Lost property: size 3F Clarks baby shoe, soft brown leather – contact us to claim
Phew! What a scorcher – the car dashboard showed 22 degrees as we drove away at 3pm so congrats to everyone for not succumbing to heat exhaustion although there may be one or two tingly noses this evening?
Thanks to Gen for giving us a twirl around different parts of the area for a change, the Austs for controlling and Jayne and her team for registration and computing as seamlessly as ever. Did you try a cake from Laura’s stall in aid of Guide Dogs for the Blind? Yummy! MAROC have got some serious competition there I reckon.
Congratulations to both Carolyn McLeod W45 and Sasha Chepelin M16 who won Scottish Sprint Champion status at St Andrews Uni Campus over the weekend. Katrina was also on the podium, 2nd equal in W18, having kept up the McLeod family tradition of racing each other over the same courses and beating Mum by 55 seconds.
Please accept the Planner’s apologies for the mix-up with the control descriptions on the Green course. The last minute change of venue forced some rather rapid planning and checking and somewhere along the line a previous version of the course was used to produce the loose control descriptions.
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It has been decided to void legs 2 (225 to 158), and 3 (158 to 139) on Green, and to reinstate anyone who went to 163 instead of 158. Once again, apologies to anyone affected.
Congratulations to all GJOs who took part in this year’s Jon Duncan Junior Deeside Cup and here are the Final Results. Usually, we present the trophies at the GRAMP and MAROC AGMs so if your name is on one then a special congratulations and GJOs please come to collect your trophy on Saturday 8th Dec.
The Jon Duncan Junior Deeside Cup is named after an honorary GRAMP and ex-British Team member, Jon Duncan, who is now enjoying semi-retirement from the international orienteering scene growing beetroot in Norway. (Honest!)
Team GRAMP came third in the CompassSport Cup competition today, 59 points behind arch rivals (and friends) MAROC who in turn lost to ESOC by a mere 11 points. Congratulations to ESOC who now go through to the final in September.
Thanks to everyone who heeded the clarion call and turned out for the club, especially Foss and Erik who got up at 5:30 this morning for the 284-mile round trip!
Well done to Felix Späth, a very recent new member, and Sasha for gaining the maximum points for their respective classes and all the other GRAMPs who backed them up (a full list and course results etc is available here) not least Keith Yardley and Lachlan Kirk who kept their heads and put in solid performances against the MAROC M14- runners. Some of us plodded too slowly to make a mark, others blew up mid-course, some picked up the wrong map and some just couldn’t make it on the day but even taking all that into account I still don’t think we could have matched ESOC’s performance had everything gone according to plan.
Thanks also to Evgueni for chauffering the minibus and accomodating Pete’s demands for a later departure so he could have a few more minutes in bed (Foss and Erik were not impressed by such lack of moral fibre) and also to the Gomersalls for providing top notch tea/cake/blethering venue after the event.
Telegramp has been mothballed indefinitely. In the meantime, feel free to send adverts for/reports on events, thoughts/opinions, photos, big birthdays or other things to celebrate to Rachel to put on the web instead webmaster@grampoc.com or to Sally Lindsay for Score (contact her via the SOA website). Ta in advance!
Click here to jump through to the DNC blog to see who won what lavish prizes for the 2011/12 DNC and the overall results. Most nights saw frantic competition in relatively mild conditions compared to last year’s snowy epics – (although I think some folk secretly miss the buzz of floundering through deep drifts with their torchlight bouncing off and their breath hanging in illuminated clouds in front of their face – atmospheric yes but rubbish for trying to navigate and run quickly!)
Congratulations to all our 2011 Champs and especially to Naomi Lang (W12) and Mark Stockton (M21) who earned Most Improved Junior and Senior Awards respectively.
GRAMP Champs Final Rankings 2011 in pdf by age class and by weighting (to compare results across age classes)
The 2011 CHAMPS file in xls showing each event’s results in case you want to do some more analysis.
Congratulations to Ian H and Gen J on coming 2nd on the Long and Short courses respectively. The Langs and Barracloughs were also out in force on the Short course and Bob Daly was seen in racing mode on the Long trying to dash round on what little snow was left by the end of the afternoon before the Nordic Ski Club collected in the controls.
Here are the results – slightly different from what was announced on the day but as far as I can make out the only damage done is one or two folk gaining more chocolate than was really good for them. Thanks to Katrina and the rest of the McLeod clan for planning and hosting.
SplitsSimple results and notes. Glad to see Ewen practically did the Bike O section (as opposed to impractically which would presumably mean by unicycle?) but dismayed to see that Carolyn won the Short Bi-O course on foot alone!! (Although maybe she should be DSQed as she didn’t wear a helmet or have to figure out how to carry her Emit brikke and steer at the same time?)
Thanks to Dave and family for cheerfully manning a somewhat chilly registration/transition while the rest of us had great fun battling through ice-encrusted puddles and braving death-defying descents on our bikes before taking off on wobbly legs for the Foot O section where more than one experienced orienteer was caught out by the control on the top of a big crag. Dagnabbit!
Did you enjoy it? Should we try more Bike O events? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Well done to 3 GRAMPS who won Scottish Score Championship status at Stirling today (27/11/11) – Tim Griffin M45, Dave Armitage M60 and Katrina McLeod W18. Also to Sam Gomersall M50 who came second behind Martin Dean (which is as good as winning in my book as the area is Martin’s back yard!!) 😉
The ingenious trade-off between fast grass and tarmac around the University Campus coupled with the steeper rougher terrain to the north made it quite difficult to judge how long you thought you’d take in each area and to decide whether to do the Campus loop first with fresh legs or to leave it to last to stagger through on the way to the Finish. Another nice touch, that caught many folk out, was the inclusion of several of the highest scoring controls very close to the Start/Finish rather than in the furthest corners of the map as is often the case. Those that took a moment to read the instructions and map carefully before pegging off were rewarded with some unexpected easy hits – good for the confidence and ego!
Full results can be found on the FVO website.
Laura Smith, Isobel Anderson and Maya Reynard who packed out the top three places in W8 – looks so good when it says GRAMP, GRAMP, GRAMP!
Also Ailsa Anderson and Josie Gomersall for 1st and 2nd in W10, Naomi Lang and Kate Wilkinson 3rd in W12 and W14 respectively. The boys struggled a bit this year but well done to Patrick Lang, Keith Yardley and Jack Gomersall who all came 3rd in M8, M12 and M16 respectively and Sasha Chepelin who cruised to 1st place in M14.
And everyone who took part in this year’s (JD)2C – even if you didn’t get into the top three places hopefully you enjoyed the friendly competition with Maroc and the chance to run in some great areas in Deeside.
Kate and Rob Wilkinson, Naomi Lang, Laura Barraclough and Sasha Chepelin were all picked to run for the North Area Team (GRAMP, MAROC, MOR, BASOC, INVOC) at the Junior Inter-Area Competition down in the borders 29th/30th October.
North Area Team came 2nd overall after Saturday’s Relays and Sunday’s Individual results were added into the mix. Well done guys!
BOF age classes explained Seniors: M/W21, M/W35, M/W40, M/W45, M/W50, M/W55, M/W60, M/W65, M/W70, M/W75, M/W80 Your age class is dictated by the age that you will be on 31st December of the current year. E.g. I will be 46 this year so fall into the M/W45 age class for the whole year 1st Jan to 31st Dec. On Jan 1st of the year I turn 50, regardless of when my birthday is, I then become M/W50.
Juniors: M/W10, M/W12, M/W14, M/W16, M/W18, M/W20 Same idea as above except it’s anyone that age or younger by Dec 31st of the current year.
Jargon Buster
Try this A-Z Jargon Buster on the SOA website and if you still don’t get it then ask one of the club old timers to explain.
TIP: It’s a lot to take in all in one go, so concentrate on the 4th column first and make sure you can recognise the symbols for the most commonly used features: path, track, wall, fence, stream, boulder, re-entrant (think small valley), crag/cliff, vegetation boundary, distinctive tree, manmade object (aka prominent feature)
There are are also a handful of extra symbols specifically for urban maps such as steps, hedges and flower beds.
The other columns on the control descriptions add more detail to the basic description such as which feature if there are more than one in the control circle on the map – e.g. No 6 is north western most boulder of at least two – and also which side or part of the feature to help you locate the control – e.g. No 4 south side of a fence corner or No 7 upper part of a large re-entrant.
Organiser’s Manual has a wealth of tips and advice for novice Organisers and the checklist is an invaluable summary of the most important aspects of organising guaranteed to help even the most experienced. Organisers’ Manual (Feb 2025) Organisers Checklist (Feb 2025)
Equipment is stored at Jonathan Smith’s house, Colthill (off Countesswells Road) : www.what3words.com/healthier.hero.tidy
Please contact Jonathan in advance regarding pick-up and drop-off using this contact form.
Example flyer for Regional event: Example Flyer
Remove/add/amend details as required for your event
Course entry stubs: Course stubs for entry on the day at Regional events
There should be loads of these already in Organisers’ box but check and top up as required. Your planner will tell you which colour courses will be on offer. SOLs have additional Short versions of Green/Blue/Brown and a Black course.
For each competitor please tell us: your Name and chosen Course.
Also, if you’re a member of an orienteering club, tell us the Club and your British Orienteering membership number (if you have it handy, otherwise we can search on our archive). We ask for your email address too, which will only be used in case we need to contact you with any queries. (n.b. This information will only be retained until the event, after which it will all be deleted.)
SI controls – as of June 2020
Total of 65 controls 181 to 245 incl on lightweight fibre-glass stakes
2 Start and 2 Finish
For the summer series, night series (and other level D events) we usually use a subset of these numbers and the controls plus some signs and first aid kit are passed from planner to planner. It is traditional that you help collect controls from the event before yours, or if you won’t be there to ask someone else to help on your behalf.
Ask David Esson for the current set of control numbers in use for Level D events and if you think you’ll need more then he will arrange extras to be made available.
GRAMP Ocad maps
Contact the mapping co-ordinator to make sure you have the most up to date version. NB The old Yahoo Group account is no longer used and we’ve swapped to Dropbox.
Minor map corrections can be made by the club using OCAD software on the club’s latop (aka Maptop) or mark up a paper copy and send to the mapping coordinator who will do it for you. Contact the mapping coordinator for advice using this contact form or emailing mapping “at” grampoc.com
Course planning Planners Guide (updated Feb 2025) Aimed at Level C/Regional events but also has some good tips for Level D events and printing contact details.
Check the BOF website – search for “Appendix B” – for full guidance on course lengths and standards and more planning advice.
Condes planning software Check the Condes website for up to date guides and downloads. Gramp has a licence for Condes and David Esson can supply you with the club’s username and password for installing and running the full bells and whistle version.
Purple Pen planning software
This software is free to use and can be downloaded from the Purple Pen website. It is easy to learn, intuitive to use, and is recommended for small events where you do not need the sophisticated options provided by Condes.
Firstly, I would like to offer a wholehearted apology for the error that caused us to void the relay result and, by consequence, the overall Veterans Home International 2011 event. Quite simply, we made a labelling error for the all of the 2 Women + 1 Man category courses, i.e. on 4 of the 8 Courses. This resulted in competitors being given the wrong length courses for their legs, which meant that many senior veterans were sent out on much longer courses than anticipated, which after their efforts to conquer Birsemore Hill yesterday was, I’m sure, less than welcome. There was also confusion for later leg runners, who also had to run out of class and, no doubt, a severe feeling of let-down. The fact that this problem was greeted with such grace, forbearance and, amazingly, sympathy from competitors was truly humbling. I can’t say how grateful we all are for your responses, especially as I know of the long lengths many people went to to come and represent their country.
Following consultation, the Team Managers agreed that the preferred option was to not to attempt to declare a result on the basis of the remaining classes and as a result, there are no 2011 Relay, Overall or Stonewall Trophy Winners. It was felt that the extent of the voided courses was such that any result would not be fair. If the courses voided had crossed both categories, there may have been a case for declaring a result.
We will publish the results of the ‘valid’ relay courses and attempt to reconstruct the splits of those who ran on the wrong course so that we can provide a set of results by gaffle.
I hope you all enjoyed the Individual Event, narrowly won by England, the social evening in Ballater, that the problems on the Relay did not ruin your weekend and that at least some of you enjoyed running around what is a beautiful forest on courses that attracted praise from the competitors.
I’d like to record my thanks to all of the Team from Grampian and Mar Orienteering clubs that put the events together for their hard work and commitment as well as the landowners and the staff at the Lodge on the Loch.
Once again, please accept my apologies and I wish you all luck if you are selected next year.
Regards,
Pete Lawrence
2011 Veterans Home International Coordinator
We decided to experiment this year by keeping the regular Wednesday pm slot going through the autumn by using some of our urban maps. Not quite as popular as the Summer Series but we still had a regular core of runners including some of our Cosmic friends who, although being more used to running flat out over the hills, still seemed to really enjoy the extra dimension of getting their heads around such detailed maps.
A big thankyou to all our organiser/planners for helping to put on another cracking Summer Series.
Overall results and awards files below plus individual event files in no particular order.
GRAMP organised 3 out of the 6 Summer Forest Sprint Series 2011. Results from our events shown here – the Tollo Hill results are/were with the rest on the Maroc website for reasons I’ve forgotten now.
Sprint O is great fun – lots of controls in quick succession in a relatively short distance and fast running alone is no use in this discipline if it’s of the headless chicken variety! You really have to look closely at the map, make snap decisions about route choice, execute them quickly and cleanly while all the time trying to read a jiggling map and watch where your feet are going. Give it a go.
Do not be alarmed by the amazingly quick winning times on some of the longer courses – there was a bit of a hiccup at this event as some courses had to be truncated/rerouted on the day to avoid various slumbering ravers and their detritus.
GRAMPIAN ORIENTEERS 
