Well done to everyone who came, ran, won or just had fun and helped out over the weekend.
Photo links for many of us caught in action (or mid-lick of an icecream) can be found on the SOA website post dedicated to BOC 2018.

It was a mighty big ask of Gramp to be lead club for both Relays and Trail O on the same day and it got pretty squeaky with both Organisers vying for members with the right skills, abilities or personalities to cover the diverse jobs required for each event. We managed but not without the help of you all mucking in and agreeing to jobs you wouldn’t normally choose and quietly getting on with them as well as spotting gaps in our cunning plans and quietly filling those too.
I’m sure I speak for Anne Hickling too when I say a humungous thank you to all our helpers.

In a break from tradition, as it’s not very often we have this many Gramps attending the British Championships with a chance to compete against the best of Britain, I’ve listed all our results:

Individuals at Balmoral
M12B 2nd Noah Griffin
M14B 4th Connor Whitelaw
M21E 35th Jack Gomersall
M40L 14th Ali Robertson, 21st Gordon Urquhart
M50L 9th Tim Griffin, 51st Dave Kirk
M50S 1st Kevin Reynard
M55L 21st Evgueni Cheplin, 22nd Sam Gomersall, 23rd Iain McLeod
M55S 2nd Ian Searle, 8th Pete Lawrence
M60L 8th Rob Hickling, 25th Paul Duley
M60S 1st Richard Oxlade
M70S 1st Michael Forsyth
M75L 9th Neil McLean

W16B 2nd Olivia Coman
W18L 1st Josie Gomersall
W21E 17th Katrina McLeod
W21S 6th Heather Hale
W50L 16th Laura Farquharson, 18th Rachel Scott, 23rd Carolyn McLeod
W50S 2nd Roz Nicholson
W55L 5th Lesley Gomersall, 29th Sonia Armitage
W60L 27th Anne Hickling
W60S 2nd Oonagh Grassie, 5th Anne Hoy, 8th Jane MacGregor
W65L 13th Ros Evans

Light Green 7th Morven Farquharson, 15th Kirsty Farquharson
Yellow 3rd Oli Robertson

Iain Hamilton was Assistant Planner and Dave Armitage Assistant Controller

Relays at Torphantrick
M50 8th GRAMP 1 Tim Griffin, Dennis McDonald, Bob Daly
Mixed Adhoc
9th GRAMP 4 Ali Robertson, Carolyn McLeod, Oonagh Grassie
14th GRAMP 3 Rosslyn Nicholson, Iain McLeod, Kevin Reynard
21st GRAMP 2 Richard Oxlade, Ros Evans, Hugh Nicholson

Trail O at Crathes
Standard course:  Joint 1st Alan MacGregor, 3rd David Kirk, Joint 6th Angus Aitken
Elite Course 10th (and Unofficial Scottish Trail-O Champion)  Helen Rowlands

Anne Hickling was Planner/Organiser and Rob Hickling was Controller

In a bid to move away from the red and the castle, which some folk have said they don’t like that much, we’ve been mulling over alternative themes still connected to the Aberdeen coat of arms or other symbols and can now proudly unveil the new club running tights:

• made from ultra industrial rip-stop lycra blended with typhoon proof kevlar for maximum protection
• impregnated with a proven anti-tick chemical based on leopard poo
• guaranteed to incapacitate your rivals with incredulous laughter

We’re looking for volunteers to give these a whirl at the upcoming British and Scottish Champs. Interested?
Email fashionvictim@grampoc.com with your size and we’ll do the rest.

Quick summary of you for those of you who didn’t go to the AGM – and it’s very quick as it was a long time ago and I can’t remember much now. Sorry – should have posted much sooner.

Busy year: Forest Sprints, Summer Series, Level C events, Urban etc.
Scottish 6 Days – another successful day planned and co-ordinated by Gramp
Some discussion on map updates and changes required due to IOF introduction of new mapping symbols and control descriptions plus can we put on some Mountain Bike O in 2018?
Emit kit – new controls, whether to invest in more new brikkes soon
Events: are we taking on too much with such a packed calendar now that membership has waned somewhat? what do the members think we should concentrate on in 2018 or happy to carry on at same level?

Subject of training/coaching came up again as not much progress on the good intentions mooted in 2016 AGM.
Would still like to organise more coaching- but need someone to plan it and liaise with coaches – either the few remaining qualified coaches in Gramp or outsourced. If you’re interested in either becoming a coach or doing the coordination thing please get in touch with the committee. You don’t have to be a medal-winning orienteer just enthusiastic and we can get you some training/mentoring.

Confirmation of entry fees for 2018 to stay the same:
Level D (summer series, urban sprint etc) £4 and £2
Level C £6 and £3

Adrian Will thanked all for effort and time over the year
Chairman’s Awards
Musgrave Trophies:  Helen Anderson and John Lang
Chairman’s Quaich: David Esson – planning S6D, organising Forvie SOL and just generally always being first to offer help

Committee update:
Adrian Will           Chairman (really is his last year due to work commitments)
John Lang             Secretary
Ian Hamilton        Treasurer
Stuart Anderson   Mapping
Helen Rowlands   Fixtures Coordinator and Officials
Helen Anderson   Membership

Liz Sloan is no longer Social Secretary due to job down south so any takers to step in?
David Esson has joined the committee as man without portfolio as Sam used to say
Sarah Wallace has taken over Publicity/Social Media from Alex McLachlan (again job commitments abroad)
David Kirk has taken over from Gordon Urquhart gaining permissions to use areas for events
Anyone fancy playing with their smartphone to set up some Permanent Courses and take over from Stuart as POC mannie/wifie?

Club Championships Overall Trophy Winners

Class 1st  (Trophy)
Junior Women  Josie Gomersall
Junior Men        Paul Caffyn
Senior Women  Sarah Wallace
Senior Men        Jack Gomersall
Veteran Women    Rachel Scott (who is still reeling from that bombshell!)
Veteran Men          Gareth Yardley
Super- Veteran Women (>55)   Lesley Gomersall
Super-Veteran Men (age over 55)  Bob Daly

John Duncan Cup Medal Winners:

Class
M8        Gold          Oli Robertson
M14      Silver         Sam Griffin
M10      Bronze      Robert Prince
W16      Silver         Josie Gomersall
W8        Bronze      Emily Robertson
W12      Bronze       Kirsty Farquharson

Grampian Orienteers Roll of Honour for 2016  

Scottish Elite Development Squad:    Tim Gomersall, Sasha Chepelin

Scottish Championships:
1st
W60S Individual:  Jayne Macgregor
3rd
M55S Richard Oxlade

SOL winners:
M50S 1st Pete Lawrence
M70L 2nd Neil McLean
M12B 2nd Noah Griffin
M55S 3rd Richard Oxlade
M60L 3rd Robert Daly
W40L 3rd Carolyn McLeod

SOUL winners:
WSV 2nd Lesley Gomersall
WYJ 3rd Morven Farquharson

Scottish Night Championships:
W 45L 1st Helen Rowlands
W50L 1st Carolyn McLeod
W55L 1st Lesley Gomersall
M70 2nd Neil McLean
M55L 3rd Richard Oxlade
M/W open 1st Keith Yardley

Sprint is one of the many different flavours of orienteering that seems to be getting more and more popular. It can be done in forest* or urban settings but in either case involves very short courses with lots of controls and twists and turns to keep your brain, lungs and legs at max capacity for 12 – 15 minutes if you’re at the top of the field or at max fun for much longer if you’re not so speedy but enjoy the opportunity to use your navigation and decision making skills every inch of the way.

Route choice is paramount – which way to go round a large building or lake when at first glance it looks 50:50? which side of an uncrossable hedge is the control? – but don’t spend too long overthinking it as you’ll waste vital seconds. Quite often for big events there will be a prologue race and then the final with combined times counting towards your final position as was the case at this year’s Sprint Champs held at Stirling University 10/3/18. If you want to see what sort of course to expect if you decide to have a go next time then take a look at FVO’s Routegadget.

Well done to our speediest Gramps:
Sam Griffin 4th Junior Men 16- (just 19 seconds off the podium)
Tim Griffin 6th Veteran Men 40+

*And here comes the shameless plug – keep your eye on our website for info on the local GRAMP/MAROC Forest Sprint Series starting 11th April.

Thanks to Tim Griffin, Oonagh Grassie and Anne Hickling for flying the Gramp flag at this year’s CSC qualifier at Beecraigs 11/3/18. Between them they scored 280 points – just enough to keep us off the bottom of the table for the small clubs’ CompassSport Trophy.

I know there were several others who entered, or were going to, but couldn’t make it on the day for various reasons.
Even so it looks like Gramps generally aren’t interested in this competition or travelling further afield than Aberdeenshire to compete.  Am I right?

What can the club do to get a few more of you interested?
Training?
A club captain’s call to arms?
More social events to build up the team spirit?

Let the committee members know next time you bump into them (although maybe halfway round a course in the middle of Glen Dye is not the best time or place but you know what I mean.)

Rachel

Some of you will be aware of ongoing discussions/plans for the dualling of the A96 from Aberdeen to Elgin and that some of the alternative routes under consideration would encroach upon Bennachie and its surroundings. From a purely selfish orienteering point of view, or from a wider ranging appreciation of the other benefits that Bennachie offers, you might like to take a look at the Save Bennachie Campaign website. Although lately the area around the Bennachie Centre has been thinned and felled quite a bit so we’re not really able to use it at the moment it’s still worth hanging onto for the long term as it’s a good bridge between us and MORland to the north and a great place to attract newcomers to the sport.

Here’s the map from EUOC’s Big Weekend Indoor O laid on by Prof Graeme Ackland of INT in “his” offices (JCMB Building in Uni Kings Campus).

Indoor O map – EUOC Big Weekend 2018

The staircases are all given letters so you can spot where they come out on successive floors, green lines across corridors are fire doors you can open and go through, black lines are locked doors or walls. What’s not mapped is a handful of earnest scientists who were working late on a Friday evening for some reason trying to dodge flying orienteers and ignore the thundering feet outside their offices.
Nor is the treacherous ice on the roof on level 9 mapped but at least there were handrails along the parapet to hang onto. (Risk assessment? Yep – risky but let’s go for it!)

If you’re intrigued by this, try Googling the Stockholm Indoor Cup – a much grander affair across sprawling school complexes including darkened cinemas with video loops, mini maze sections made out of desks, disco lights and music and a chicken run past spectators while trying to get your head around the latest up, down, there, back… takes Indoor O to a whole new level (geddit?)

British Orienteering has announced the GBR Senior Squad for 2018, and there are a good number of Scottish and Scotland-based athletes included in the squad not least ex-Gramp Sasha Chepelin. Congratulations!
(And next year I promise to try and keep better tabs on his international apearances and results as this year it was all al bit under the radar. Any Gramps out there who spot things like this or any other Gramps’ achievements that deserve to be trumpeted then don’t be afraid to send me an email reminder. Rachel)

A good day for Gramp today. Congratulations to these guys who swept ~20% of the podium places between them:

Champions
M21 Jack Gomersall
M40 Pete Lawrence
M55 Sam Gomersall
M60 Bob Daly
W50 Carolyn McLeod

Plenty of 2nd places too – W60 Oonagh Grassie, M60 Rob Hickling, M14 Sam Griffin, M35 David Esson (robbed by a MOR ringer but Pete redressed the balance there!) – and Tim Griffin was 3rd M50 with a bit of judicious scrambling.

MOR hosted this year’s Score Champs at Quarrelwood near Elgin, an intriguing little area with 6 or 7 extremely complex patches in and around old quarries interspersed with open almost featureless (in comparison) stretches.

No big value controls but rather a fairly even sprinkling of 10s and 20s which made for quite a dither for most trying to decide which clusters to target first – out west weaving up and down the hillside to hoover up the ‘interesting’ ones close by first or up onto the fast running at the top to warm up legs and brain first and hope you have enough steam to tackle the slope at the end?

Congratulations to the following GRAMPs for top 3 placings in this year’s Scottish Orienteering League final rankings:

W40L 3rd Carolyn McLeod (running up a class or two)
W60S 2nd Oonagh Grassie
M12B 2nd Noah Griffin
M35S 1st David Esson (who also got his Organiser’s badge for Forvie)
M50S 1st Pete Lawrence (who also got his Most SOL Points Overall badge)
M55S 3rd Richard Oxlade
M60L 3rd Bob Daly
M70L 2nd Neil McLean

And others who made it into the top 10:
M21E Rachel Scott (retaining her What Does She Think She’s Playing At? badge)
M12B Connor Whitelaw, M40L Ali Robertson, M55L Iain McLeod, M55S Stuart Anderson, M60L Paul Duley
W12 Morven and Kirsty Farquharson, W16 Josie Gomersall, W50L Laura Farquharson
W55L Lesley Gomersall, W55S Anne Hoy

Not to do with orienteering so even more of a double-take when I read Mark Mon-Williams’ name in this article.

Wonder if he’s tried using junior orienteers for his study as their eyesight and balance must be better than the average?

2nd M Supervet* in the Night Race on Friday in the build up to the Porto City Race finale on Sunday.
When interviewed by our roving reporter, Pete commented “Finally all those freezing cold nights in Deeside have paid off. Cheers!” as he cracked open his prize, a bottle of Poças Tawny Port**, and cranked up the aircon.

* Age categories over here are different and broader.
** No qualms about alcoholic sponsorship either.

At the 202nd Braemar Gathering last Saturday, the long distance races had great showings from orienteers:

– Hill Race (Ladies) – 1st Naomi Lang (GRAMP), 2nd Tessa Hill (EUOC)
– Hill Race (Open) – 1st Peter Hodkinson (NOC), 2nd Graham Gristwood (FVO), 3rd Sasha Chepelin (EUOC), 5th Alex Carcas (EUOC)
– Hill Race (Ladies Veterans) – 3rd Marianne Lang (GRAMP)
– Two Mile Handicap (Open) – 1st Alex Carcas (EUOC)

Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were present, along with the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal.

Congratulations to the race winners … who are clear evidence that orienteers are just as fit as the specialist hillrunners!