AS the dust settles, lessons learnt from last year’s Challenge Forster Triathlon has meant not a single official complaint has been received by the event’s organisers or Great Lakes Council.
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Council estimates just under half a million dollars would have been spent in the area by participants across the two-day event. Numbers were down from those expected, with approximately 1000 competitors taking part. Under 600 tri-athletes participated in the main race on the Sunday morning.
Organiser Mark Emerton said numbers this year were lower than expected for various reasons including a plethora of other events on around the same time and the fact last year’s event was “admittedly a nightmare”.
Mr Emerton was grateful for the community consultation process in the lead up to this year’s event, which led to the main race changing course and time.
“This year’s event was 200 per cent on last year’s,” he said, praising the 200-plus volunteers from across the community without whom they could not hold the triathlon.
Forster local Ted Bickford was one of this year’s volunteers, and helped find an eight extra volunteers at the last minute. He was, however, disappointed with the lack of communication between the event’s organisers and the volunteers.
Organiser Mr Emerton reflected that they might not talk to volunteers in the busy lead up as often as volunteers would like. He added that his ‘community volunteer’ coordinator had left to have a baby three weeks prior to the Challenge, leaving someone to step into her role.
Pacific Palms resident David Shaw said that despite the repeated assurances from both the Great Lakes Council and organisers, there had been no letterbox drops to any Pacific Palms residents about the road closures. But Great Lakes Council’s director of engineering services Ron Hartley said that 10 000 letters had been contracted to go into letterboxes in the 2428 postcode.
Mr Shaw also questioned the legitimacy of closing major roads for an event that attracted under 600 participants.
Mr Emerton said that he would like to see the Challenge Forster Triathlon grow by potentially moving it to a quieter September, subject to discussions with council.
Until then, his parting donation to the Pacific Palms community for junior sport development has been gratefully received. However, as expressed in a letter to the editor in the Great Lakes Advocate last week, Green Point, which is also affected by the triathlon, is wondering when they too might get a small slice of the profits.
Mr Emerton responded to the query by praising Pacific Palms’ high level of involvement in planning and executing this year’s event.