Umstead North, November 22, 1999
Joan Brock, Meet Director

November 21, 1999 Umstead State Park, Bridle Trailhead Meet director: Joan Brock

34 groups of folks turned out for the November meet of the Backwoods Orienteering Klub. It was a beautiful fall day with the temperature in the mid 60's. When I sat down and designed the courses, I did not think that they would be overly difficult. However, looking at the rather long finish times on all the courses, perhaps they were more difficult than I anticipated. Maybe it was the funeral at the King family cemetery, or the major construction going on in the northern area of the courses (which was unanticipated) that slowed everybody down. My fears were somewhat dumbfounded by Rob Stevens outstanding run on the red course.

I saw lots of new faces at the meet, and were glad to see them. Always a pleasure to see new folks come out and try the sport. I was also glad to see some folks increase their technical level by advancing to a higher course. Lori Huberman made here first appearance on the orange course and Karen Hales on Brown. Glad to see both women did well, keep up the good work and persistence.

It was nice to have four hands participating in running the meet. It was much smoother and efficient than one person having to do everything by themselves (Peter was the assistant meet director). It was especially noticeable during the registration process which flowed rather quickly. It is my recommendation to all the future meet directors would be to get a partner to assist and to the members give the meet director a call a few weeks before the meet and volunteer to help out. It sure does make a big difference and allows the event to be more enjoyable for everyone.

A special thanks to Joseph Huberman for his usual wonderful job of teaching the beginners class, and for printing all the maps and posting results to the web. And to Ruth Bromer for picking up the controls at the end of the day.

PS: Lets not forget the friendly park rangers who stopped in from time to time to make sure everything was running OK, and to the park superintendent Martha Woods for being receptive for allowing us to play in her park. Stop by the visitors center sometime and tell her thank you.