Washington Crossing
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Topic created by johncampbell on Mon Nov 1, 2010 at 7:34 amIt was great to see so many scouts out orienteering, hopefully amoung them are the next round of DVOA juniors.
Thank-you to the event director and your team for a fun event. -
Reply by sfmones on Mon Nov 1, 2010 at 10:15 amMy thanks also to all involved. There were a lot of Boy Scouts running around the woods and it was undoubtedly a lot of work keeping everything in order in addition to the usual DVOA stuff.
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Reply by DaveDarrah on Mon Nov 1, 2010 at 9:41 pmMy thanks too, to all involved. Very smooth operation, especially with those rarely seen pink cards. A great day to be running around a great park. Thanks again.
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Reply by BRycharski on Tue Nov 2, 2010 at 9:30 amHello, Yes, Washington Crossing SP and Map and O meet had a great turn out, can't wait to see Jerry Smith's comments. We had early on one Yellow control flag that the "Red punch" and string was thought missing ... until a team noticed -the red punch had "launched" itself straight up in to the upper bush branches; and in a position smaller children and Scouts were too short to see it. I moved punch string down to a 9 year olds eye level. Another control on Yellow was alledgedly tossed 50 meters to the east into some brambles (and reported stolen), out of its red circle. Mark Frank (on a training O hike with a beginner) and a team of Scouts helped retrieve it - & by accident as I ran up to add a second (back up) flag. Rick S Needs to tie "better" knots I think.
Anyway, my main reason for typing my comments is a conversation I heard 3rd hand about 2 pm at the Wash. Crossing finish line. Kent and Caroline Ringo were helping at the finish line, and I heard they overheard someone complaining that they missed "E" punch on last Saturday 30 Oct. Caroline was heard to comment ... that she remembered that in the "old" days of DVOA orienteering, one did not even have Pink - punch cards (RR side comment, Anyone know who invented the DVOA Pink Cards??), and Caroline or Kent stated that in the Old early DVOA hike O days, a participant had to carry a mandatory pencil with them, and "record" on the back of the map the random symbols found attached to O flags at each orienteering marker; circles, triangles and colored mixed up letters I assume. This proved they had visted each control and in what order running to the Finish line map/results checkers... If anyone heard that story "first hand", please write that one "up" for the Briar patch and submit it to be published - What a great Memory and wealth of DVOA trivial Caroline and Kent Ringo exhibit. Great Story! -
Reply by sfmones on Tue Nov 2, 2010 at 6:15 pmThat is an interesting story about the history of marking cards. Are you sure the person was making a complaint about card punching, and not just commenting on it? I heard a number of comments about people not being familiar with the old-fashioned card punching anymore, but I cannot say that I heard outright complaints. I know that Ed Scott has addressed the issue of card punching versus e-punching in the context of the annual MASOC event, and for now we have to stay with card punching. I suspect DVOA does not have enough rental e-punches to handle Scouts at Washington's Crossing, let alone MASOC, and can you imagine the loss rate at $40 a pop? Also, I would imagine that the real downside of the old style card punching is not to the runners, but to the poor volunteers handling the logistics of the event as they do not have a computer to keep track of registrants, courses, and results (not that the computer is fool-proof either, as I personally learned once this year in my ill-fated attempt to help at registration). Even in my short time as an orienteer, I have come to expect e-punching. However, I do not believe that the occasional card punching should ruffle too many feathers, particularly when there is good reason to use the old system.
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Reply by johncampbell on Wed Nov 3, 2010 at 9:05 amThe "pink" cards were around for quite a long time and I doubt if they were a DVOA invention. We used them in the UK in the 60's, though in many different colors.
There is no doubt processing the pink cards is a lot of work, manually doing the math for the times and checking punches. It was kind of fun and nostalgic helping at the results on Saturday working through the pink cards. Having said that epunch is much better for everyone and I'm glad DVOA moved in this direction
