Blean Sunday Series event

This is one of the events that will be included in a British Orienteering Participant Satisfaction Survey. Participants will be invited to share their views and comments by completing a short questionnaire  after the event that should take no more than 8mins to complete.

Location

Nearest town: Faversham

• Grid Ref:
• Postcode: ME13 9JX
• Latitude: 51.30144
• Longitude: 0.95934
• Google Map
• Streetmap (OS 50k)
• Bing Map (OS 50k)
• OpenStreetMap

Directions / Parking

Parking is at Mount Ephraim Gardens, Staple Street, Faversham.
Access to the car park is via Church Hill at ME13 9JX.
Mount Ephraim is signposted from nearby major roads (including the A299 close to the junction with the M2). The approach lanes are narrow, so please drive carefully and watch out for horses, walkers etc.

Public Transport options

Railway stations: Faversham 5km, Canterbury 9km

Registration & Start Times

Registration from 10:00 to 12:00

Start times from 10:30 to 12:30

Courses close 14:30

There is a 1.7 km walk from Registration to the Start – Follow the tapes. Clothing dump will be available close to Start / Finish.
The walk to the start is mainly through orchards and grounds of Mount Ephraim. There is a short section of road to follow. The road is narrow and has no footpath, though the traffic flow is low and visibility is good. The road will not be marshalled; parents are responsible for accompanying their children to and
from the start.

Course Information

Yellow. Controls (checkpoints) are very easy to find, mostly on main paths, ideal for younger children and complete beginners. 

Orange. Moderate, controls are on or near paths with more route choice. Good for progressing juniors and beginner adults who are reasonably confident reading a map. 

Light Green. Harder. Controls away from paths giving more challenging navigation. For those with some experience. 

Green; Blue; Brown. As technically difficult as we can make it, for experienced orienteers. 

Score. No set distance, but a 60 minute time limit and a possible total of 20 controls. Find as many controls as possible in the hour. Good for adult beginners and those that want to be back in a set time.

Course lengths (subject to final controlling)

Course	Length
Yellow	2.0 k
Orange	2.6 k
Light Green	3.6 k
Green	4.7 k
Blue	6.0 k
Brown	7.5 k

Map: 1:7500 with 5 m contours

SIAC (contactless 'dibbing') will not be enabled for this event 

Explanation of colour courses

• White are very easy with all controls on paths. They are mainly used by 6-10 year olds and family groups.
• Yellow use simple linear features like paths, walls and streams. They are mainly used by under 12’s and family groups.
• Orange progress to basic use of the compass and route choice. They are ideal for novice adults or experienced youngsters.
• Light Green are ideal for improvers as the navigational difficulty begins to increase and uses simple contours and point features.
• Green are used mostly by experienced under 18’s and adults wanting a short but challenging course with a very hard navigational difficulty.
• Blue are a longer, more physically demanding course in comparison to the green. The distances are more varied between controls and the course attracts experienced orienteers.
• Brown & Black are very physically demanding and have a very hard navigational difficulty. They are for experienced orienteers only.
• Score means visiting as many controls as possible in any order in a specific time, like 45mins.

Entry Details

Pre-enter on-line with Fabian 4 - Entry is now live.

Seniors £8 (plus £2 for non BO members)

Juniors £3 (plus £2 for non BO members)

 

Entry on the Day

as above plus £2. 

Group entry only available on the day;  £15 (club members and non members), includes 1 dibber and up to 4 maps per group.

 

Entry fee includes loan of electronic timing equipment (aka dibber) if required, and a waterproof map per individual competitor (yours to keep after the event). Dibbers are expensive and a £35 charge will be due if the dibber is lost.

Juniors can be registered separately, compete in a group containing at least one adult, or be ‘shadowed’. Shadowing is explained below.

Juniors and Shadowing:

Whilst many juniors will initially complete a course as part of a group, some juniors may want to progress to be able to run on their own. We understand that many parents/guardians will want to ensure their child’s safety by completing the course with them, or following a short distance behind. We call this ‘shadowing’ and there is more information here. Parents shadowing juniors will be given an extra map at no charge. The entry fee will be the junior entry fee. Alternatively, juniors are also welcome to compete in twos or threes, and will be entered individually.

Terrain Description

Blean Wood has a small stream valley surrounded by lovely runnable woodland with interesting depressions and platforms. On the hill there are some rhododendron clumps which can make route choice interesting.

There has been some thinning of the woods leaving brashings on the ground but the courses have been designed to avoid the worst of these areas. Inevitably this time of year the brambles are beginning to grow but, again, courses avoid the worst, there are also wood ant nests, for these reasons full leg cover is strongly advised.

Facilities

Coffee, tea, biscuits available at registration with honesty box.

The toilets in Mount Ephraim Gardens will not be available to orienteers, so there are no on-site toilets.

Contacts / Officials

Organiser: Nick Betts

Planner: Simon Blanchflower

Controller: Neil Speers (DFOK)