The Rogaine Coordinator will develop a schedule of events in February.
Between the planner and the rogaine coordinator you will choose a date and an approximate area.

Start Planning Early -  preferably at least 2-3 months out.

Start point with PARKING - It is important, with growing numbers, that you identify a start point early on that has plenty of carparking to accommodate the large fields of around 300–400 people.  If there is a building we can hire from the council for the evening let the coordinator know and they can start the booking process.  If possible it is preferable to also have toilet facilities at least within a 2-3 minute walk of the start location.  The club will pay costs for building hire if required.

Contact the Mapper - who will provide you with a blank map of the area.

Permissions for land use - You also need to identify any pockets of private land you want to use and approach the land owners for permission for the date of your rogaine and any planning.  For council or regional council owned land the coordinator will arrange permits but will need a blank map to show them the boundaries, all parks/reserves included, a start location and any other info that may be relevant to a health and safety plan.  Be aware councils may put a caveat on some areas such as new tree planting and it may need to be marked out of bounds.  

Condes Software
We using the Condes software which allows YOU to position the circles on the map instead of the Mapping Officer needing to do it every time. 

For details of how to use and install Condes, click here.

The planning process is an iterative process where you will send the course file back and forward to the Mapper. This is the file Condes makes, it has an extension .wcd.

The club will supply  ribbons for your event and you can get these from the coordinator or you can get them yourself and claim costs back from the treasurer(see below).  Just keep the receipts.  Petes emporium is often a reliable source.
See below for notes on planning a good rogaine below. 

Provide  the Rogaine Coordinator any points of interest to advertise the event, and any deviations from the norm. 
If the area is rugged and weather could be bad consider repeating the recommended gear list in your blurb.
The Coordinator will market the rogaine via the orienteering.org.nz, email to the previous participants database, and posting to Facebook.

It pays to line up a crew of about 4 people to help you on the night for registration and checking people in as well as pizza collection.  If you have any difficulty with this please let the coordinator know and we can put the word out on facebook for helpers.  Tell your rogaining friends it is good karma to give up participating in one rogaine to help out for the greater rogaining good. ;-)

Finalise the map corrections with the Mapping Officer (MO) and send your latest Condes file. Based on this the MO will produce a layout version of the map with border and legend etc. By switching this into Condes you can see how the map is going to look. Re-visit the Condes guide at this stage and read the second half. The MO will look after printing. Give the MO the event contact number too, for putting on the map.

Talk to the local Dominos or Pizza Hut about your pizza order and make sure they can handle an order of around 70 pizzas on rogaine night.  BOth now charge per pizza for delivery rather than one flat delivery fee and are not interested in negotiating on this.  Unfortunately this means you will need a helper who can go and pick them up.

Close of Registrations

Registrations usually close 3 days prior to the event (may need to be earlier for Mon/Tue dates).

The Rogaine Coordinator will close registrations and export a spreadsheet of participants and tell the Mapping Officer how many maps need printing. THey will also advise you of how many pizzas to order for the night.  They will print off this spreadsheet and bring it to the event in case of emergency as well as send you an electronic copy as a back up.
Question/clue  Sheet: You need to create this eg in Word, and provide the file to the Mapping Officer with your Condes file to print on the back of the map. See template. It needs to fit on one page, with a large sized font for reading at night. Ensure your contact cell phone number on the night is on it. 
The Rogaine Coordinator is going to provide team answer sheets with the team names on them, sorted into start waves (3hr and 90min) and within that into alphabetical order of team name. And some alphabetical bins to put them in. 
The MO is going to arrange for the maps  to get to the event. 

For a 6pm start, arrive by 5pm. The Rogaine Coordinator and Mapping Officer will work to this time for bringing the team answer sheets, bins and maps. The Rogaine Coordinator will also bring two score boards (3hr, 90min) filled in with team names and high vis vests for your team. THey will also bring the list of teams and contact numbers, but normally you wont need to refer to it.
It helps if you wear something distinguishing – so you are the obvious person to come to, ask questions of etc, but for the regulars it should be a self-service operation.
Teams can pick up their answer sheet from the bins when they arrive.  At 5:15pm make the maps available.  Teams then pick up the number of maps they need. If there is a later wave of starts, follow a similar process.

The busiest time - this is at least a two to three person job.

You need to have an obvious finish point. Again try and make yourself distinguishable in the fluoro vests as there will be a crowd. Turn on your hazard warning lights for example.
As teams come in, ask for "Team Name?" and write the time against the team name on the score board. Send them away to calculate their scores. Keep the finish point clear until 5 minutes past the time. (You need to be absolutely sure who is back and who is not - this is where two people are necessary.)

Thankfully we have stopped recording the seconds, just hour and minutes is enough, and faster to record in the inevitable rush. DO NOT enter into any discussion about a hard-to-find control, tell them to write "claim" for the answer or come back to you later at least 10 mins after finish time to discuss. Provide them somewhere to hand in their completed sheets.  It is ideal if you can record their scores as they hand in their sheets or have someone assigned to this as teams like to see how their scores compare.  It also takes the pressure off you to get the scoring out after the event if you can photograph the boards and we can post the photos as provisional results.

Within 10 mins of finish time the rush will have died down, scan the score board for anyone not back yet. Check your phone for text and/or phone messages. If a team is late back without a message, you want to know ASAP. Certainly before everyone goes home and you've lost the chance to ask for any sightings and recruit search volunteers.
Search and Rescue - hopefully not. But if required you would fish out your list of teams and contact numbers, and try phoning them.
Tidy up rubbish – suggest teams take an empty pizza box away with them and recycle them- you've done all the rest of the work!