Over the past few events Admin has noted that a number of control cards have been handed in where the team number is illegible. After some investigation, the reason why some control cards with a lot of punches come in moderately clean while other with only a few punches are unreadable was discovered. The answer appears to be simple - those cards that are folded with the printing on the inside are legible while those folded with the printing on the outside cannot be read after even a short rogaine.

 

The control card has been designed so that it can be folded into quarters, with the fold lines falling between the squares. Everyone is folding the cards along these lines, so no problems there. The team number is printed on a label which is attached to the control card - the printing is done on a laser printer which is obviously not as resistant to weather and to rubbing as the control card itself, and hence is affected when folded on the outside.

 

So, when folding the control card, please do so with the printing on the inside. This will also prevent the accidental mistake of punching a control through both side of the control card if still folded - don’t laugh, this is a problem that has been picked up several times by Admin, and it means that not only have you punched the correct control, but the square directly opposite when folded is also punched - a big problem if you visit or have already visited that control - you will end up losing points over it. This cannot happen if the printing is folded to the inside as the control card has to be totally unfolded to punch but will happen if the card is folded with the printing on the outside and the card is not completely unfolded when punching.