Christmas Snooker 'O'

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In case you have not seen, the full breakdown of results for yesterday’s Christmas Novelty are up on the website: Taunton West and Longrun Meadows - Quantock Orienteers

This was my first experience of Snooker ‘O’ as a format, and I really enjoyed it!

Orienteering is already quite a ‘thinky’ sport - but trying to work out the most efficient way to collect points whilst fulfilling the order rules whilst running at urban speed was quite something. It was quite satisfying working out decisions like taking the brown after a specific red ultimately meant more points than over using the pink control.

I was a bit worried that roaming controls would make it too luck based but, whilst I did not have the pleasure of finding Rosie (except when she was standing next to the more valuable Roger), there were a few opportunities to track the direction Roger (and his cape) was heading on route to a red so I could grab the 70 points.

Sadly I fell foul of having too much local knowledge - very early on after scanning the whole map I had mentally decided Blue was by Tescos… so I headed off in that direction after Brown without looking at the map. I only realised my error at the entrance to Tescos :man_facepalming:

It also turns out that there is a knack with a SIAC for double punching a control, so officially I never made it onto the colours anyway (and I was 5 mins late back!)

Thanks to Andy (and his helpers) for a fantastic event!

Happy New Year to everyone!

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Well done Andy & Rosie for planning such a thought curdling (at least for me) event and for supplying such comprehensive results (excel Grand Master status!). A big thank you to everyone else involved in the organisation including the walkabouts, Rosie and Roger, although unfortunately I didn’t see them out on the course. A special thank you to the irrepressible Judy for doing registration and setting up the post event social (providing soup and drinks) and, along with Julia, serving us with food and smiles.
Happy New Year to everyone.

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Some photos from Judy:

Getting a briefing

Pre-briefing

Roving controls Andy and Roger

Andy briefing runners

Andy giving the briefing

Roger the capped crusader (the roving Black ball)

Andy and Alison Reynolds (Devon)

Ollie Rant and Linda Mudd

Olive Lewis

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Really good fun - a great format and good use of the area.

I also had local knowledge. My knowledge was mainly about how muddy it would be, and that there was no escape from it.

I got caught out by 112 being behind the wall, and I managed to go the wrong side of the of the security fence around the school - not just once but twice!

I thought I had completed the full break, albeit 5 minutes late, but it seems that the advice that you could punch yellow twice in a row may not have been correct.

Nice to see most went to the village hall afterwards, that was good.

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P.S. Thanks to Andy, thanks to the roving controls, thanks to the village hall team.
Happy new year from me too!

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