JK06 - LATEST NEWS                                                     Joan Chapman

We have now had the first major meeting of the organizing team and are delighted with the enthusiasm generated and the progress we've made so far. We've agreed that we want this to be very social weekend with as much spectator interest as possible, to return to the idea of it being a Festival of Orienteering, rather than just a weekend orienteering competition, as it has tended to be in recent years.

In order to create the right atmosphere for this we have provisionally booked two schools in Boston Spa, near Wetherby (very close to Bramham and the A1). The main event center will be in the Comprehensive School which will house enquiries, results & traders, provide some accommodation in sports halls, a catering service (probably Wilf's), have a bar and host the prize-giving and AGM. We also plan to organize a full programme of social events there for the whole family. Very close by we hope to have a range of accommodation at St. John's School for the Deaf, including hostel-type rooms, caravanning and camping. Boston Spa itself is a lovely Yorkshire Village with good facilities including hostelries and eateries all within walking distance of the event centers.

We are planning a high-profile Park -O event through Friday afternoon at Temple Newsam to get the weekend off to a flying start. Saturday is now in North Yorkshire at the White Horse  and the Sunday event is now at Ilkley. The relay event on Monday is still at Bramham Park. We will be providing a choice of 3 levels of string course on each of the 4 days and we hope to offer Trail-O on Friday and Sunday.

With so much going on at the Event Centres we're going to need lots of ideas and offers of help on specific jobs. It would be lovely to see some of our younger members taking on roles to help with social activities such as competitions (various sporting facilities are on offer if we want to make use of them), discos and any other brilliant ideas that you may have. If you would like to get involved in this or just have a brilliant idea for an activity to incorporate into the weekend, please e-mail Joan Chapman jchapmanl@yahoo.co.uk  asap.

Other roles that we now require volunteers for are:

Sponsorship Manager (co-ordinating national & local sponsors)
Traders Manager (taking bookings, allocating space at various locations)
Colour Coded Organiser ( to liase with planners re starts/finishes and allocate manpower).