Greenbelt

From our Event Director, Don Fish: The green was really green, the ticks were voracious and unfortunately a few of the advanced level controls went missing, but none of that deterred QOC's intrepid orienteers from enjoying a fine day in the woods at Greenbelt National Park.

The weather was agreeable and everyone seemed to enjoy the great courses designed by first time course setters Jay Gelman and Will Schaefer, graduates of Francis Hogle's 2014 course setting clinic. Everyone should remember that these courses were designed back in January when there was much less green in the woods and the ticks were either sleeping or dead. Our event was delayed by over 40 days by various circumstances, so don't blame them for the fact that even the best route choices were a bit thorny. When the courses were laid out it was a much friendlier park.

I'd like to thank my volunteers for all of their effort to help stage a great event. It really does take a lot of hands to do this nearly every weekend, so if you haven't yet had the pleasure of helping out, contact the meet director of one of our upcoming events and tell them you want to volunteer. It's a fun way to meet a bunch of nice folks and your help will be both needed and appreciated.

So thanks to Valerie, Amy and Mary for their usual great job on the computers. Sarah Fish, Sandra Roberts, Mihai Sirbu, Jr., Suzanne Izzo, Elliott Hamilton and Tom Smerling for setting up and processing participants through the registration system. Control pick up was speedily handled by Sean Fish, Anne and Kim Jepsen, Daniel and Craig Shelden, Frantisek Brabec, Tom Smerling, Tom Wells and Dan Quinn. Thanks to the various experienced orienteers who helped the newbies find their way out into the woods for the first time. They all reported back that they enjoyed their experience very much. Also thanks to Iva Zicha for loading both the meet kit and all of the controls into her truck for delivery to those that need them for next week's event.

Finally, I want to especially thank Mihai, Jr. who came to observe how we stage a meet and got thrown directly into the fire. He worked tirelessly for several hours and was a very great help. He will be a first time Meet Director at the University of Maryland meet on May 3rd and it would be really nice if members would contact him and volunteer to help him out at that event. It's the right thing to do!

And from our Results Guru Valerie Meyer: Results are posted below. There were three controls which went missing during the event, affecting three courses: Green (1 control), Red (2 controls) and Blue (3 controls). The results below show the elapsed time with the time between the affected controls removed (times between controls was "voided"). Times for splits on AttackPoint and RouteGadget will reflect the actual elapsed time since these programs do not handle the whole voided control thing very well, especially since it isn't technically allowed under Orienteering USA rules. I have decided to go with voiding the controls here since some people had the advantage of knowing that the controls were missing by the time they went out on their course, while others spent over an hour looking for the control(s). I hope everything still enjoyed their time in the woods, albeit it a bit frustrating at times, and please, make sure you checked for ticks! :) Valerie