The Schulstaad Waltz has been well and truly danced, the competitors have all gone home and the setters now have the opportunity to sit and, all be it briefly, discuss what has just taken place.

I discussed setting this event with my partner Geoff Hearne at the State Championships last year. I then asked Paul if he would also like to set the event, then finally Steve Sertis joined us. They all agreed and the Schulstaad Waltz was underway. I suggested using a site that was close to the city in an area where the features were not too easily read, day or night. We decided to use a previously-used site to save time and hopefully speed up the application process. Our chosen site had been previously used for the Silvery Moon Rogaine in 2005 and Metrological in 2007.

We (Paul, Geoff, Steve and myself) spent several months planning the event and were eager to get going so once permission was granted we were off and running. We spent most of June and July setting and vetting the map and making some minor changes like adding a soup kitchen. My suggestion was initially met with some uncertainty. However I persisted and it was added to the map. Now all we needed was to organise a marquee for the soup kitchen. That was easy - I had a 6 x 3 we could use and Steve would order some extra soup and bread rolls, so no problems. I asked Geoff Monk and Ron Lockley if they would be willing to run the soup kitchen and they agreed, so we were all done, great!

With the event also being the 2012 Australian University Championships, I contacted all the various state Rogaining Associations and asked for them to forward details of the competitors they were sending over so that an on-site marquee could be arranged and transport to and from the city to the Rogaine site incorporating an airport pickup North Beach Max i Char ters were  contracted for this and I was extremely happy when Drew (driver) arrived at the Rogaine site with a full compliment of competitors. Nobody missed the bus - great we were ready to go.

The Friday evening sausage sizzle around the campfire extended late into the night and was once again enjoyed by many Rogainers, old and young.

The event started on time and with beautiful weather we were expecting a lovely evening driving the patrol roads and checking the water drops. How wrong were we? The afternoon was lovely, sunshine with clouds drifting through and many casual rogainers did very well picking up many controls. Then, after about 6.30 pm, all hell broke loose. The weather took a change for the worse and it rained continuously throughout the night. We met many people out on the track, all very wet and very cold but determined to do well so they courageously kept going. We visited the soup kitchen several times through the night and to my amazement there was always 2 – 3 teams there enjoying a warm cup of soup.

Geoff told me later that 80 people took advantage of the soup kitchen that was open for 8 hours from 4 pm to midnight so the numbers were really quite good.

There were several teams that did not finish the event due to injury and three of these were genuine topten material. The setters felt for these guys and girls as all had completed large sections of their maps before injury forced them to withdraw from the event. Thankfully the rain cleared in the morning and made reading the event results and packing up easier than it could have been.

The Setters and Vetters would like to thank the following people for the part they played in making The Schulstaad Waltz the success it truely was - Hash House leader and crew, Soup Kitchen crew, Admin leader and crew, First Aid, Safety Officer, Truck Driver and last but not least all the people who, after doing the event, went back out and collected controls for us, thank you so much! We really appreciated all the work done over the weekend by all the volunteers - a great bunch of people.

A special thanks go to team 121M, a novice team who just missed out on winning the first novice position. Unlucky guys! But a huge thank you from this Setter for the return of the missing IPhone, well done Andrew, Steve & Ashley.

In closing we would like to congratulate all the category winners and look forward to seeing you all at the next event.

Bill Baxter (with help from Geoff Hearne, Paul XYZ, Steve Sertis)