Therfield Heath Summer Gallopen Event - 21 June 2000 and Mad Hatter's Tea-Party Final Results

Organiser's/Planner's comments

I have always wanted to have a "Mad Hatter's Tea Party" and with WAOC's connection with "Alice Through the Looking Glass" I thought it would be appropriate to use this as a theme for the Midsummer Madness Galloppen event.

For those who did not attend, this event was a 40 minute score event. At each control there were pictures of a particular character from "Alice In Wonderland" or "Alice Through the Looking Glass" instead of a punch. So instead of punching a control card at each control, competitors had to collect a picture (guest for the Mad Hatter's Tea Party) to prove they had visited controls. To make things more exciting, there were two Jabberwocks roaming the heath. To start with they were Rolf Crook and Ian Jones. They had to wait one minute after the mass start before they were allowed to start chasing people. Once they caught someone, they handed over their Jabberwock card and were then allowed to start visiting controls and collecting guests. The person to whom they handed the Jabberwock card then became the Jabberwock and was not allowed to collect guests until they had passed on the Jabberwock card to someone else. For anyone with a Jabberwock card at the end, there was a steep 50 point penalty. There were also a few White Knight cards distributed over the controls. So instead of getting a picture of the particular character at a control you may get a White Knight instead. White Knights were worth 10 points and also gave you immunity to the Jabberwock.

At the finish tent I was dressed as the Mad Hatter and served orange juice from a tea pot and there were muffins to eat.

Apologies to those who attended for the late start. The traffic in Cambridge that day seemed particularly bad and it took longer to get to Therfield than I had planned. Due to the wind it also took longer to put out controls. I was quite concerned that the pictures at the controls would blow away and spent some time trying to get the controls in a sheltered position. Having put out some 10 controls I then stapled the pictures to the bags they were in so the remaining controls would have had no problem with the wind. I don't think this actually caused any one any problems with there being no pictures to collect.

Thanks to many of you who helped put some controls out for me when I was running late and to those who helped collect them in at the end.

Many thanks to Dave Wotton who spent a long time with Paint Shop Pro tidying up the pictures for me to make them more suitable for photocopying and also for helping me generally prepare for this event beforehand and on the day.

It was nice to see people staying around at the finish drinking orange juice and eating cake while discussing the event and whether they got "Jabberwock'd". I hope you had fun taking part. I certainly enjoyed putting the event on and dressing up as the Mad Hatter!

Julia

Results

Pos.       Name                    Club       Time     Points     Penalty     Total
----       ----------------------  ------     -----    ------     -------     -----
  1.       Ian Jones               WAOC       41:15     300         20         280
  2.       Steve Hinshelwood       WAOC       40:16     285         10         275
  3.       Rolf Crook              WAOC       40:18     260         10         250
  4.       Dave Saunders           HH         41:47     245         20         225
  5.       Russ Ladkin             SOS        39:40     215         --         215
  6.       Neil Humphries          WAOC       40:55     260         60 *       200
  7.       Ian Lawson              WAOC       38:15     160         --         160
  8.       Roger Horton            WAOC       42:00     145         20         125
  9.       Helen Cooper            CUOC       42:30     155         30         125
 10.       Lindsey Freeman         WAOC       43:50     160         40         120
 11.       Carol Ottaway et al.    WAOC       38:26     115         --         115
 12.       Malcolm Humphrey        HALO       40:56     175         60 *       115
 13.       Hazel Bickle            WAOC       38:50     110         --         110
 14.       Martin Humphries        WAOC       39:20     105         --         105
 15.       Blanka Sengerova        WAOC       36:04      90         --          90
 16.       Janis Ryall             WAOC       32:20      85         --          85
 17.       Jitka Sengerova         WAOC       32:35      80         --          80
 18.       Sue + Katy Woods        WAOC       39:50      80         --          80
 19.       Noreen Ives             WAOC       39:30      75         --          75
 20.       Peter Ryall             WAOC       45:12     155         60          75
 21.       Clare Woods             WAOC       36:57      65         --          65
 22.       Jean Sinclair           SOS        41:30      80         20          60
 23.       Bonnie O'Hanlon + Dad   WAOC       42:30      65         30          35

* - indicates possession of the Jabberwock card at finish (50 points penalty)

Organiser/Planner: Julia Carpenter (WAOC)