We knew that Teifi would be a terrific area to orienteer on but that its use was dependent on securing a suitable Assembly area and car parking and that there weren’t many options. What we used on Days 4 and 5 were by far the best but these in turn depended on the access track being repaired and improved.
With less than two weeks to go we had serious concerns about our main and some of our back up parking fields let alone the state of the track but then the weather gods smiled on us and the farmer, Robert Owen, pulled out all the stops, repairing and improving the track (no problem with the section that had given us most pre event doubt), moving his animals, cutting the thistles, providing and placing bales of straw for our stiles, towing up one of the traders and carrying out running repairs on the track.
Absolutely brilliant and on top of all that Robert fully engaged with the event bringing his family to Day 4 where they did the string course (did anyone notice the wavy route Robert had cut on the first part of the course?) and his cousin and his children to Day 5 where in addition to the String course they also did the White course where shadowing them ranked as one of my top highlights in a week full of great memories..
All the parking arrangements worked as planned (huge thanks to NGOC’s Pat MacLeod and John Fallows plus the BOK boys for their input on the main parking field) and the Assembly area was just as vibrant as I imagined when I first visited the area almost 11 months earlier.
It’s always a pleasure to lead the BOK team who can be guaranteed to deliver and I was fortunate to have great support from NGOC, SARUM and SLOW as well. It was also good to work with Sarah Rees from POW who organised Day 5 and all the support teams across both Days.
With good relationships built up with the other farmers whose land we used plus the local community (we intend to make a donation to the local school) hopefully we’ll be welcomed back in the not too distant future.
Dave Urch (BOK)