We’re on the WOD map!
Hazlehead 23rd May is now officially registered as a WOD 2018 event.
Come and be part of the biggest mass participation orienteering event ever.
WOD 2017 saw an amazing 288,007 participants. OK, time to fess up – not all at Hazlehead but at 2,265 locations in 79 countries which is still mindbogglingly large numbers. Come and help us beat that in 2018 and bring some friends.
https://www.facebook.com/Worldorienteeringday/
http://worldorienteeringday.com/
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
2017 GRAMP Champs by age class.pdf
2017 GRAMP Champs by category (for trophies).pdf
Congratulations to all our trophy winners!
Juniors: Josie Gomersall & Paul Caffyn*
Seniors: Sarah Wallace & Jack Gomersall
Veterans: Rachel Scott & Gareth Yardley*
Super Veterans: Lesley Gomersall & Bob Daley
*these folk retained their 2016 titles – Lesley retained her winning streak but moved up a category this year
The trophies were presented at the AGM. If you weren’t there and think nobody else might have collected on your behalf then contact John Lang asap.
In case you’re wondering how the points are calculated, these are the Gramp Champs rules:
2017 events were: Glen O’Dee, Potarch, Crathes, Tyrebagger, Sluie, Coull, Cambus O’May, Forvie, Scolty.
2018 events have already started happening but full list will be announced soon pending permissions so watch this space…..
Would you like to see the Gramp Champs results published at intervals throughout the year? Would this encourage you to attend more events? If you want the results in Excel format so you can do a bit more analysis and figure out which 2018 events to target for maximum points then contact webmaster@grampoc.com.
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
Summer Series EventsFun, friendly events with something for everyone on Wednesday evenings. All events will have 4 courses making them suitable for beginners and experienced alike:
Starts 6-7pm, courses close 8pm (unless changed for a particular event, please check website for any changes)
Seniors £4, students/juniors £2
If you need to know more please or have any questions, please contact the summer series coordinator using this form.
Junior attendance awards up for grabs again. (That means CHOCOLATE!!)
Links to maps showing the car parking/registration locations will be added nearer the time.
| 23-May | Hazlehead & World Orienteering Day | Results |
| 30-May | Countesswells | Results |
| 06-Jun | Foggieton | Results |
| 13-Jun | Dunnottar | Results |
| 20-Jun | Perwinnes Moss | Results |
| 27-Jun | Balmedie & BBQ | Results |
| 04-Jul | Tollohill | Results |
| 11-Jul | Tyrebagger | Results |
| 18-Jul | Crathes | Results |
| 25-Jul | Scolty | Results |
| 08-Aug | Glen Dye | Results |
| 15-Aug | Templars & BBQ |
… then Wednesday entertainment will continue with a series of Urban events in Aberdeen (and Westhill), including a multi-course event on Sat 15th Sept in and around Danestone (details coming soon).
Continue reading “Summer Series 2018 – Weds 23rd May to 15th Aug”
You can either use the form below or email Claire Gallagher directly using safeguarding@grampoc.com
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.
Links to all parking locations will be confirmed soon so check back here nearer the time or on each clubs’ website.
April 11th Foggieton GRAMP Results
April 18th Tillyfourie MAROC Results
April 25th Scolty GRAMP Results
May 2nd Tilquhillie MAROC Results
May 9th Mulloch GRAMP Results
May 16th Bellwood MAROC Results
Overall series results coming soon (Ian H has been very busy as Assistant Planner for the British Orienteering Champs hence the slight delay)
One course TD3 or Orange standard i.e. medium difficulty, about 3km, with lots of controls and route choice in a relatively small area so full on concentration required just as much as fleet feet. Great for developing Juniors too if accompanied by a TD3 standard runner. Best 4 scores out of 6 will count towards the FSS league results.
Registration: 18:00 to 18:50
Starts: 18:30 to 19:15
Fees: £4 Senior, £2.50 Junior/Student
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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.
Many thanks to Gareth for braving the worst of the day’s weather to put out the controls for me … must be something to do with the date!
Apologies to long course runners for not having full set of timed controls – entirely my fault for not collecting correct controls from the store. Splits below are as recorded. I have attempted some fixes for routegadget …
Thanks to everyone who came along – see you all next week at the meal. Helen
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?)
On the night of the “super-moon” there was possibly enough light to complete the courses without using a headtorch! Joe Wright nearly had an opportunity to try that theory out, as he broke his light (and bashed his knee) before even starting. Fortunately for him, he borrowed a light and his knee didn’t seem to slow him down too much … after the second control, that is 😉
Here are the results and split times.
Routegadget is loaded up here. Please upload your stumblings around.
Planner – Murray Anderson
Another delightful night for orienteering … clear, moonless (fantastic views of the constellations), little wind … and even the open sand areas were frozen, so were very fast running. If you weren’t there you missed a treat.
Here are Results and Split times.
Routegadget (with Splitsbrowser) is now loaded up – enter your trails (and trials!).
Thanks to John Lang for enjoyable courses, and I hope he warmed up quickly after freezing in the car!
Next week we’re at Balnagowan in Maroc-land.
It turned into a beautiful winter’s day at Back O’ Bennachie (after a cold wet start) – blue skies, no wind, and a tough hilly forest and moor to test you all.
Here are provisional results and split times.
Routegadget has been loaded here, please add your routes!
You can also analyse your splits on Splitsbrowser.
Splits are also loaded up to Winsplits Online.
Taken a wee while (sorry – holidays and handovers) but results now uploaded to BOF site and ranking points will be calculated overnight 20/2/18.
Course details were as follows:
White 1.8k 40m
Yellow 2.1k 40m
Orange 2.3k 45m
Lt Green 3.0k 80m
Green 3.6k 140m
Blue 4.6k 210m
Brown 5.6k 225m
A (JD)2C event.
Our very grateful thanks to:
Organiser; Lesley Gomersall
Planner : Sam Gomersall
Controller: Drew Tivendale (MAROC)
During 2017, the IOF carried out a big review of control descriptions and mapping symbols. We won’t be able to update all our maps to comply straight away but we will be doing so as and when logical to do so over the coming months.
Control descriptions: no major changes you need to know about that I can see apart from
the addition of a new symbol for out of bounds areas like flowerbeds in parks and urban areas which looks like a flower head in a box (right).
There a couple of others but not that will affect our areas or those of neighbouring clubs but if you want to take a look at the full details then look at the International Specifications for Control Descriptions 2018.
Spoiler alert! That document is not as grim as it sounds and actually worth having a look to teach or refresh yourself if you’re a bit sketchy on these as it has some great illustrations from page 18 onwards of what the feature described in the control description looks like both on a map and on the ground, some examples below (click each to enlarge):
(We used to have some small foldout guides to hand to beginners explaining control descriptions. Maybe an idea to cobble some more of these illustrations together to print on the back of maps for beginners to refer to for Summer Series events?)
Map symbols: most of the changes are tweaks to colours and line thickness to try and enhance legibility of maps for everyone but especially for the older age groups or those with colour blindness or other visual impairment.
The International Specification for Orienteering Maps 2017 will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about these specifications (and some!) so to save blowing your minds I’ve had a quick flick through looking for major changes or additions that I think we might come across.
Addition of a coloured outline to the ride symbol showing runnability.
E.g. rides in open woodland often have thicker vegetation due to more sunlight getting through to ground level so are actually harder to run along compared to surrounding terrain. You could figure that out quite quickly when you get there and not a problem in open woodland but worth knowing in advance if the ride goes through light or dark green – look for a white or yellow band surrounding it as shown here otherwise don’t bother.
(Think this is a new one.) Variation on the rough open land (shown here) and open land (yellow background) with trees – now shows green spots for bushes/thickets and white spots for trees.
Gigantic boulder so high and steep it’s impossible* to climb. We don’t have many of these but Maroc’s Dinnet map may be featuring some soon. (*Sounds like that’s just going to act as a distracting challenge to the likes of Gareth and Ian H to me!)
Vineyard or similar cultivated land containing dense rows of plants offering good or normal runnability in the direction of planting. One for RR to use when they they next update the biomass plantations on the Carmichael Estate map.
Taking a look at the weather for the rest of the country, we were pretty lucky with the conditions for the DNC race at Raemoir. We had the most benign evening, with almost no wind, clear skies, a nearly full moon, and temperatures just hovering a degree or so above zero. That didn’t mean there wasn’t any ice around though ! … the tracks to the start were skating rinks and the car park was pretty treacherous. But everyone was very careful and no we had no bumps or lumps – well done everyone.
Rob and Joe showed us exactly how it should be done on the Medium and Long courses respectively. Well done gents. Congrats also to Helen, our leading lady, obviously benefiting from using her Xmas present of a shiny new head torch.
Here are results and split times.
Routegadget is loaded up here – please enter your wanderings!
Organiser – Rob H.
Mon-O-poly Results
Well done to everyone that braved the cold and took on a whole new style of Monopoly at Tyrebagger today. HHH results
Congratulations to the winners of both courses, Olivia Coman and Lynn Smith on the short, Keith Yardley and Rob Hickling on the long.
A balmy night at Glen Dye after all the slipping and slithering around in the town of late made a lovely change. Hope you enjoyed the seasonal mince pies after …
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 dry and mild evening for night-O at Crathes (Thankfully before Storm Caroline arrives).
Thanks to Jack G for very pleasant, runnable and enjoyable courses. Getting to the Start was a bit more challenging than usual, as there were no reflectors to show the way, and no start description either! I think everyone found it easily enough, though 🙂
Here are results and split times.
Routegadget is loaded up. Enter your routes there, and add your comments on to the DNC blog.
See you next week (13th) at Carlogie Wood. Bring your winter woollies …
Many thanks to Dave Kirk and everyone who came to lollop along the l0opy longs and other courses. Everybody found the cave, avoided dashing headlong into the river and obviously didn’t spend too long dozing on the sofa. There was a bit of wildlife watching.
Some head-to-head battles on the run-ins created a much greater effort than normal for the final leg! The race for top spot on the medium was particularly keenly fought. Weel done to Jeremy whose extra tears of experience obviously paid dividends!
Not sure what happened to the Lawrence/Scott team – enjoyed themselves a little too much at the AGM?
Don’t forget the next day time event we have to run off the even greater excesses of New Year celebrations – Jan 2nd at Tyrebagger with soup etc after at the Anderson’s in Inverurie.
Photos from Lesley (and Marianne above).
(Shame didn’t manage to capture Kevin squeezing himself into the cave “How the *£^%!! am I expected to get in there?!”)
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?
Here are final Results and Splits
Routegadget is loaded up – please input your routes.
Many thanks to Dennis for two challenging courses, where I suspect many expected an easy time!
Overall 2017 final rankings and Winners table
Big congratulations to Oli Robertson who retains the M8 Trophy and Sam Griffin for 2nd M14, just pipping Maroc’s Joel Gooch at the final post , and Josie Gomersall 2nd W16.
3rd places go to Emily Robertson W8, Kirsty Farquharson W12 and Robert Prince M10. Trophies and prizes will be awarded at the Gramp AGM.
Any Junior from Gramp or Maroc is automatically entered into the (JD)2C. You win points by running in any of the 9 nominated local Level C races listed below, with a sliding scale depending on your course and how well you do.
To try and keep things as fair as possible, only half points are awarded to shadowed competitors which is why we ask you to declare this when entering.
8 Jan MAROC Glen O’Dee
19 Mar MAROC Potarch
9 Apr GRAMP Crathes
30 Apr MAROC Coull
28 May GRAMP Tyrebagger
18 Jun MAROC Sluie
17 Sep GRAMP Scolty postponed
1 Oct MAROC Cambus O’May
15 Oct GRAMP Forvie
5 Nov GRAMP Scolty
After the clear frosty evening of 7th Nov, when the northern lights coud be seen all over northern Scotland as far south as Edinburgh, we had a cloudy damp evening for Dave Kirk’s courses at Hazlehead – but nevertheless a large entry. It was a bit of a middle distance style race, with many controls dictated by the shape of the area, and some people clearly had a bit of bother sorting out the fancy control loops and crossovers, and the right order for running the controls. Here are the results for your enjoyment:-
Courses: Long Night: 4.8km , Medium Night: 3.8km
Planner/organiser: David Kirk
Gramp Champs and JD2C Event
We hope you enjoyed running at Scolty. It’s a hilly and physically tough area in some places, fast in others, and the navigation can be testing – especially near the far start on Hill of Gouach. The air temperature of 5 degrees felt chilly in the tent, but was pleasant enough on the run. Cold feet, though! (the forest is pretty wet at the moment).
A big thanks to our officials and helpers. (Amazing speedy job by the control collectors, BTW.)
Results
Here are final results and split times. BOF results page with ranking points.
Routegadget is loaded up – please draw your crazy wiggles.
Click here for Winsplits split times analysis.
Course lengths/climbs
White 1.6km/ 25m
Yellow 2.2km/ 45m
Orange 2.7km/ 60m
Lt Green 3.4km/ 80m
Green 4.1km/ 90m
Blue 5.8km/ 160m
Brown 8.0km/ 230m
Organiser Helen Anderson
Planner Pete Lawrence
Controller Andrew McMurtrie (MAROC)
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?
Good to see several of the GJOs taking on the contour challenge at Forvie. Most of you made it out alive and kicking at the other end and even if you didn’t we hope you enjoyed the day anyway.
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Only Scolty left to go now to round off this year’s (JD)2C on Sunday 5th Nov. Don’t miss out on your last chance to boost your scores. Trophies have been gathered in already for engraving ready to present at respective club AGMs so good luck everyone and hope your name is on one!
Final Results and BOF ranking points added 22/10/17
Thank you for coming to Forvie. Tricky area, init ?! We hope you enjoyed your runs. None of the controls blew away (phew) and the weather improved, and the wind dropped, as the day went on. Nevertheless we were very pleased to have a van to host the timing computers (thanks to Dennis McDonald and U Drive ). We hope you liked seeing the wi-fi results on your smartphones (using our extended range wireless access point).
Here are final results by Course, and by Class, and Split Times.
Routegadget is loaded up – please enter your squiggles.
Split time analysis can be found at WinSplits Online .
Pre-O
Results and maps with answers
Thanks
Our thanks go to the Forvie ranger, Annabel Drysdale, and SNH for permission to run on the National Nature Reserve. Also to Andy Harper for use of his field for parking and AUOC for assisting with control collecting.
Many thanks to Dennis McDonald and U Drive for their generous support with van hire.
Courses
Officials
Planner – Ian Hamilton GRAMP
Controller – Sarah Dunn MAROC
Organiser – David Esson GRAMP
Grampian Mountain Challenge – Scotland’s Friendly Sociable Winter Mountain Marathon
We hope you all had a wonderful weekend in and around Braemar, we certainly enjoyed hosting our fifth GMC with a fantastic group of competitors, please come back int two years’ time!
Here are some provisional results. If you notice any discrepancies please get in touch (see Dave’s email in the joining instructions).
Overall Results
Day 1 simple results
Day 1 splits
Day 2 simple results
Day 2 splits
Please put your routes up on the Gramp Routegadget site. (you can draw by mouse and download GPS).
Photos by Struan Kirk
More photos by Ian Hamilton
Read on for the Organiser’s Report and Planner’s Comments …
A great lesson in reading your control descriptions carefully tonight (Team JFF had photographic evidence of number 5 skulking on the wrong side of the fence to where they were) and if that didn’t catch you out then the straight line belt from 11 to 13 missing out 12 did. Thanks to David for a fitting finale to this year’s series.
Congrats to the following folk who either retained or gained a new trophy:
JU16 Sam Griffin (GRAMP) & Rachel Salway (MAROC)
J Lachlan Kirk (GRAMP) & Josie Gomersall (GRAMP)
Open Janne Heikkinen (AUOC) & Claire Tunaley (MAROC)
V William Nicolson (INVOC) & Carolyn McLeod (GRAMP)
SV Gary Longhurst (FVO) & Lesley Gomersall (GRAMP)
UV George Esson (GRAMP)
Newcomers Petra Hampton & Dominykas Kardokas
Final rankings after 5 events (best 3 scores to date) and by Category
Trophies will be presented at the GRAMP AGM or passed to non-Gramps some other way – Newcomer winners please email webmaster@grampoc.com to claim yours (or see you at another event soon?)
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.
Couple of folk got caught out by the loop from 10-11-12-13 and forgot one of the controls. Oops!
The rest of us just caught out not reading the map properly around that area and at least two of us realised afterwards that we used key alleyways once but then promptly ignored them a second time around. Mind games – “surely the planner can’t mean me to go back up there?” – are intregal to the urban challenge and we really should have known to expect some crackers from Pete!
Overall points after 4 races here. And standings by age category here.
Lots of folk look to have it in the bag already (e.g George, Lesley, William Nicolson and Sam Griffin) but some other categories are still up for grabs theoretically and a mispunch next week could shatter a few dreams of receiving one of our much-coveted trophies so make sure you watch for the LED flash – should be easier next week as it’s darker sooner all the time.
Results Splits
As always, any spelling mistakes or other corrections please email webmaster@grampoc.com asap.
OK, hands up all those who got caught on the wrong side of the fence between 9 and 10?
Thanks to Mark Stockton for another great wee course with some interesting route choices all the way to the end. (And thanks to to Mrs S for holding off the inevitable tonight so Mark didn’t have to dash off on paternity leave mid-event! Let us know when it’s time to pass on the Gramp’s Most Junior Orienteer T-shirt if the Robertsons still have it.)
Good to see more new faces – I’m told “someone” was stirring things up over on our Facebook page – cheers James! Team JJF – we missed your smiley old faces. Next week?
Overall points after 3 races here. Next week is when the best 3 from 5 rule kicks in so time to squeeze that last ounce of speed from jelly legs and burning lungs for those of you into (and capable) of such masochism. The rest of us will just enjoy exploring the odd corners of Balgownie we’ve never been before.
Scroll to the bottom of the overall results for an explanation of the age categories used in Urban Orienteering races. Check the Scottish Orienteering Urban League page for details of bigger urban races in various locations throughout Scotland and if you happen to be in the right town at the right time then give it a go.
Results Sorry, no Splits this week as the laptop was playing up. Hopefully business as usual next week.
Thanks to John Lang for several interesting route choices tonight leading to differences of over 500m recorded on different folks’ GPS. Do you take the time to eyeball the differences accurately before committing or do you just plump and then run as fast as you can along your chosen route?
Different control seemed to cause a few “mp” tonight but again we’ve given you all the benefit of the doubt as many had eye witnesses and you would have had to run pretty much past it anyway on the way back into the park. Don’t forget to check for the flashing LED before leaving a control.
If you were a trophy winner last year, please bring it back and hand it in to registration at any of the events.
I’ll post details about Westhill tomorrow.
Overall points after 2 races here. Scroll to the bottom for an explanation of the age categories used in Urban Orienteering races.
Check the Scottish Orienteering Urban League page for details of bigger urban races in various locations throughout Scotland and if you happen to be in the right town at the right time then give it a go.
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!
Results Splits
(If I’ve mispelled a name or mis-guessed an age group let me know webmaster@grampoc.com.
Age groups are used for trophies at the end of the series, best 3 results from 5 count towards your total. I’ll post more on that after a couple of events when I’ve calculated points to date.)
Thank you to Tim Griffin and helpers for kicking off this year’s series in grand style.
50 runners – which may be an Urban Sprint record for Gramp – zig-zagging back and forth at incredible speeds in some cases, although William did look as if he’d been for a swim half way round by the time he collapsed at the Finish.
One or two folk had trouble getting number 8 to register whereas others had no problems. I’ve given you all the benefit of the doubt, and the person who didn’t start their brikke properly so it read 64 minutes initially, and re-instated you as it’s the first in the series but remember it’s your responsibility to check all controls flash at you to indicate a successful read. Worth sacrificing a few tenths of a second to make sure you’re not disqualified in future.
Thanks to David Kirk for a brain-bending finale to the Summer Series using some new additions to the fringes of the Templars map to give us a guided tour of part of the hotel grounds next door and some particularly vicious patches of nettles we’ve not visited before. (Top Tip: don’t lose your footing and sit down in them. Still stinging even now!)
Junior Attendance choc coins were dished out along with spot prizes of teeny cactii awarded for most complex map, most prolific control collector and lots of other things I can’t remember. (Do nettle stings affect the memory?)
Hoist by his own fiendish petard again, it will take David a wee while to figure out the points for the Technical Score course so in the meantime here’s a space filling photo of some diehards who just couldn’t bring themselves to abandon the BBQ when there’s important unfinished mallowy business to be toasted.
Update from Dave:
Here are the Templars results.
Apologies to all the people who tried to make it across the swamp on the north west side of the area – in hindsight I should have marked that area OOB.
The biggest mistake made by quite a number of people, resulting in loss of numerous points, was only recording one checkpoint in a particular Section. That meant that all their subsequent controls were voided until they got back to that area again and visited another. I hope you all enjoyed visiting the new areas.
“Of all the control sites in all the features in all of Scolty Woods, he had to pick mine.”
Pete Lawrence, Planner for Scolty Level C in Sept on parts of Calum McLeod’s courses last night
A gorgeous sunny evening saw us scampering round the lower levels of Scolty on Middle Distance style courses much appreciated by tired legs post-6 Days.
Thanks Calum and helpers. Results attached.
One course of TD3 (Orange) standard about 3 – 4km long in streets and parks.
Wed 30th Aug Westburn and Victoria Parks
Wed 6th Sept Duthie Park and Ferryhill
Wed 13th Sept Westhill
Wed 20th Sept Balgowniel
Wed 27th Sept Aberdeen Uni Kings Campus
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Congrats to the following folk who either retained or gained a new trophy:
JU16 Sam Griffin (GRAMP) & Rachel Salway (MAROC)
J Lachlan Kirk (GRAMP) & Josie Gomersall (GRAMP)
Open Janne Heikkinen (AUOC) & Claire Tunaley (MAROC)
V William Nicolson (INVOC) & Carolyn McLeod (GRAMP)
SV Gary Longhurst (FVO) & Lesley Gomersall (GRAMP)
UV George Esson (GRAMP)
Newcomers Petra Hampton & Dominykas Kardokas
Final rankings after 5 events (best 3 scores to date) and by Category
Back home now after a great holiday in deepest, darkest Deeside and it’s good to see the sea again after a whole week of heathery hillsides, silvery birch and bouldery… bouldery… um… bignesses? (Sorry, been a long and energetic week.)
Congratulations to the following successful Gramps:
1st Sam Griffin M14B and Oonagh Grassie W60L
2nd Pete Lawrence M50S and Carolyn McLeod W50L
3rd Lachlan Kirk M18S and Helen Greenwood W75S (plus Lesley Gomersall Supervet W in Sprint Race)
Top Ten Finishers: Noah (chocolate? what chocolate?) Griffin M10B, Murray Anderson and Kevin Reynard M50S, Sam Gomersall M55L, Richard Oxlade and Ian Searle M55S, Bob Daly M60L, Neil McLean M70L, Hannah Will W12B, Maya Reynard W14B, Lesely Gomersall W55L and Helen Greenwood W80 (don’t ask – it’s just the way the scoring system works!)
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As well as champions we have unsung heroes in our midst including:
– Helen Anderson, Gareth Yardley, David Esson and Murray Anderson who were Day 3 Organiser and – Planners – big thank you guys for taking on the major roles and making life pretty easy for the rest of us
– Richard Oxlade, Tim Griffin and Rob Hickling who controlled other days
– Sheena Farquhar who assisted with a heart attack patient on Day 4
– Anne and Rob Hickling who organised, planned and controlled the Trail O
– Bob Sheridan who kept his sense of humour despite turning 50 on Wednesday and having it announced every minute at the end of each list of names at the far start on Day 3 by his “friend” Tim Griffin.
Anyone got any photos or other anecdotes they’d like to share with us all?
Send to webmaster@grampoc.com please.
More photos from Old Glutton, Sam Gomersall, Helen Anderson and others on our Flickr page here
Thanks to Andy Johnson you can get a flavour of Trail O (and other days) by checking his Flickr account. Trail O is all about fully understanding the info on your map and control descriptions coupled with careful observation and being able to judge distances, contours, features and orientations all from 10 to 100m away from the viewing point on the path. Each problem has one or more kites dotted about and you need to identify which kite, if any, is correctly placed to match the control circle and description. It’s tricky but also oddly addictive once you get inside the midset!
Keith Yardley showed a promising talent for this coming 16th on the Elite course against some experienced opposition. He’s pictured here doing the timed controls, used for tie breaks.
Our pre-Six Days tune-up event took place at Bennachie on Weds 26th July. After a wet day (which the planner can vouch for, as he was setting out the controls in the rain!) the sun came out and the evening finished with immaculate blue skies and a terrific sunset.
The circular maps were a novel training exercise for more experienced orienteers. The maps had no magnetic north lines, and no indication of which way is north! Ideally you should do the courses without using a compass, by simply reading the map, identifying the features, using good attack points, and staying in close map contact. If you have any thoughts on this format, maybe you could let us know, or add a comment to this post.
As a special treat, the Bennachie Centre kindly agreed to extend it’s opening hours and was open for the event. So we benefited from all the facilities there:
The registration desk was in a dry and midge-free zone inside the centre! And there are very good toilet facilities there too. What more could we ask for.
Our grateful thanks to Forestry Commission Scotland, Aberdeenshire Council, the Bennachie Centre Trust and to the manager and staff at the Bennachie Centre, for letting us use the forest for this event, and for providing the excellent facilities at the Centre.
Planner/Organiser: Rob Hickling
SOA website has a post with regular updates on how Scottish athletes are helping Team GB rack up some great results at this year’s JWOC with Sasha playing a big part.
In the Middle Sasha comfortably made it through the heats to the A Finals finishing 7th, missing a podium place by only 1 second.
In the Sprint he had an excellent run to finish on the podium in 5th!
And the Long saw him in 7th place again. Excellent set of results which has certainly got the Nopesport crowd buzzing (although looks like he risks being eclipsed by his own haircut?)
Relay – 9th – think I’ve got that right but my Finnish isn’t so good. Maybe Lena can confirm for us?
Check this space… for links to GPS, live results and Arena video/commentary.
Other ‘locals’ doing well are Grace Molloy and Jenny Ricketts 19th/24th Middle A Final and 20th/13th in the Long respectively and 2/3 of the W20 Relay Team who came an amazing 5th place.
Well done guys!
A sunny warm evening with a swimming opportunity in the hefalump trap taken by a few including myself and Ian while setting out the controls.
High bracken and overgrown paths made it especially challenging for those taking ‘short cuts’.
A friendly family all the way from OLG Chur (Chur orienteering club) in Switzerland came and competed as well. I hope they weren’t too underwhelmed.
Thanks for all coming. Results: cheynehill120717results
Gen
I had a very pleasant walk back down to Stoney chatting with Käthi and Benno. They did comment on the “big green plants up to here” (think hand passing 6″ over Käthi’s head) being hard going but otherwise enjoyed their taste of orienteering Scottish-style. If anyone spots any OLG Chur shirts at S6D then say ‘Hi!’ and ask about the next Swiss O Week in Gstaad in 2019. Rachel
Lovely evening for some blaeberry picking … and orienteering too. Many thanks to the Caffyns for entertaining us all.
Balmedie, beach, BBQ, bit blowy
and lots of scouts!
Many thanks to Gareth for planning and Alex for saving the day putting controls out (only some, only helped his time a little bit Pete!).
This year’s Jamie Stevenson Trophy took place at Kinnoull Hill on Sunday 25th.
Morven and Kirsty Farquharson were the only Gramp representatives which must have felt a little odd in the parade but looks like they didn’t mind too much.
Both girls ran well on the Orange course scoring 187 points between them and I am delighted to say that Kirsty was 3rd. Well done to Kirsty!
Carolyn
Squelch, squelch, drip, drip, splish, splash, sploooosh… Thanks go to Bob Sheridan for having faith in the hard core bunch of nutters that we all are and still thinking it was worth setting out controls and sitting patiently in the rain waiting for us last night.
So many hard core nutters in fact that late punters on the Long Tech had to nurse round recycled soggy maps. Sorry about that – maybe due to Maroc being back in the game now their WOUD series has finished.
I’m enjoying watching the weekly intra-family battles of the Gomersalls, Dunn/Musgraves and occasionally the McLeods too. E.g. this week:
Jon Musgrave 33.34
Ewan Musgrave 34.14
Sarah Dunn 34.44
Thinking of starting a sweepstake on the outcome by the end of the season but to make it Junior friendly only confectionery bets are on. What do you think?
Balmedie next week and unless we get a repeat performance weatherwise we’ll be firing up the BBQ too so bring food and drink.
GRAMPIAN ORIENTEERS 
