Category Archives: Club info

Aberdeen City Council Countryside Ranger Service are holding a gorse busting session on Wed 18th at Scotstown Moor, aka Perwinnes Moss, if you fancy working off Christmas excesses and are free 10:00 – 15:00. No fee for attending but you need to need to register via Eventbrite.

CAKE!! 50 Years after Gramp was recognised by the SOA as an orienteering club in its own right, we’ll be celebrating with cake at Balmedie! It would be great to have at least 50 members there (we’ll count ex-members too!) and there will be spot prizes for some lucky competitors. Come and join in theContinue reading “Happy Birthday to us!!!”

Tucked away on the west side of our (extended) Seaton Park map is a small but venerable building currently on the At Risk register, the neglected Wallace Tower. Originally built in 1600’s it was moved and rebuilt stone by stone to make way for M&S in the 60’s. Since then it’s struggled to find aContinue reading “This is no ordinary tower….”

Zoe sent round the latest Gramp Gossip on 4th Sept packed with info on upcoming events, training, Gramp’s 50th birthday celebration plans for next year, Griffin call-ups to the Junior and Senior Home International squads plus news of a trial of a online post-run analysis initiative using Zoom: Tuesday 27th September – Post run analysis ofContinue reading “Did you get your Gramp Gossip last week?”

Love it or hate it, there’s no denying that Scotstown Moor/ Perwinnes Moss is one of the more eclectic maps in Gramp’s portfolio with a little bit of everything – heathland, marsh, woodland and a SSSI. There are plans being mooted to replace trees in the storm damaged area of woodland in the middle plusContinue reading “New tree planting at Scotstown Moor aka Perwinnes Moss”

– Autumn Sprints in August (bit earlier this year to avoid late starters running in the dark) – then towards the end of the year we have bigger events planned at Crathes and Balmedie Wednesday 10th Aug – Autumn Urban CoveWednesday 17th August – Autumn Urban WesthillWednesday 24th August – Autumn Urban Abz UniWednesday 31stContinue reading “Loads of events happening on your doorstep soon…”

For the benefit of new members who keep seeing our posts urging you to enter SOLs and SOULs but aren’t sure what we’re on about…. SOL = Scottish Orienteering League (sponsored by CompassPoint) – larger events – 350-400 runners on average – a full range of courses to choose from including Black and Short Green/Blue/BrownContinue reading “SOL? SOUL? What’s all that about?”

No Champs this year but some great runs/results including: 1st Pete Lawrence M55S Helen Greenwood Yellow 2nd Duncan Grassie M35L Gary Morrison M55S Chris Aust M70S Neil McLean M75L Gramp3 Mike Greenwood, Gary Morrison, Dennis McDonald Relay Class: 14+ points 3rd Matthew Thomson M35L Kevin Reynard M55S Bob Daly M65L Ros Nicholson W55S 4th SamanthaContinue reading “GRAMP successes at Scottish Champs 2022”

Well done to Sam Griffin and Jeremy Huthwaite, M18E and M50S respectively, for wins at Golden Valley & Cognor Wood down in Englandshire. Click on the image below to link through to our Facebook page (and while you’re there Like it to get news like this as soon as our roving reporter posts.)

Big congrats David Esson on winning M40S down in Englandshire last night, while Hugh Nicholson came 7th in a large M55 field. Looks like it would have been quite magical with a smattering of snow over Cleeve Hill.

Scotland won the Boys JHI Relay by 2 seconds this weekend! Congrats to James Hammond, Laurence Ward, Sam Griffin running in Team Scotland 1 and all the rest of the ScotJos crew on some other great performances too. Individual results from the day before

More evidence of urban developers having fun at Boca Raton, Florida. Built on top of old waterways so the black bits seen here would have to be mapped as blue and if you could persuade some residents to welcome soggy orienteers popping up at the back of their houses you could make hold (probably) theContinue reading “Is it mapped?”

Remember the video with Foss and Erik and other members of the Aberdeenshire Saxophone Orchestra summoning up their inner Picts at Easter Aquhorthies Stone Circle? Well, the ASO Zoomed with a southern counterpart, Phoenix Saxophone Orchestra based in Market Harborough in Leicestershire, for UK Make Music Day on June 21st and recorded ‘Entry of theContinue reading “Nothing to do with orienteering but… (part 2)”

Despite steady rain for much of the day, we managed to set off 1000+ people, count them back in and still found time to get a run ourselves, with some good results too with several 1st and 2nd placings. Big thanks to our Day Coordinator, Paul Duley, for keeping us all up to speed withContinue reading “S6D/2 Day 5 job done!”

Gramp’s day finally rolled round and tomorrow we’ll be manning starts, waking up/collecting controls and hopefully getting some orienteering in too on an area that’s been described as “hard to relocate” – sounds fun!!

Apart from Helen and family plus Tim G who were involved setting up controls for Day 4/5 (3 cheers for them!), most of us have been enjoying the official rest day although some need a few lessons on the definition of ‘rest’ as they seem to have interpreted it as the ‘rest’ of the holidayContinue reading “S6D/2 Rest Day”

We are pleased to have been awarded a grant of £100 from Aberdeenshire Clubsport (https://www.scottishclubsport.co.uk/club/45) to help cover the additional costs of running events with Covid requirements.  We have invested in a contactless payment system and bought all the necessary PPE.  Good to have some financial support to back up the work our volunteers haveContinue reading “Aberdeenshire Clubsport £100 grant”

After another month of watching Tiers and C-19 announcements with bated breath we’ve received a flurry of emails from the 6 Days crew outlining Plans L, M and N (at least) to go ahead with the 6 Days in one form or another. This is all thanks to Richard Oxlade, Dave Kershaw assisted by othersContinue reading “3 cheers for Richard and Dave!!”

We have a Champion! Congratulations to M40S David Esson! A few others took on this challenging area too:Lesley Gomersall 4th W55L Helen Rowlands 8th W50LNeil McLean 2nd M75 Sam Gomersall 6th M60Bob Daly 10th M60Tim Griffin 4th M55Gareth Yardley 7th M55

Our roving reporter, David Esson, is currently down in the Lakes thoroughly enjoying a wee holiday and some fine orienteering areas for the British Middle Distance Champs. Keep an eye on our Facebook site for maps and mentions. Middle Distance combines shorter classic courses and lots of controls so even the “long” legs still requireContinue reading “British Middle Champs 2021”

Another fun wee park for a bit of micro-O maybe? Little Island, NYC, 2.4 acres manages to pack in 350 species of flowers, trees and shrubs. Remember the arboreal trail map in Westburn and Victoria Parks? Something similar would work really well here.

Helen Anderson has been busy revising the child protection policy, aka Safeguarding, and a copy can be found here.

“The slope of these curves varies by task. For example, in sports that rely heavily on physiological fitness—like sprinting 100 meters—the decline of the fitness curve would be steeper than in a sport like alpine climbing or orienteering, where pure fitness matters less and wisdom gained through experience matters more.”(Outside Online An Ode to Aging)Continue reading “Have you peaked yet?”

Dreaming of autumn city O breaks back in the old days…. this looks like it would be fun for a Friday night race to kick off a weekend. It’s in Awaza, a luxury resort in Turkey.

…does feature three Gramps. Can you spot them?

I just wanted to acknowledge EUOC’s sensible attitude to recent announcements and to thank them for their decision to pull out of our event at Glen Dye this weekend. Technically they didn’t have to as there is no travel ban as such but they’ve obviously taken on board the recent headlines that “researchers at UCLContinue reading “Thank you, EUOC!”

Urban-meets-classic. Even just getting there would be fun, never mind keeping track of yourself in that maze.

For the geeky amongst you here’s an advantage to using MapRunF rather than MapRun: you can review, amend and re-submit your splits to include controls that didn’t ping for whatever reason. On the grounds that many folk are self-timing and will be running straight through the control sites rather than waiting for a ping, I’mContinue reading “MapRunF: how to amend your results for missing controls”

Look what we’ve got to play with for future events now we’re gearing up to restart O post Lockdown! Control numbers have been added to the ‘Technical Info for Planners’ post which can always be found easily (along with info for Organisers, Controllers and Competitors) using the menu at the top. We also have aContinue reading “Oooh! Shiny new stuff!”

The Gramp MapRun Factory (Rachel) has been busy over the last couple of weeks and we now have several more courses uploaded courtesy of Sarah Dunn. From Aberdeen Uni and Perwinnes Moss (4 variations Easy to Tech) down to Stonehaven via Cove. Or a novelty twist based on and Aberdeen Street Art Trail. You paysContinue reading “That nice welcoming ‘ding’!”

Those of you who are British Orienteering members will have received an email this morning (17/3/20) announcing the suspension of all orienteering activities with immediate effect on the advice of PHE, WHO and others. All bets are off as to when we can recommence but I think you’ll need to find alternatives for your exerciseContinue reading “All orienteering suspended due to Covid 19 coronavirus”

Well done to the 5 Gramps who went down to Errochty over the weekend to fly the flag for the club (metaphorically, don’t think they actually took a banner) in the CompassSport Trophy for smaller clubs. I’ve seen the maps and looks like Sam & Tim Griffin, Sam & Lesley Gomersall and Bob Daly betweenContinue reading “CompassSport Cup/Trophy Heats and Scottish Middle Distance Champs 2020”

Always thought Johnshaven would make a good place for a SOUL and Maroc proved me right today with Nick Hale exploiting the best bits to full advantage. David Esson was keeping his powder dry for his Birsemore Black Binge tomorrow but wandered around watching the entertainment and took some photos of various Gramps (and 2Continue reading “Johnshaven SOUL”

Many thanks to Helen Anderson for diligently carrying out Membership Sec duties over the last decade or so – not sure when she started but it certainly feels like a loooooong time ago. She’s now handed over the files of office to Lesley Gomersall so thanks to Lesley too for taking over. Anyone else outContinue reading “New Membership Secretary”

Congratulations to those Gramps who travelled up to take part in the Scottish Night Champs held at Findhorn last weekend. Looks like an intriguing mix of urban/forest/dunes judging from RouteGadget so it’ll be interesting to hear what they thought of it. Did it encourage a few more folk to have a go than would doContinue reading “Scottish Night Champs 2020”

Just before Christmas SOA’s Finance Director, Ben Hartman, sent round an email asking any tax-paying members to complete a Gift Aid declaration. As the SOA is a registered charity, Gift Aid allows it to claim extra funds from HMRC on any donations made – including our membership fees – as long as we’ve completed aContinue reading “SOA Gift Aid declaration”

Sarah Dunn of Scottish Orienteering is championing this mobile based version of orienteering using your phone’s GPS capabilities to track and time yourself while running one of our MapRun courses. Upload to Strava too so you can challenge your Stravamates. Visit the MapRun page for more info, instructions and downloads for the MapRun app andContinue reading “MapRun”

Anne Pearson of Tay to thank for this Christmas Brain Teaser.There are 51 points available. 1 point for getting the IOF symbol correct, if there is a + sign you get an extra point for then converting O speak into a word/ phrase that makes sense in the letter. One point for each Christmas symbol.Continue reading “Christmas Brain Teaser”