/W21E) and also ratios of lengths to the shorter courses (e.g a Brown course should be roughly 0.85 times the length of Black). In fact these length ratios should be calculated based on corrected course lengths accounting for climb (length + 10 x climb). At smaller events where there is no Black course, the same course ratios should be applied based on a nominal Black course that is expected to have the correct winning time. But how do you estimate lengths to give the correct winning times? The best way is to look at results from previous events on the same or similar areas.
Getting an idea of the rough shape of your longest course with an appropriate length is a good start, however equally important is to consider the shortest (White/Yellow) courses where it is very important that they are planned to the correct technical difficulty, following line features such as paths. This may restrict which parts of the area are suitable for these shorter courses and may help determine the start and finish locations (or require a different start for the shorter courses than the longer ones).
As well as the longest and shortest courses, it is worth considering at this stage roughly where the Short Green or Very Short Green course will go. These courses for the oldest competitors need to be a good technical navigational challenge but should be less physical. Try to make sure these courses don’t have too much climb and that they use an area that, as far as possible, avoids too many steep slopes or rough ground such as brashings.
3) More detailed planning
Planners use course planning software such as the very user-friendly Purple Pen free software which allows you to place controls on the map and link them up to form each course. At this stage you’ll need to visit the area again to check out suitable control sites. Control sites will obviously be shared between courses but try not to overcrowd any controls by having too many courses visit them. It is best not to share too many consecutive legs on different courses to avoid too much following. You should try to avoid different courses running legs in reverse as competitors leaving a control will lead others in to it. Equally courses that dog-leg into and out of a control are generally bad practice as again people will be led into the control by others coming out
Good course planning is not aiming to trick a competitor into making a mistake or deliberately hiding controls. You should be making competitors think about the correct plan for each leg and use good navigational techniques which should enable them to find the control without luck. Make sure the courses are interesting and varied. A normal long distance style senior course should have legs of varying length, including some long legs with route choice options. Try to make them visit contrasting parts of the area requiring different navigational techniques. Sprint and Urban events should also be planned with plenty of route choice options. Small changes in the locations of controls will alter the balance between different route choice options. The 2Drerun software can be a useful way to compare route choices : https://news.worldofo.com/2015/02/26/introducing-the-2drerun-courseplanning-module/ . A Middle Distance style event may have fewer options for route choice but should test the use of good attack points and fine navigation in the circle.
4) Tape the sites and refine
Once draft courses have been planned, they should be sent to the event Controller for comment. The Controller is an independent checker and ensures that rules and guidelines are followed and the courses are fair. You should visit each site and mark them with a piece of insulating tape labelled with the Control number. The Controller can then visit and see if he agrees that all your tapes are marking the correct control features. If the Controller can’t find some of your tapes or disagrees that they are at the correct feature, you will need to discuss further regarding the placement of the control and/or the mapping in the area. Sometimes, however, a deer has just tried to eat your tape or a helpful (?) passer-by removed it ! You will probably find there are a number of tweaks to courses to account for Controller comments or where you have noticed you can improve courses or make route choices more interesting. It is therefore important to maintain a good version control system. When mappers have made updates to the map, the new base map can be loaded into Purple Pen and still maintain your controls and courses. You may, however, need to check that your controls or their descriptions are not affected by the updates. Occasionally a large block of forest has been felled or the landowner has suddenly decided that part of the area has to be Out of Bounds and you may need to re-plan sections of your courses at the last minute.
Finally you’ll need to send course files to the printer (TVOC usually use BML who are very helpful). Make sure you have warned them about the need to print maps in plenty of time and agreed a timescale. Usually you will have sent them the files about 3 weeks in advance and then agree final numbers of maps for each course 1 week from the event when most entries should have come in.
5) On the day of the event
As planner, you need to make sure all controls (stake, flag, SI-box) are in position before the first starts. Depending on the number of controls and the daylight available, you may need to recruit helpers to place some of them for you. Remember that it is difficult to carry more than 10 or 12 stakes, flags and boxes so it is best to organise the controls into a series of loops (which you can plan as dummy courses in Purple Pen from your All Controls map). Often you can drive to different access points to the forest to put out each loop to minimise distance. Agree your placement order and schedule with the Controller as he should be following you round checking the controls. Remember to allow plenty of time, not just to walk/jog round each site but to assemble each control. You also need to turn each control on by punching with a dibber otherwise the SI-Air touch free punching won’t work for the first competitors. Hopefully, having visited the control sites during planning, you should find your tapes relatively easily !
When I planned the Chiltern Challenge at Bradenham in Dec 2023, it was close to the shortest day and I had 68 controls to set out, so I put out most of the flags and stakes on the Saturday afternoon except for those on paths (which might have been nicked). I then only had to run round putting the SI boxes on the controls on the Sunday morning with a helper placing the easy controls that were on paths. A top tip for carrying the SI boxes is to thread them onto a length of rope in order of the setting out loop with the first box on top. This makes it easy to make sure you are putting the right box on the right control.
In contrast, at the last event I planned – a GB team Long Selection race at Wendover this June – there was plenty of daylight, so I could start very early in the morning and get all 35 controls out in 4 loops. I was thankful that it was still cool that early in the morning when I was slogging up the steep hills carrying controls !
In urban events it is usually necessary to attach controls to lampposts, fences etc using gripples to stop them being stolen/interfered with. Remember that this takes longer fiddling around at each control site. There again you can often plan to drive round, jumping out to place clusters of controls.
Once all controls are out and the Controller has confirmed he has checked them, you can inform the start team that the event is ready to start. It is interesting walking around parts of the area seeing how competitors are getting on and what route choices they are taking. Go to the finish to ask what early competitors thought of your courses: hopefully no complaints ! It is recommended to carry a couple of stakes, flags and SI Units together with a pen and some sticky labels so that if you are informed of a control going missing, you can quickly replace it with a relabelled control.
So why should you volunteer as a planner ?
There are many reasons why you will find planning rewarding, including:
- Satisfaction from knowing that you have produced a good event that many people have enjoyed.
- Time visiting the forest on your own while planning: you’ll see so much wildlife. When planning at Hambleden I saw huge herds of deer rushing past and several of the wallabies that live in the area.
- It will improve your orienteering: having to be certain that you are taping the correct site gives you practice at reading all the detailed information on the map and navigating accurately from attack points rather than rushing into an area and hoping you’ll see a flag !
After the event you’ll find it interesting looking at the split times and Routegadget: which controls did people have trouble with, did they take the route choices you thought, did your courses reward accurate, purposefully planned navigation rather than luck? Any lessons for next time you plan ? After all, you’ll be hooked by now !!