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:
Many thanks to Charlotte and the AUOC team for planning tonight’s final Urban Sprint for 2024, and Isla and David for helping collect controls in complete darkness on a wet and stormy night.
Well done to the 9 Gramps who went over to Anagach to compete in the Scottish Score Champs 2023 and came home with pretty much a medal each including 3 outright champions. Woohoo!!
M40 3rd David Esson M45 2nd Adrian Will M55 1st Tim Griffin and 4th Hugh Nicholson M60 2nd Iain McLeod M65 1st Bob Daly M80 1st Neil McLean W55 3rd Ros Nicholson W65 2nd Oonagh Grassie
Results RouteGadget One control wasn’t working and one missing so both were removed from the splits and don’t appear on the map on RG either to make everything all match up electronically. You know where you went and can plot/upload routes based on your original printed version of the map although anyone looking at it in 12 months time will wonder why everyone took seemingly random detours to the same places!! (Alan B – sorry but your GPS route got binned while reloading corrected course data so you’ll have to upload again.)
Thanks to Ros & Matt for planning tonight and giving you the chance to try out the updated western half of the map; Charlotte, Hugh and Jonathan for helping collect controls; David Esson for results.
Last chance to get an Urban fix at Aberdeen Uni next week – details in separate post.
Many thanks to everyone who came out to run today. Hope you all enjoyed the brain-bending start to Pete’s course? Thanks also to David E for results and Rachel, Tim G, Matthew and Hugh for control wrangling afterwards.
Bonus points up for grabs: how many cable ties did it take to encompass the big trees at no’s 8 and 12? Closest guess wins.
Many thanks to Adrian Will for tonight’s route choice challenges using the map recently updated by Donald Grassie, David Esson for results and Pete and Rachel for helping collect controls. See you all at Duthie Park next week.
Results RouteGadget (controls won’t line up exactly on RG for some reason but close enough for route choice purposes – if you upload a GPS track let me know if it comes out upside down/back to front as that’s what the controls did until I managed to turn them back upside up and East on the right etc.!!)
Many thanks to Julian for planning courses with many viable route choices! Also many thanks to Adrian & Matthew for helping collect controls and David for the results service.
Congrats to all the Gramps who have been doing battle with the Moray dunescapes this week and came out the other side relatively unscathed and successful in their own ways.
Full results can be found on the S6D results pages but special mention goes
– firstly to Paul Duley, Zoe & Tim Griffin and all our volunteers for Day3 plus those who have been involved behind the scenes for some time: David Esson 2023 Technical Guru, Kevin Reynard S6D Finance Director and Donald Grassie Mapping Coordinator 2023.
– secondly to the Gramp podium/top ten finishers:
Neil McLean M80 1st, Fergus Gallagher M10A 6th, Ros Nicholson W55S 6th, Kevin Reynard 10th M55S, Mike Greenwood 5th M60S, Peter Bellarby M75 7th (and we’re claiming Sam Griffin’s M20L 1st place as Gramp by association 😉)
Many thanks to George Esson for planning tonight’s event at Cove. And thanks to Tim & David for helping collect the controls.
That’s it for this year’s Summer Series 😦 but don’t go too far as we’re back in business Wed 30th Aug at Danestone/Bridge of Don with our Autumn Urban Sprints. ***Spoiler alert*** – sprinting is NOT compulsory and if you get a buzz out of finding controls and appreciate the diligence and attention to detail that goes into producing an urban map then we’d love to see you regardless of how fast you can run or walk. Go on, surprise yourself and give it a go!
Many thanks to David Esson for organising and the Nicholsons for staying on to help collect controls. Much appreciated!
Don’t forget to check for ticks after your run and for a few days afterwards. Remove any attached ones by simultaneously twisting and pulling gently. Turns out the wee critters may be able to hitch a ride from a surprising distance by using static electricity.
Next and final event in the Summer Series is Cove 17th July then after that there’ll be a bit of a break while we enjoy the Scottish 6 Days over in Moray before launching our Autumn Urban Sprint Series with an event at Danestone/Bridge of Don Wed 30th Aug.
*Spoiler alert* You don’t need to be able to run like the wind to enjoy Sprint O. It means a relatively short course, Orange/Medium standard, with many twists and turns and attention to map detail so concentration and accuracy is as much the name of the game. If you’ve not tried it before because you think you’re not “fast enough” then we challenge you to give it a whirl this autumn – you may find yourself pleasantly surprised at how much fun it is.
Sorry, AUOC – bit late for Pride Month (June) but I didn’t spot this until today.
Inclusivity has always been one of orienteering’s attractions and the sport has been claiming for years that anyone is welcome regardless of who they are or their capabilities. Saying that on a website or in newsletters is one thing but actively demonstrating it is another…
As a club with trans folk and allies among their members, AUOC has been celebrating Pride Month and SOA posted about this at the end of last month. Both GRAMP and MAROC get a special shout out for being “very welcoming to all our club members regardless of perceived differences. They are indeed a great example of the orienteering community.” Aw shucks! That’s very kind of you but it’s really a no-brainer – we really enjoy having your youthful company and take on things; appreciate your input, from simple control collection to putting on joint events together; and your enthusiasm and energy is positively infectious so we gain and develop as both individuals and as a club. Win, win all round!
EUOC have also been leading by example by offering a non-binary category at all their events and the Scottish University Students O Champs introduced a gender non-conforming category. Should GRAMP lead the way among the non-uni clubs by following suite? Surely the answer can only be “Yes!”
Many thanks to Oonagh & Donald Grassie for planning tonight’s event. Cracking course with good route choice legs on a newly mapped part of Westhill.
Locals were friendly too – 3 teenagers sat on a bench shouted across to me as I ran past: “Excuse me, what are you doing?” “Orienteering.” “What’s that?” “I’ve got a map and I’m using it to find checkpoints.” “How old are you?” ??!
Many thanks to Ros for planning a fun course and also for remapping the area. Superb job! Even the map itself is happy with its makeover:
Thanks to Margarita & Jakub from AUOC for very graciously helping collect the controls afterwards.
Next event is Westhill Wed 5th July. Details will be posted soon but this will be urban in nature so remember that U-16s must be accompanied by an adult please.
Many thanks to Sam Griffin for planning, Tim & Zoe for running the day, Ros & Hugh for collecting controls and David for manning the keyboard as ever.
And the new Gramp orienteering kit is now out in the forests looking great!
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.
Thanks to Helen Rowlands for tonight’s Summer Series challenge and Helen Anderson for patching up our chairman.
Proof that we always have a First Aid box as part of the organiser’s kit and folk trained to use it although I think we may need to draft in specialist psychiatric help as David looks oddly very happy about it all. Maybe it’s because despite all that his RG splits trace is still a remarkably consistent gradient:
Thanks to Dennis McDonald and the weather gods for a great evening.
Next up is Foggieton with map memory option for those who think they could run round with their eyes shut (not recommended, eyes shut that is) and plenty of paths for beginners and improvers to practise.
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.
7 gramps made the journey to the West Coast for the Scottish Champs. Fantastic area and courses although very tough we’ve been told.
Neil McLean became Scottish Champion for M80. Well done, Neil👏
David was 2nd in M40S, Bob 6th M65L, Lesley 7th W60L, Sam Gomersall 8th M60L, Mike 12th M60L and Tim coming back from injury was 13th M55L.
Two Gramp teams ran in the 17+ Points age class relay. Gramp One, Sam/Tim/Bob, had a stormer and came 5th (maybe technically 4th as SYO are English? 😉) – and Gramp Two, Mike/Lesley/David came 14th.
ResultsRouteGadget BOF results – don’t think they’ll count for anything but thought you might like to know we’re encouraged to upload for all events so they can do some stats on age groups, types of events etc etc.
Check our FB page for a photo of the Long course. Thanks to Sam, Lesley, Dennis and David for making it all happen.
Next up is Duthie Park and Ferryhill. See you all there!
What a fantastic sunny evening to end the Forest Sprints on? Thanks to Rachel for planning, Ros/Bob/David for collecting controls and all you lovely people who came out to share the evening – so many that we got caught short on Sprint maps had to recycle so apologies to those who had to wait a wee while for one.
Results We’re going old school for the results from tonight’s event as the laptop wasn’t available. When David returns from his Riesling D’etre Tour we’ll download the splits and get RouteGadget up and running.
In the meantime, tell us what you thought of Sprint if it’s the first time you’ve tried this O format.
Thanks to Ian Hamilton for planning and Matt, Bob and Rachel for collecting in the controls.
P.P.S. Unfortunately none of our Gramp events fall within World Orienteering Day/Week this year but two of Maroc’s do including the FS on 17th at Johnshaven and the Sunday event at Corsedarder on 21st. Think of the orienteers in 296 locations in 50 different countries/regions worldwide running at the same(ish) time as you if you go to either of these events.
Great fun and very challenging course at Tollohill tonight. Many thanks to Dave Kirk for planning and to Bob and David E for helping collect the controls👍
Many thanks to Planner Bob Daly and Controller Andy Oliver (MAROC) for taking care of the technical challenge provided today and Organiser Laura Farquharson for heading up today’s team of volunteers: Ros, Hugh, Neil, Alasdair, Kirsty, Paul, Judy, Rachel, Helen, David, Gareth, Dennis and Ian.
As promised, the courses cherry picked all the best bits left in Glen Dye and thus gave some of us the chance to visit parts we’d never seen before. Also gave some of us (me!) the chance to realise after a bit of a break from orienteering that although basic O skills never fade, some – like making doubly sure you know which control you’ve got to visit next – definitely need working on in time for the 6 Days!! Chapeau to Bob for catching me out with the old classic ‘controls-in-a-line’ ploy. 😉
Nice to see some familiar faces getting back into the swing of things after a long break from orienteering and equally all the new faces eager to have a go. Some youngsters were so eager in fact that many would have set off without punching the Start if we hadn’t reminded them. And speaking of reminders, make sure you check for ticks – I got a couple just sitting at the Start enjoying the birdsong and a coffee while waiting for you all to arrive.
Click on the image above to enlarge it. N.B. this is a low res image to avoid clogging up your device with umpteen MB! The contours will be much sharper on the finished articles so watch out for folk following you closely at Glen Dye trying to use them to navigate.
Thanks to Ros we have the chance to refresh our orienteering wardrobes with some great new-look kit featuring two lots of contours, taken from Robin Sloan’s original 1972 Blackhall map and the updated 2022 Glen Dye map, plus a new take on our strapline: “50 years of running on the wild side”. Choose from tech Ts, O tops or running jacket designs – or all three if you really want to spoil yourself!
To avoid wastage we won’t be holding a large stock as we have done in the past but instead you need to decide, order and pay by 23rd April. If you want more info on the design, styles, prices etc and missed Ros’s email last week then shout out asap to webmaster@grampoc.com.
Thanks to everyone who planned, organised, controlled, volunteered or just came along to help us kick off our 50th birthday celebrations at Balmedie today. And especial kudos to those who ran yesterday and still had enough energy, both mental and physical, to take on the infamous dunescape. Balmedie never fails to catch you out somewhere but I guess that’s what keeps us all coming back for more.
(Hope you all left some sand behind for next time?)
GRAMPIAN ORIENTEERS 