Rumors of snow and rain for Easter Sunday made this first-time meet director quite anxious. The foot or more of snow I encountered the week before the event when planning the course also fueled my worries. But the woods were beautiful and I assumed everyone was itching to begin spring orienteering, so we planned a full menu of courses. Luckily mid-week rain and warm weather melted most of the snow, and beautiful sunny skies and a temperature near 60° made for a terrific day of orienteering.

We had a great turnout, with 167 participants (including the meet director and other volunteers). We had many first-time orienteers, thanks to expert advertising by Barb Bryant in local newspapers.

Congratulations to all those who went the extra distance to find some eggs. As promised, a minute was removed for each egg returned. On our special-edition billygoat-red, Michael Hughes was named chief-bunny, as he was the only runner on that course to take advantage of skipping one control in each loop in exchange for an egg. Congratulations also to all those who ran advanced courses on maps in which all trails were removed. This year we didn't offer the option of having trails, and everyone seemed to enjoy the extra challenge.

My deep apologies to the Liu & Pierce Family and to Victoria Campbell who looked and looked for the last control on yellow and red respectively which had been taken down prematurely. Your times have been adjusted, though that can't make up for the frustration and confusion of knowing you're in the right place but not finding the control! Next year our control retrieval will be better organized. Apologies also if your name is misspelled in the results! I did my best.

Very big thanks to all the people who helped make the event possible and successful: Dave Yee for help hanging and retrieving controls, and preparing the clue sheets, Barb Bryant for lots of meet director advice, preparing/printing the maps, and helping at registration, Ginger Fitzsimmons and Beth Gould for tireless help at registration, Michael Commons and Patti Miller for retrieving controls, Jim Paschetto for retrieving controls (and not getting too frustrated that one of them had already been retrieved…) and then joining me to return the equipment to the storage locker, Erin Olaffsen and Kristoffer Nielsen for retrieving the water jugs and cups, and JJ Cote for help with instruction for new orienteers.

I hope everyone can make next years Egg-O tentatively planned for Sunday, April 16th 2006. Eggs will be featured, as well as a sprint, and perhaps some new twists not yet determined.