Mr. Alan Rosen

Head: Alan Rosen (Acting)

She'll get that I am focusing on Alan Rosen because he was my teacher and not because she and the other recipients of the 18th annual Milken Family Foundation Jewish Educator Awards are any less worthy of notice than Alan, who also received the award last month.

nc Alan Rosen

HH

Mr Alan Rosen Technology Headteacher arosen@ahs.bucks.sch.uk

Alan Rosen, head teacher of the High School, said: "If students are parking illegally I would encourage the police to deal with it."

Alan Rosen

This edition's interviewee is Alan Rosen, one of the longest-serving club members, International Controller and survivor of "wildest Wales".

Alan began orienteering with the rest of his family towards the end of 1968; he and his father Monty are the longest standing members of the club.At that time "Happy Herts had only recently been formed and had just a handful of members.It wasn't too long before we were running all round the South East and helping to run events on areas such as Epping Forest, part of which was 'ours' at the time".A number of small events culminated in the staging of the first badge event on Burnham Beeches in October 1972.This was a major step forward for the club and for the region, and was planned by Alan and his brother David (now running for South Ribble).

When growing up, Alan and David were always in different age groups, first as Junior or Intermediate Men, then in different classes in the M15/17/19 system (that pre-dated the current M14/16/18 etc. classification).
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Alan wasted no time at university, going orienteering on his first weekend at Aberystwyth, and there meeting Janet.This was an introductory event put on by Aberiginals - the university o-club - in some typical Welsh terrain; "the woods on the west side of Wales are particularly challenging (completely dark green and very well contoured) and it seemed a suitable initiative test for a potential Mrs Rosen."During their time in Aberystwyth, the university orienteering club was quite strong, doing well in the British University Championships.Alan, Janet and some of its other members also formed part of the Welsh team for home internationals - "OK so there weren't many other orienteers around."

From University Alan went into teaching, although he confesses that he is not quite sure why as he "could have ended up in outdoor education or in Computer Science".Although he has taught "Maths, IT, PE and a few other subjects from time to time", he is now Deputy Head at Aylesbury High School.Yet, when he can spare time from his real job, he tries to find ways of getting people outdoors."I arrange annual trips to the Outward Bound Centre at Aberdyfi, and I lead 'exciting' trips with older students from time to time.In the last few years I've taken expeditions to Zimbabwe, Sulawesi (a little-known but fascinating Indonesian island) and to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco".No Scottish 6-days for Alan this summer as he is taking twenty 16 and 17 year-olds to Madagascar for a month.Alan attributes this wanderlust to spending most of his childhood holidays camping, mountaineering and travelling through the wilder areas of Britain, Europe and even the Sahara Desert.Alan has also orienteered in lots of European countries, initially on representative tours with British and English teams, but then for holiday trips."Like most people, my results on unfamiliar areas are probably best kept secret, but I have really enjoyed the variety of other countries."His favourite type of terrain is where he has to use a compass and there is real route choice, "I get bored very easily with repetition and poor planning.I particularly enjoy night orienteering, possibly because it increases the technical difficulty of each leg and penalises errors in a way that day orienteering doesn't ...I use compass and pacing a lot at night and should use it more during the day."Alan believes one of his strengths is his ability to read maps pretty well.With Janet, he has often competed in mountain marathons, favouring the Score Class as it "allows us to use our navigation strength instead of following crocodiles of people.The most enjoyable days have been those with zero visibility and interesting terrain...when all of the poorer navigators, who normally beat us in clear conditions, suddenly find that they can't read a map as well as they thought."

For some people, the thought of controlling at any level is scary, but Alan became a controller at a very early age and progressed up the ladder to become an IOF controller, although he is "not really sure how ... it just happened."He regrets that it is "till, unfortunately, seen as a job for a select few when, in reality, any ordinary orienteer is perfectly capable of controlling an event and would almost certainly enjoy it - there are real 'perks-of-the-job' in being able to get to know an area really well and seeing it change on each visit.The technical aspects of the job shouldn't put anyone off - so how about some more club members putting themselves forward?"

Sadly, it is often only when things go wrong at an event that we spare more than a passing glance at the event details or results to see who was the controller.Alan says that, unlike some others, he has not had too many major crises running up to events, perhaps because he keeps in close contact with the organisers and planners.
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In 1999 Alan was the controller for the World Championship Relays, held at Loch Vaa near Aviemore.I asked how much work was involved and whether it was worth it?Alan admitted that it was "quite a difficult decision as there was a real danger of getting involved in the politics rather than the orienteering."But as it seemed like the sort of opportunity that doesn't come round very often he decided to go for it."As it turned out, I ended up helping the controllers of the Classic and Short races as well, flying up to Aberdeen or Inverness quite often in the nine months before the event."In some ways Alan reckons there is little difference between controlling a World Championships and any other event , "it is still about putting the red and white flags out on the ground in the right place and joining them up to make the best possible course."However, as there were "more people keen to interfere (or offer advice as they call it) there was a lot of potential for getting things wrong so I was determined to ensure that the organisation went well."One problem was getting some people to recognize that this was the pinnacle of world orienteering and needed facilities and an atmosphere to match.Alan cites the finish area for the relays; "some people would have been happy with a few bits of tape and a Finish banner, whereas it was essential to make the Relay arena have a real atmosphere throughout the race."As a spectator at this event, I can attest to the success of Alan's approach - although it was unseasonably cold, the atmosphere was electric.Clearly pleased, Alan says that, "in the end, it was the best day's orienteering that I have ever been involved with, so it turned out to be very worthwhile.If one code had been wrong..."

From the early experience at Burnham, Alan has gone on to plan plenty of events, ranging from those "in wildest Wales" to the British Nights on Burnham, the JK Relays in Norfolk and the Harvester Relays on Hankley; "HH has adopted some remote pieces of land in the past!"He confesses that he has not done as much planning as he should recently, but enjoyed planning the Club Champs with Janet last September.

As her very consistent results from the South East League and elsewhere testify, Janet is the star orienteer in the family at present.Alan's results tend to be more varied, as he is invariably "up against people like Colin Dickson and John Rye who are incredible athletes - unlike me.I almost got my third Championship result of the year at the Northern Champs in December, until Colin put up an unbeatable time."He and Janet do not train very much, generally running at the weekends and once during the week.He is consistent rather than fast, "as my split times tend to show, I generally lose time consistently throughout a race because I'm not a fast runner rather than blow it all at one control."

Finally, I asked Alan, as someone who might be expected to have his finger on the pulse of international orienteering to give his thoughts on two issues facing the sport at present.

2. Allan Rosen (HH) 60:09

Allan Rosen (HH) 60:09 3.

Alan Rosen, head teacher of the Aylesbury school, who had visited Wylie in April, 2003, and again in April, 2004, has appreciated the teachers of Wylie and the intiatives taken by them in imparting quality education.