Well done to all those Gramps who braved the good, the bad and the downright ugly (weather in case you were wondering what I’m referring to) during this season’s DNC, not least those who definitely deserve their 50 points for stepping up to plan Gramp’s side of the series.
Samantha McDonald was the leading Gramp on the Long course steadily racking up her total to finish 3rd female and 7th overall, narrowly beating Ian Hamilton by just 2 points.
On the Short course, David Esson was 3rd male, 4th overall and delighted to regain his title as Mr Consistent by finishing 16/16 events while Ros Nicholson finished 2nd female and 7th overall, again pipping fellow Gramp, Adrian Will, by just a few points.
The following is a quick read summary of the AGM held in January. A copy of the full AGM minutes was attached to Zoe’s last Gramp Gossip this month before handing over the secretarial reins to Fiona. Many thanks for all your hard work over the years collating and circulating info and organising the club’s 50th anniversary dinner amongst other things, Zoe.
Congratulations to those who won club champs trophies this year. Those that didn’t receive their trophies/prizes at the AGM should contact David Esson.
Junior Men
Junior Women
1st Fergus Gallagher
1st Samantha McDonald
2nd Cato Stockton
2nd Joanna McDonald
3rd Hannah Will
Senior Men
Senior Women
1st Ian Morrison
2nd Matthew Thompson
3rd Matthew Humphries
Veteran Men
Veteran Women
1st Julian Robinson
1st Fiona McDonald
2nd Adrian Will
2nd Claire Gallagher
3rd David Esson
3rd Sarah Wallace
Super Veteran Men
Super Veteran Women
1st Ian Hamilton
1st Oonagh Grassie
2nd Neil McLean
2nd Laura Farquharson
3rd Bob Daly
3rd Lesley Gomersall
The Chairman’s Quaich was awarded to Ian Hamilton for his outstanding service to the club, being a main official on committee for circa 15 years and ever the professional who gets on with the job with no fuss. Many, many thanks for everything you have done for the club, Ian.
And many thanks to David Esson too for carrying out both Chairman’s and SI/computing duties over the last few years with equal (laid-back) professionalism, coping with the Covid years and personal health issues but still ploughing on determinedly to get both club and himself back up and running.
Chairman’s AGM Report 2024
34 events – up from 29 in 2023. We are a healthy club, even though we have significant challenges in particular the lack of areas due to the Storms. At the moment we only have 3 areas which are big enough for a full colour coded and Glen Dye is currently embargoed for the Scottish 6 Days. Open day at newly remapped Aden Country Park, quite a few members made the journey and enjoyed themselves between the wintry showers.
During the year we produced a club survey which many members filled in. Thank you to all. Very useful information for the new committee to work on but generally people love having the Wednesday events throughout the year, but also would love more Sunday events. So we’re thinking of doing some local Sunday events at areas like Aden and Haddo and make it very much a social day out too. Look out for these this year.
Throughout the year, we did emphasise that the 3 main committee members were standing down at the end of this year. May I first of all say thank you to the people who have put their names forward. It is very much appreciated. The reason why I started asking so far in advance was I was concerned that if no one would come forward, it might have spelt a bad ending for the club, which would have been a great shame as we are a strong club in many other aspects. But if the proposed changes come to fruition, the committee and club will grow in numbers and therefore strength.
Other than the usual elections and Treasurer’s report, a couple of things were discussed at the AGM regarding identifying suitable areas to map to replace the areas we’ve lost and getting funding to cover professional mappers’ fees as these do not qualify for community grants.
2024 Successes Scottish O Champs – 1st Kevin Reynard M55S, Neil McLean M80, Claire Gallagher W45S, Joanna McDonald Yellow 2nd Paul Duley M70L
Scottish Relay Champs 17+ category 5th Tim Griffin, Claire Gallagher, Sam Gomersall 8th Malcolm Fisher, Lesley Gomersall, Kevin Reynard 20+ category 20th David Esson, Adrian Will, Bob Daly
Scottish Urban Orienteering League No podium finishers from GRAMP although Laura Farquharson was 6th Supervet after attending nearly all the SOULs and several others managed a few races each over the year with good results which, if combined, may have resulted in a podium place 😉 We’re hoping to get funds to map an urban area and be able to offer to host a SOUL in 2025/6. Watch this space….
British Relay Champs Mixed – 3rd Lesley Gomersall, Sam Gomersall, Mike Greenwood
Looking ahead
Forest Sprint/Summer Series/Local Sunday events/ 6 Days on Deeside
On behalf of the club a massive “Thank you!” to David, Zoe and Ian who bowed out at the AGM after many years of service between them on the committee. Zoe did tot it all up a while back and I’ve forgotten the exact figure but it would have earned at least a gold clock presented by the MD if it were years of service in a company! So definitely time for a change…
Tim Griffin – Chairman Fiona McDonald – Secretary Adrian Will – Treasurer Fixtures – Paul Duley
If you want to see a full list of committee members/roles and who else does what for the club then check out the ‘Committee and contacts’ page. It goes without saying that offers of assistance and ideas are more than welcome from anyone at any time.
Dates for next year’s GMC have been announced: 11th & 12th October As always the venue is a closely guarded secret for now so check back here in the summer for details, entries links, kit lists etc etc.
In the meantime, GMC organiser Dave Kirk has been in touch with WIM and WSX orienteers who have set up the Purbeck Hill Challenge, a one day trail/orienteering race closely based on the GMC idea of mixing up scales and terrain to give that interesting navigational twist. This will be held 15/2/25 near Swanage so if you’re likely to be down south in that area around that time then they’d love to see you. Entries open now at Early Bird rates, due to increase slightly 1st Jan, with a cap of 100 entries.
(BTW, one of the main people involved with the PHC is one Rob Mills who used to be a GRAMP member many moons ago.)
Results RouteGadget Many thanks to Tim for planning and to Ian for collecting
Night O Safety With orienteering at night comes some added enjoyment (for most) but also some additional hazards, we all need to be aware of and mitigate against as best we can. What if our headtorch fails? What happens if we injure ourself? What if, what if?
Hopefully, we’re not teaching anyone to suck eggs here but it is worth reminding ourselves that if something does happen and we are not prepared, then others may be inconvenienced or worse, because of this. So, a few items that we should all seriously consider carrying with us on our run – some should not really be for discussion!
– Primary headtorch (obvious!) – Compass (obvious!) – Spare headtorch or equivalent light source (essential)* – Whistle (essential) – Mobile phone – the organiser/planner’s number is on the map for a reason!
* NOTE: Spare battery for your main headtorch, is not a replacement for a separate spare torch, as it could be more than your battery that has runout/failed.
It is colder at night, so consider what you wear. What if you did injury yourself or maybe just weren’t up to feeling running at your usual speed – you will become cold very quickly if you are not running or going at your usual speed. We do night O through the winter, so keep that in mind and maybe take a bumbag with extra clothing.
If you are new to night orienteering be aware it may take you longer than ‘normal’ – much longer for some. Also, if you are not at TD5 level, you really should be doing this in the daylight before taking on night orienteering as the Deeside Night Cup (long) and the mini-cup (short) is planned with NO dispensation for it being dark. Maybe you are at TD5 level but never night O’d before – speak to someone about a shadowed run. Use the club member email to put a message round that you’d appreciate some mentoring and which DNC events you plan to attend and someone will respond.
Safety – A risk assessment will have been carried out by the organiser, but participants take part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety during the event. We’ll be sharing parks/streets/woods with others so be courteous to other users and watch out for bikes/dogs/horseriders.
Health – Full leg and torso cover is required in wooded areas due to ticks.
Privacy – when entering our events your name may appear in the results section of this website or in newspaper reports. Grampian Orienteers data privacy policy
Photography – In line with the policies of British Orienteering, the organisers of this event request that any person wishing to take photos or video showing children should register their details with event volunteers before taking any such photos or videos. The event organisers reserve the right to ask people to refrain from taking photos or video and may, if such warnings are ignored, refer the matter to the police.
Due to member of public moving a control we have removed control 234 and the legs on either side from the results. Many thanks to Paul for planning, and to Tim for helping collect controls.
To celebrate the start of a new year we had a fun event setup at Hazlehead Park, with a Social party afterwards. Thanks to everyone who came out to enjoy the snowy courses, David for organising and Gomersalls for being soup monitors.
Many thanks to Ros for planning and Hugh and David for control collecting/controlling. No 4 on the long was inspected last night and found to be in the correct place so the legs 3-4-5 have been reinstated in the results and used for RG.
Congratulations to all our Gramp Juniors who competed in this year’s Jon Duncan Junior Deeside Cup and especially to our 2 trophy winners, Fergus Gallagher M12 and Samantha McDonald W16.
The organisers decided to declare the results as final following the Bogendreip event as the tenth event at Cambus O’May was too close to Maroc’s AGM for getting trophies engraved.
Lovely frosty night for orienteering at Dunnottar Woods tonight. Well done to first time planner Sam Pickett and to Ros, Hugh and David E for helping collect controls afterwards
Come this Saturday and enjoy the brand new Permanent Orienteering Courses on a brand new map at Aden Country Park. The Gramp coaches will be there to offer advice/help for any who wish.
There are two recommended permanent orienteering courses in Aden, a short course which is approximately 1.8km in length, and a long course which is approximately 2.9km in length. You can also create your own courses, by visiting the controls in a different order, or only visiting a selection of the controls. From 10am to 2pm and last start is 1pm.
Many thanks to Dave K for planning and to Sam P & David E for helping collect controls afterwards. Lovely dry, still, partially moonlit night tonight – perfect for enjoying the devilishly detailed dunes.
Thanks also to Beachside Bakes for staying open late providing great coffee and cakes for hungry orienteers. If you missed out but are likely to be in the Balmedie area again soon then keep an eye on their Facebook page for opening hours as they said they’ll be open most Saturdays and Sundays if it’s dry for Christmassy bakes and gifts. Mmmmmm!
Many thanks to Adrian for organising, Bob for Planning, Andy Oliver (MAROC) for controlling in advance and to David & Ian for controlling on the day!
Privacy – when entering our events your name may appear in the results section of this website or in newspaper reports. Grampian Orienteers data privacy policy
Photography – In line with the policies of British Orienteering, the organisers of this event request that any person wishing to take photos or video showing children should register their details with event volunteers before taking any such photos or videos. The event organisers reserve the right to ask people to refrain from taking photos or video and may, if such warnings are ignored, refer the matter to the police.
Results RouteGadget (there’s a building and uncrossable fencing missing in the NW corner on RG as I haven’t got a copy of the updated map but wanted to get this up and running tonight)
Many thanks to Julian for planning, Dennis & Hugh for helping collect controls and to Agnes and David for acting as Bouncer to one of the controls. Good to see the AUOC ‘flashmob’ – welcome (or welcome back) to Aberdeen! Hope you enjoyed it and feel inspired to try some more O with us soon.
P.S. Deeside Night Cup starts Wed 30th Oct at Hazlehead followed by Maroc’s event at Banchory on 6th Nov, then every Wed alternately right through to Feb. Check the DNC page for general details on this series and individual posts for each event on either Gramp or Maroc’s websites.
Results RouteGadget – georef’ing glitched such that it’s impossible to match all control sites accurately to the map so had to compromise some in order to get the majority showing in more or less the right place
Many thanks to David Esson for planning and Fiona, Dennis and Samantha for helping collect the controls
Thanks to Tim for braving the torrential rain at the most inconvenient time when he was putting out the controls, David for computing and control collecting assisted by Rachel and Pete.
Safety – A risk assessment will have been carried out by the organiser, but participants take part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety during the event. We’ll be sharing parks/streets/woods with others so be courteous to other users and watch out for bikes/dogs/horseriders.
Health – Full leg and torso cover is required in wooded areas due to ticks.
Privacy – when entering our events your name may appear in the results section of this website or in newspaper reports. Grampian Orienteers data privacy policy
Photography – In line with the policies of British Orienteering, the organisers of this event request that any person wishing to take photos or video showing children should register their details with event volunteers before taking any such photos or videos. The event organisers reserve the right to ask people to refrain from taking photos or video and may, if such warnings are ignored, refer the matter to the police.
Results (updated 22/8/24) RouteGadget – you can find out how close to optimum route you were Apologies but I couldn’t get the map to load with the georef file produced by Condes but wanted to get something loaded asap for you to play with so you’ll have to tweak your trace manually. BTW, RG now up for the last few Summer Series events too
Short – 3.0km (optimum route), 20m, 11 controls Long – 5.0km (optimum route), 35m, 15 controls
Thankyou to Donald and Oonagh Grassie for kicking off the Urban Sprints on a blustery evening, David for computing and control collecting and thanks to everyone who came out to run (twice in one case – lesson learned, check you’ve got the right map).
P.S. RouteGadget also loaded for recent events at Foggieton, Glen Dye and Duthie Park
Safety – A risk assessment will have been carried out by the organiser, but participants take part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety during the event. We’ll be sharing parks/streets/woods with others so be courteous to other users and watch out for bikes/dogs/horseriders.
Health – Full leg and torso cover is required in wooded areas due to ticks.
Privacy – when entering our events your name may appear in the results section of this website or in newspaper reports. Grampian Orienteers data privacy policy
Photography – In line with the policies of British Orienteering, the organisers of this event request that any person wishing to take photos or video showing children should register their details with event volunteers before taking any such photos or videos. The event organisers reserve the right to ask people to refrain from taking photos or video and may, if such warnings are ignored, refer the matter to the police.
Yellow-ish: 1.3km, 1:4000 map Long “lotsa loops”: 2.7km, 1:4000 map
And, for something slightly different, we had “UltraSprints”:
3 loops (do as many or as few as you like, and please be prepared to recycle maps if everyone wants a go), each between 0.8 and 1.1km. The map is 1:4000, enlarged to 1:2000.
Do a loop, catch your breath as you download, clear your dibber and repeat….
Safety – A risk assessment will have been carried out by the organiser, but participants take part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety during the event. We’ll be sharing parks/streets/woods with others so be courteous to other users and watch out for bikes/dogs/horseriders.
Health – Full leg and torso cover is required in wooded areas due to ticks.
Privacy – when entering our events your name may appear in the results section of this website or in newspaper reports. Grampian Orienteers data privacy policy
Photography – In line with the policies of British Orienteering, the organisers of this event request that any person wishing to take photos or video showing children should register their details with event volunteers before taking any such photos or videos. The event organisers reserve the right to ask people to refrain from taking photos or video and may, if such warnings are ignored, refer the matter to the police.
Many thanks to Adrian for planning and to Ros, Hugh and David for helping collect controls.
Safety – A risk assessment will have been carried out by the organiser, but participants take part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety during the event. We’ll be sharing parks/streets/woods with others so be courteous to other users and watch out for bikes/dogs/horseriders.
Health – Full leg and torso cover is required in wooded areas due to ticks.
Privacy – when entering our events your name may appear in the results section of this website or in newspaper reports. Grampian Orienteers data privacy policy
Photography – In line with the policies of British Orienteering, the organisers of this event request that any person wishing to take photos or video showing children should register their details with event volunteers before taking any such photos or videos. The event organisers reserve the right to ask people to refrain from taking photos or video and may, if such warnings are ignored, refer the matter to the police.
Safety – A risk assessment will have been carried out by the organiser, but participants take part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety during the event. We’ll be sharing parks/streets/woods with others so be courteous to other users and watch out for bikes/dogs/horseriders.
Health – Full leg and torso cover is required in wooded areas due to ticks.
Privacy – when entering our events your name may appear in the results section of this website or in newspaper reports. Grampian Orienteers data privacy policy
Photography – In line with the policies of British Orienteering, the organisers of this event request that any person wishing to take photos or video showing children should register their details with event volunteers before taking any such photos or videos. The event organisers reserve the right to ask people to refrain from taking photos or video and may, if such warnings are ignored, refer the matter to the police.
Safety – A risk assessment will have been carried out by the organiser, but participants take part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety during the event. We’ll be sharing parks/streets/woods with others so be courteous to other users and watch out for bikes/dogs/horseriders.
Health – Full leg and torso cover is required in wooded areas due to ticks.
Privacy – when entering our events your name may appear in the results section of this website or in newspaper reports. Grampian Orienteers data privacy policy
Photography – In line with the policies of British Orienteering, the organisers of this event request that any person wishing to take photos or video showing children should register their details with event volunteers before taking any such photos or videos. The event organisers reserve the right to ask people to refrain from taking photos or video and may, if such warnings are ignored, refer the matter to the police.
Safety – A risk assessment will have been carried out by the organiser, but participants take part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety during the event. We’ll be sharing parks/streets/woods with others so be courteous to other users and watch out for bikes/dogs/horseriders.
Health – Full leg and torso cover is required in wooded areas due to ticks.
Privacy – when entering our events your name may appear in the results section of this website or in newspaper reports. Grampian Orienteers data privacy policy
Photography – In line with the policies of British Orienteering, the organisers of this event request that any person wishing to take photos or video showing children should register their details with event volunteers before taking any such photos or videos. The event organisers reserve the right to ask people to refrain from taking photos or video and may, if such warnings are ignored, refer the matter to the police.
Many thanks to Dave Kirk for planning and to Alan Bennett & Bob Daly for helping collect controls and all who journeyed north to sample Haddo’s pot pourri of features – it’s amazing how much is packed into such a small area.
Many thanks to Dennis for planning and to Dave K, Fiona, Sam & Joanna for helping collect the controls.
Safety – A risk assessment will have been carried out by the organiser, but participants take part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety during the event. We’ll be sharing parks/streets/woods with others so be courteous to other users and watch out for bikes/dogs/horseriders.
Health – Full leg and torso cover is required in wooded areas due to ticks.
Privacy – when entering our events your name may appear in the results section of this website or in newspaper reports. Grampian Orienteers data privacy policy
Photography – In line with the policies of British Orienteering, the organisers of this event request that any person wishing to take photos or video showing children should register their details with event volunteers before taking any such photos or videos. The event organisers reserve the right to ask people to refrain from taking photos or video and may, if such warnings are ignored, refer the matter to the police.
Well done to all the Gramps who ran at the Scottish Champs at Craig Leach and Roseisle over the weekend and big thanks to INVOC and MOR for staging two great events to test everyone both individually and as a team.
Individual Fergus Gallagher 5th M12 Tim Griffin 7th M55L Kevin Reynard 1st M55S Dennis McDonald 11th M60L Sam Gomersall 14th M60L Bob Daly 16th M65L Paul Duley 2nd M70L Neil McLean 1st M80 Samantha McDonald 9th W16A Fiona McDonald 10th W45L Claire Gallagher 1st W45S Joanna McDonald 1st Yellow
Relay 17+ points category Gramp 1 5th – Tim, Claire, Sam Gramp 2 8th – Malcolm Fisher (honorary Gramp for the day), Lesley, Kevin 20+ points category Gramp 3 9th – David, Adrian, Bob
We lent Fergus to MAROC so he could get a run with the Marocees who came 8th in the Age 36- category. Thank you Emily and Dougal for welcoming him into your team.
Photographic evidence can be found on our Facebook page.
Are you receiving monthly newsletters from Zoe and information on event dates and officials from Paul? These are sent, via a distribution list, to the email address we have registered in your membership details so if you’re not receiving these emails please 1. ask yourself if you’ve changed your email address in the last year or so and forgotten to tell us? 2. check your Spam folder
If the answer to 1 is “Oops! Yes, I did” then please email membership@grampoc.com with your new email address so we can update the records. If the answer to 2 is “Aha! So that’s where they’ve been going!” please try to teach your email system to accept Zoe and Paul’s sender emails as valid so they’re unblocked.
If you’re not a member – yet 😉 – we still like to keep in touch with our drop-ins so you can subscribe to the Gramp website/blog using the link at the bottom of the home page and each time we post something new you’ll receive an email. 95% of posts are event-related so you won’t get swamped with “junk”.
On a related theme, you should be receiving regular email news from Scottish Orienteering too. If not then you can sign up to their newsletters here.
Results RouteGadget Routes are going to look like spaghetti but the splits graph may make interesting reading for some. To access that use the red & white “Splitsbrowser” icon top right and select names of folk you want to compare. Ideally you’re looking for a pretty straight line diagonally showing you maintained concentration and effort evenly all the way round. Any sudden dips in gradient mean uh-oh!!
Congratulations to Tim G on shaking off his event weather jinx and organising a lovely warm spring evening for us to scamper round in circles. Thanks to Matthew and David for helping collect controls afterwards.
A fun event to kick off this year’s joint Forest Sprint Series with Maroc. Courses provided by Ros, results by David, mud by this lovely spring weather we’ve been having.
Click here for the full 2024 AGM minutes and reports. Or for those of you strapped for time here’s a summary of the headlines/highlights in no particular order:
working around storm damaged areas and other limitations we still put on/assisted with 29 events in 2023 including our day at S6D in Moray, the GMC at Mar Estate and helped with the Scottish Universities Championships at Glen Dye. Gramps also took up/continued in posts as Mapping, Technical and Finance Directors for the Scottish 6 Days.
started our celebrations of the club’s 50 year existence with a colour coded event at Balmedie in February and then our Club Dinner held at Park Café at Hazlehead Park in April. This was a fantastic success, where we invited many former members along to celebrate.
the Gramp surplus is still keeping its head above water, largely thanks to the income generated by the GMC, and it was suggested that in light of higher current interest rates the club investigates a better deal on the savings account
Ian, David and Zoe all indicated that they wish to step down/reduce their roles in some form next year and the club really needs to think about its future and how the members want it to be run. Orienteering membership/volunteering generally seems to be on a downturn sparked by numerous factors (including severe damage to prime forest areas making the sport less attractive to “trad” orienteers, lockdowns made many reassess their travel habits/environmental footprint, aging demographic etc.) so everything is pointing to the need for a major rethink.
much discussion over finding and funding areas to map/extend. Tyrebagger, Scolty and Countesswells are all still closed while FLS carry out felling works and other privately owned areas are highly unlikely to be tackled in the next few years so the emphasis has been on urban areas such as a new map of Stonehaven. Pete is assisting the committee in identifying and applying for funds and it was suggested we could try crowd funding or similar. Any more ideas on areas or funds are always welcome…
David Kirk reminded us that he is stepping down as GMC organiser and that if we’re going to put it on again in 2025 then approaches to estates need to be put in motion soon. Anyone wishing to find out more about what would be involved in taking this over should contact him directly.
We have 2 trophies, kindly donated by past members Margaret and Oliver Musgrave, and the Chairman’s Quaich which are awarded to members who have gone above and beyond in the service of the club in a variety of ways:
Musgrave Trophies Neil Mclean – For truly outstanding results throughout the year (see above) Ros Nicholson – For her Mapping duties. Not an easy gig at the best of times and she has really been putting in the hours investigating leads on possible new areas and building relationships with organisations like Haddo Country Park volunteers.
Chairman’s Quaich Zoe Griffin Not only does she keep the Chairman in check, she organized the brilliant Club Dinner and also had the time to plan our day at Moray ’23 at Roseisle.
Gramp Champs 2023 Congratulations everyone!! Junior Men – 1st Fergus Gallagher, 2nd Lennon Atchison Senior Men – 1st Matthew Thompson, 2nd Lachlan Kirk, 3rd Calum McLeod Veteran Men – 1st Julian Robinson, 2nd David Esson, 3rd Adrian Will Super Veteran Men – 1st Ian Hamilton, 2nd Bob Daly, 3rd Dennis McDonald
Junior Women – 1st Samantha McDonald, 2ndOrla Gallagher, 3rd Joanna McDonald Senior Women – None Veteran Women – 1st Claire Gallagher, 2nd Emily Arthur Super Veteran Women – 1st Oonagh Grassie, 2nd Lesley Gomersall, 3rd Helen Rowlands
Full Gramp Champs results to follow.
Jon Duncan Junior Deeside Cup 2nd Orla Gallagher W10 2nd Joanna McDonald W12 1st Samantha McDonald W14 1st Fergus Gallagher M10 3rd Logan Thompson M10 3rd Lennon Atchison M12
Other Successes Scot Champs – 1st Neil Mclean plus 4 podiums Scot Score – three 1sts – Tim Griffin, Bob Daley, Neil Mclean plus 9 podiums SOL – two 1sts – Neil Mclean & David Esson plus 5 podiums S6D – two 1sts – Sam Griffin & Neil Mclean – 7 podiums Scottish Schools – 2nd Fergus Gallagher, 3rd Samantha MacDonald Scottish Middle Champs – 3rd Tim Griffin plus 3 top 10s JK – 5 top 10s BOC – 3rd David Esson, 10th Duncan Grassie DNC 22/23 – Ian Hamilton won best course + Helen Rowlands was 3rd Female + David Esson attended every event (6 years in a row)
Thanks to everyone who ventured out in a rather misty Glen Dye tonight, Ros for planning, Hugh for helping collect controls, David for results and Rachel & Pete for checking the control tags were placed correctly (although the chance to use that as an excuse to swing by Finzean Farm Shop Tea Room may have been a big decider when they offered their help?) and guiding Ros through her first go at TD5 planning.
Don’t forget if you’re going to Tilquhillie next week and want to go to the meal and prize giving you need to let Andrew McMurtrie know your food choices asap. See the DNC Blog post for details.
Raw Score Results (V missing from these results as control wasn’t working) Overall Results with points for V added back in plus HHH bonuses
Many thanks to those who braved this morning’s horrible rain and mud-fest to tackle this year’s Scrabble-themed HHH challenge. From a planner’s point of view it was fun to watch you all crossing and re-crossing the car park and trying to second guess your strategies, although in Oli’s case we knew why he kept reappearing as he’d no way of telling the time other than us shouting out “21 minutes”… “39 minutes”…
Also interesting to see who chose which bonus words to target and what a difference it made to the pre-bonus positions. Congratulations to Ian Hamilton who targeted the two big hitters, HANDICAP and HAZLEHEAD at 500 points each, gambling a bit to finish 51 seconds over time while hoovering up HAZE but boosting his score from 9th to 1st place. Also interesting to see that nobody chose to interpret the rules in a Taskmaster way by repeatedly running round GRAMP for 50 minutes – the rules didn’t say you could do that but then neither did they say you couldn’t – although I think that just demonstrates that orienteers have itchy feet and want to go new places all the time rather than a lack of deviousness.
Big thank you to the Essons for hosting the post-HHH social with 3 varieties of soup on offer plus nibbles, Lesley for the bumper crop of savoury scones which complemented the soup perfectly and Rachel for the pepperkakehus to round things off.
Thanks also to Pete, Ian, Sam, Tim, Zoe and Rachel for control wrangling and David Esson on keyboards.
Scrabble Score Controls were labelled with letters, values were Scrabble letter points x 10. As with a normal Score, face value for each letter was scored on first visit only but… stonking bonus points to be had for this event ( a sort of reverse handicap?) if you revisited controls in correct sequence whilst spelling out certain themed words as listed on the map. For maximum efficiency folk started spelling words right from the start which gained them control points and bonus points simultaneously.
Splits printout showed the letter codes so we could quickly check nobody had sneaked in a random high scoring letter somewhere in the sequence thus invalidating any bonus.
Time limit: 50 mins Late finish penalty: 10 points/min over limit Ultimate penalty: lose all points if over 60 mins
Click here for a copy of the map if you fancy doing some armchair orienteering. What would you have chosen to do?
Wow! What a wet one and that was just getting to the start! Thanks to Paul Duley for planning, David Esson for computing and Rachel and Pete who will collect controls tomorrow when it’s forecast to be slightly less wet.
Apologies to those who travelled to Tollohill only to find the event had been cancelled. The car park and forest were fine when I arrived to put controls out but the rain about 4 turned the car park into a slopey ice rink which I only escaped from sideways with a very high heart rate.
I should have cancelled the event then but was still hoping the forecast of increasing temperatures would melt the ice. When I returned at 5.15, it was obvious the car park was still unusable and with nowhere else to safely park, we cancelled. By this time Rachel was in a last rehearsal in the Music Hall so we couldn’t get the Gramp website updated but did manage to put something on our Facebook page. In fact the open paths in the woods were also icy by that time so it was the right decision to cancel, just a bit too late.
Thanks to Dennis for planning tonight’s challenges, Ian & Fiona for helping collect controls and David Esson who is back in the results chair and practising night sports photography while waiting for us all to come back – see our Facebook page for pics.
Well done to Samantha McDonald W14 and Fergus Gallacher M10 for coming top of their age class, not forgetting the other Gramp Juniors who took part – Logan Thompson & Lennon Atchison both 3rd in their classes; Orla Gallacher & Joanna McDonald both 2nd in theirs.
Click here for the full (JD)2C overall results for 2023.
Congratulations to everyone at AUOC, especially Charlotte and Isla, for an amazing amount of hard work planning, organising, control wrangling, co-opting parents and Marocs and Gramps etc etc to make this weekend’s competition a great experience for all. Lots of excited buzz and chatter in the car park about how it was worth the long journey to get to run in two great areas on some challenging courses.
Congratulations too to EUOC for winning the overall trophy: EUOC 499 points, GOAT 476, STUOC 403, AUOC 357
Now that the 23/24 Deeside Night Cup Series has started we’d like to point out a few things so even if you’re a seasoned Night O addict, please read on…
Night O Safety With orienteering at night comes some added enjoyment (for most) but also some additional hazards, we all need to be aware of and mitigate against as best we can. What if our headtorch fails? What happens if we injure ourself? What if, what if?
Hopefully, we’re not teaching anyone to suck eggs here but it is worth reminding ourselves that if something does happen and we are not prepared, then others may be inconvenienced or worse, because of this. So, a few items that we should all seriously consider carrying with us on our run – some should not really be for discussion!
– Primary headtorch (obvious!) – Compass (obvious!) – Spare headtorch or equivalent light source (essential)* – Whistle (essential) – Mobile phone – the organiser/planner’s number is on the map for a reason!
* NOTE: Spare battery for your main headtorch, is not a replacement for a separate spare torch, as it could be more than your battery that has runout/failed.
It is colder at night, so consider what you wear. What if you did injury yourself or maybe just weren’t up to feeling running at your usual speed – you will become cold very quickly if you are not running or going at your usual speed. We do night O through the winter, so keep that in mind and maybe take a bumbag with extra clothing.
If you are new to night orienteering be aware it may take you longer than ‘normal’ – much longer for some. Also, if you are not at TD5 level, you really should be doing this in the daylight before taking on night orienteering as the Deeside Night Cup (long) and the mini-cup (short) is planned with NO dispensation for it being dark. Maybe you are at TD5 level but never night O’d before – speak to someone about a shadowed run. Use the club member email to put a message round that you’d appreciate some mentoring and which DNC events you plan to attend and someone will respond.
Big thank you to Ian Hamilton for launching Gramp’s side of this year’s DNC with two entertaining sprint style courses and also to Tim and Dennis for control collecting.
Control 140 on the Long went walkabout so the legs either side of it have been voided. David Esson volunteered to go and have a look around in the daylight tomorrow but if he can’t find it we’ll post here and ask anyone who might be in the vicinity to keep their eyes peeled as sometimes controls mysteriously reappear even after several weeks.
Ian Hamilton spent a lot of time standing at the starts and finishes and managed to snap many of you as you squelched past. Click here to see his pics.
A big, big thank you to David Kirk, Gareth Yardley and Ian Hamilton for all your hard work bringing the GMC behemoth to life again and also to the GMC support team for control wrangling, computing, hospitality, emergency hotline duties, hill marshalling, bag handling (thanks Lizzy) and a zillion other little things in the heat of the moment. And we are indebted to the support and co-operation of The National Trust for Scotland, especially the staff at Mar Lodge for all their assistance and interest in our event, and donating NTS themed prizes.
Thanks to Maroc for the use of their Linn of Dee map, a fun little area really came into the limelight on Day 2 when weather forced the hill section to be drastically shortened thus putting the emphasis on finer detail orienteering for a change which many folk seemed to relish. For this reason there are two versions of Day 2 RG, one using the hill map for the overview and one using the forest map for the finer detail although a couple of the controls won’t align exactly with printed maps but close enough.
David is hanging up his organiser’s waterproofs this year after 6 GMCs – hope you enjoy Gramp’s token of our appreciation for a quite simply staggering amount of time, hard graft and commitment to this event over the years!
Congrats to our overall winners: C: Alasdair Jackson/Steven Banham aka Peaked2Soon, David Robertson, Ishbel and Charles Howorth aka TheHoworth’s B: Dan Gooch, Alec Keith and Jenny/Susan Blackwood aka Two be decided A: Philip Vokes, Andrew Reeve/Iain Harding aka Zoe & Iain, Jill Stephen/Oleg Chepelin
and also to all our competitors who cheerfully (?!) plodged round in all that rain!! Hope you all got home safely despite the water hazards. If I had to sum up the event in three words from what I overheard while sitting on download it would be “biblical” (amount of rain and flood water), “luxury” (the overnight facilities at Muir Cottage) and “thanks” (GMC competitors are always the very polite and understanding) – you’re welcome, it’s a pleasure watching you all having so much Type 2 fun!
River Dee behind Muir CottageDriving back towards Braemar
Some more shots below from Tim G giving a flavour of the two days:
GRAMPIAN ORIENTEERS 