CT Warwickshire - Shakespeare's Summer Scatter

[Ellis]

There was a BL show on at Gaydon

[Jonny-Jimbo]

Thank you everyone for the feedback - 'constructive feedback' helps improve an event, but 'positive feedback' means we're more likely to do another one!

Mike, you're not alone, the afternoon session is a lot harder than the morning session, but mainly due to the time constraints - I do this deliberately though. If teams have any sense, they will know that in two hours they will not get to as many places as they would in three hours, and modify their expectations.

I'll put full scores up soon, but the highest and lowest scores for the morning are;
49 (Alex and Andy in the Mini, but they did breakdown for an hour), and the highest was 170, which was Simon and Sarah in their MX5.

Afternoon

25 (Nick and Claire in the MX5), and the highest was 190, which was Jono and Graham in the Clio. (These scores include the picture bonus round)

The bonus round proved not to be as effective as I thought, although one test I did was to have the two questions very close together at Charlecote, and one of the bonus round photos there. All the teams apart from one got that picture round, a few teams got two questions, but Andy Martin was the only one to get three of them.

Other things I am thinking for any future events is start line control - the regulations stated that baulking is not allowed, and you're not allowed to block other cars in, but there was no penalty attached to that. Unless I am mistaken, the Blue Book says that cars must not have a starting order, or staggered start and finish times, which makes it complicated. I did think about having a 'clear' area and the start line further down the car park, but then at 10am, I'd just end up with 24 cars racing down the car park towards the startline, with the risk of obvious consequences.

Could I get any feedback from you all about the level of the questions (obviously some are more cryptic etc), but feedback on that side would help too.

[richard w]

Of the questions we tackled most seemed fairly straightforward, some required a bit more thought, a couple were a lot more tricky and 2 or 3 we couldn't find the answers to at all!  On the whole - for me - that seems about right, I wouldn't want it to be too easy, but a few easier ones are nice.

[mikeyb]

Echo most if not all of the comments above, very well done to the whole of the team for organising a first class event.   The cakes were, mmmmn well "the icing on the cake"!

Re start line congestion, not sure how your timekeeping worked out - but I got the impression that regardless of time you started each section, everyone was obliged to finish it at the same time. This disadvantaged those who started nearer the back of the queue - with 24 cars, potentially the last out the gate 24 mins later than the first.  

Possible way around this may be to give everyone a set time (ie. 3hrs) from the start time to arrive at the time control without penalty, rather than bring everyone back for one set time?

Great day, thanks and really pleased how well the little Spit went!

[Jonny-Jimbo]

Thanks Richard, sounds like we got the questions about on the mark, as that's what I was hoping. There is usually one that is nearly impossible...

Thanks Mike, hope you enjoyed the Vitesse cake too - Niamh's baking is excellent, and her and AJ made a good team. A lot cheaper than buying ready made cakes from Costco etc. I was very happy with it, particularly as she volunteered to provide the cake, we didn't even have to ask.

I will re-read the Blue Book before the next event to see if my understanding of the rules has changed at all. I'd like to make it fair, but I still have to fit within the rules.

Here are the results for the AM. I need to recheck the mileages on the PM section when I get home this evening. They won't affect the standings, but I want to correct them before publishing (on the scores calculator one team did 830miles or so)

[sparky_spit]

Thanks Jon.  Can you also publish the questions and the corrrect answers please?  On our table at the finish there were at least 3 "correct" answers to one particular location/question and I'd love to know who was right!

[Jonny-Jimbo]

Hi Mike,

I will have to check through the paperwork, as some questions were not attempted by any teams - this being the case I will blank these out from the sheet so I can use again on future events.

Can you remember which question it was, I can quickly look it up now?

[Jonny-Jimbo]

Rally AM answers (all questions attempted by at least one team) - The top 6 teams (and oddly, the bottom scoring team too) all got question 8 right. This is the most obvious pattern in the scoring, and there wasn't a single question in the morning that every team attempted and got right.

[Jonny-Jimbo]

The answers for the afternoon were a lot more scattergun for most teams - indeed, there is hardly a pattern at all, possibly indicative of teams panicking about getting round enough questions etc. Three questions not attempted, or got right by any team, so these have been 'blanked out' - you'll get another shot at them at the next rally probably, with a higher points score. Only pattern for the afternoon is that the top 8 teams all got question 1 correct. After that, no real pattern to scores.

[RobPearce]

Annoyingly, when Iris and I visited PM15, we couldn't see the right answer but there WAS a sign offering sweetcorn. I said "asparagus is what you get spears of" but she insisted (correctly, in fact, according to Wikipedia) that corn also comes in spears.

[sparky_spit]

Thanks Jon.  It was Q1 in the PM session.  There was a Neighbourhood Watch sign (the one with eyes in "binoculars") right opposite the primary school, with a notice underneath saying something like "We are watching you!" That's why we put Primary School 🙂

Question AM10 - We stood outside the farm for ages looking at the plough, but couldn't think why it could be linked in any way to Club Triumph. Maybe we were thinking too literally?

[Ellis]

Quoted from sparky_spit

Question AM10 - We stood outside the farm for ages looking at the plough, but couldn't think why it could be linked in any way to Club Triumph. Maybe we were thinking too literally?

You don't come to enough North London meetings Mike!

[sparky_spit]

Quoted from Ellis Stokes

You don't come to enough North London meetings Mike!

Ah....   "The Plough".   Doh!

[Jonny-Jimbo]

Rob, I got that question two or three days before the rally, so I'm confident the sign was still there. It is always a risk with these events that things change between finding the question and the event itself. I do my best to ask about things that are unlikely to move. However, some teams did get 'asparagus', so I think the sign is still there. In fact, in that village there were lots of signs for asparagus!

Mike, Q1PM and Q9PM were two of the tricky ones. In fact, I was half expecting to get lynched for the Q9PM, as you would have to know the Jubilee Line is silver, so the silver underground line is Jubilee, and the grid reference gives three jubilees. I forgot to say in the briefing that the higher the points the harder, or more cryptic the question. Indeed, often with the cryptic ones, the actual information is obvious, but deciphering it is difficult. It was also intended to reward those who plotted carefully, as the road splits in that village very close together, and an incorrectly plotted point would lose teams 5 mins driving round the village. (Mwahahhahahaha.... /evillaugh).

That of course also goes for 'Club Triumph Starts Farming' too; add a bit of grammar, remove some crypticness and you have 'Club Triumph Starts; Farming'... This was almost a gift for people in CT, although some of the other teams got it too.

[RobPearce]

Quoted from Jonny-Jimbo

That of course also goes for 'Club Triumph Starts Farming' too; add a bit of grammar, remove some crypticness and you have 'Club Triumph Starts; Farming'... This was almost a gift for people in CT, although some of the other teams got it too.

Yes, well... I saw the plugh but didn't make the association. I did notice the farmer's initials were "CL", which is the first two letters of "Club Triumph", which some crossword setters would render as "starts"...

[richard w]

If you hear a strange noise it's the sound of me kicking myself for not getting plough!  

[thescrapman]

Mmmmm

you could aoso buy Calor gas where the coal was for sale

by the way the metal disks were plastic . I got ouf of the car and checjed.

[Dale]

Having checked the a.m. scores Nige and I were joint 2nd with 155 except for the 7 time penalties we needn't have incurred - maybe we're not so sealion after all. There again to have slipped to 9th at the end (possibly we needed a nap!) might suggest otherwise. The pm session was way harder though but all in all I thought this was by far the best Warks Scatter so far, that it had clearly taken a serious amount of effort on the part of all those involved and generally was pretty spot-on all round - WELL DONE!

[Jonny-Jimbo]

The PM sheet has now been adjusted after issues with mileage (I had Richard Warr down as having covers 834 miles in two hours!)

[Jonny-Jimbo]

Hi Dale,

As I siad further up the thread, the afternoon session is always harder (in my events) with a need to be more selective of where you go and what questions you answer.

I also made a lot of effort to not visit any churches this year (at least not directly) after Church Fest in 2015. There was more stuff to ask questions on around this neck of the woods though, which really helps when organising of course.

I'm still going through in my head how to improve the start line situation, whilst keeping to the blue book rules - to be confirmed down the line.

We'll also look at ways we can improve the catering situation too, whilst I think everyone was happy with the food, the long queue was less than ideal.

Also Dale, I will send the scores over to you to put in the magazine as a complete table in Excel rather than having to copy it from the Forum.

[richard w]

Quoted from Jonny-Jimbo

The PM sheet has now been adjusted after issues with mileage (I had Richard Warr down as having covers 834 miles in two hours!)

That's impressive mileage for a 2000 auto! About 5 hours to do the RBRR - although we might be early at the controls, and we'll miss out on both breakfasts   so I think I'll try to keep the speed down a bit 🙂

[sparky_spit]

Hi Jon,

Can you post, or send to me, a combined final finishing order list please?  I can then use those placings to add to the Rallies Mini-Series for those competitors who are competing in the series.

Thanks,
Mike

[mikeyb]

[quote=Jonny_Jimbo
the grid reference gives three jubilees.  [/quote]

Mmmn did you award that point to us?  We got the Jubilee's on the stone (3 if I recall) but there was also a 4th on another stone low down on the front of the adjacent community building 🙂

[mikeyb]

disappointed too with AM 20 "correct" answer.  

We looked carefully at the discs on the telegraph pole, they were plastic not metal hence we discounted that as an answer...........

[mikeyb]

Where was the answer to AM 8?