Where’s the controller?

By Andrew Evans

Where’s the Controller? is booming loud and clear, greeting the unlucky person on download. The competitor is hot, agitated and speaking at high volume. Something must be amiss.

The person on download calmly asks what the problem is. After a few expletives, it transpires that the competitor thinks control 7 is in the wrong place. It cost him (a no doubt somewhat exaggerated) 15 mins to find it and that control should be taken out of the course results.

So, who is this mysterious “Controller” who most competitors never see and what does he/she do?

Each event that generates ranking points is required to have someone additional to the Organiser and Planner that is responsible for overseeing the event planning and organisation. For a Regional event the Controller is often someone from the same club but for the National and Major events, it will always be someone from a different club, intended to give a more objective view. The two areas of particular importance to the Controller are:

• The fairness of the courses for competitors

• The safety for everyone present

To become a Controller, attending a course is necessary as is having yourself both organised and planned (at different times!) an event of the same level as the Controller role being applied for. The typical steps that a Controller will take will include:

• Looking at the “armchair planning” undertaken to see if that throws up any obvious safety issues. Perhaps the draft courses are too long or too short (there are guidelines)

• Visiting each control site after the Planner has put a numbered tag on them. There’s lots of questions the Controller asks themselves such as “Is the feature that the tag is on sufficiently prominent? Is it marked at the correct place on the map? Is its position accurate relative to other nearby features on the map (which could be used as attack points by competitors)? Is it safe to use as a control? Is it suitable for all ages (an older competitor, for example, should not need to go to the bottom of a steep sided, potentially slippery, large depression or up steep hill sides to reach a crag foot)? Is the control description accurate? Is the number on the tag the one that will be used for the event?

• Evaluating the start, finish and courses again after the visit to the area

• Understanding how the controls will be put out and what risks exist in the plan

• Deciding which controls to visit on the morning of the event based on that understanding.

In all of this, the Controller acknowledges that the courses are the Planner’s, not his/hers. Any observations by the Controller are comments for the Planner to consider, not directions as to what must change. In practice most savvy Planners would pay good regard to the Controller’s comments, not least because as a Planner it is inevitable that you will get so immersed in the detail of the courses that some fairly obvious things may be missed.

So, the Controller is there to provide objective assessments to seek to ensure that the event is of a high quality. For a local event, an approved Controller is still required but the emphasis is primarily on safety rather than fairness and control sites will not be visited.

What about control 7? Others on the same course didn’t seem to have much difficulty locating the control. A few said it seemed in the right place. The Planner and the Controller visit the control after most competitors have returned and it is found to be exactly where it should have been and accurately mapped.

There is plenty of scope for errors to creep in, but on this occasion the competitor was mistaken. No point however in trying to explain this at the time; let’s allow it to sink in when temperatures have got lower.

In other cases, there is a valid point being made by the competitor. Even in these cases, the primary responsibility for assessing the complaint lies not with the Controller, or the Planner, but with the Organiser. The Organiser will take input from the Controller and decide what to do about it, if anything, If the competitor is still unhappy, there is an established complaints procedure under which a protest can be made. This will be assessed by a team of 3 people known as the jury. All jury members are experienced Controllers but are independent from the Organiser, Planner and Controller for that event. They will ask questions of the event officials but it is the jury who make the ultimate decision as to whether to uphold the complaint.

Why would anyone want to become a Controller? A few reasons, including the need to have Controllers to preserve the fairness of competition and the training that being a Controller provides as you look at things quite differently from when you are a competitor. It also provides a chance to get a free run in beautiful areas first thing in the morning of the event without distractions from other competitors and seeing the wildlife at its most active. Must concentrate however as I may miss something important.