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The AWPR Three 24/8/19

We’ve taken a leaf out of STAG’s book and are planning 3 events in one day on Saturday 24th of August  (Bank Holiday weekend in Englandshire) all linked by the AWPR.

Areas:  A bit of everything…
Dunottar (forest avoiding the slopes and really nettly bits!)
Westhill (urban)
Balmedie (sand dunes)

One sprint course on each area approximately orange standard.
Winning times of 15-20 minutes.

Registration
10:00 – 11:00 Dunottar       (Maps for parking/registration to follow)
13:00 – 14:00 Westhill
17:00 – 18:00 Balmedie

Starts
10:30 – 11:30 Dunottar
13:30 – 14:30 Westhill
17:30 – 18:30 Balmedie

Cost
Adults £4.00 per event, Juniors £2.00 per event
Whole day discount Adults £10.00, Juniors £5.00

BBQ/picnic at Balmedie to finish the day. Bring your own food and drink.

Summer Series Glen Dye 24/7/19

Parking in the car parks on the west side of the minor road leading NE to Whitestone from the AA phone box on the B974.

Map  what3words:  bluffing.identify.odds

Registration: 18:00 to 19:00
Courses close (i.e. report back by): 20:00
Fees: £4 Senior, £2.00 Junior/Student

• easy (all on paths – white/yellow standard – up to 2km)
• medium (partly on paths – orange standard – up to 3km)
• two as-hard-as-we-can-make-it courses of different lengths (generally referred to as short and long tech with as-the-crow-flies distances between 2.5 and 5km)
• Technical training: contours,  both intricate and large     
  Tech course runners will be encouraged to use contour only versions of the map where all linear features except the major roads and vegetation screens and boundaries have been removed – actually makes it much easier to see the underlying contour detail.

Scottish 6 Days Day 6 Grandtully

Gramp is planning/organising Day 6 at Grandtully* and Sam Gomersall recently emailed everyone with a helpers list showing who’s been allocated which jobs.
Just in case you changed email address recently but not told us or Sam’s email didn’t get through for some other reason and you have entered Day 6 so think you should have received it please get in touch asap or hunt Sam down in the club tent on one of the other days for instructions.

(*Pronounced “Grantly” BTW)

Summer Series Dunnottar Woods 17/7/19

“Wow! That was fun! Just think – some folk pay £50 for the Banchory Beast when they could come to Dunnottar for £4!!”

One family said they wanted to give orienteering a try after seeing the Adventure Show coverage of the JOK Chasing Sprints – not quite like on the telly as a truly luxurious growth of nettles this year combined with a fair bit of rain for double dose of mud made for pretty adventurous conditions tonight so well done to those who gritted teeth and braved the stingers to complete and also those who sensibly decided to go the long way round or just wave at some of the controls long distance.

Jeremy will endeavour to get results sorted out tomorrow/Friday due to work commitments.

Thanks to Bob Daly, Dennis McDonald, David Esson, Pete Lawrence and Rachel Scott for control collecting and Helen Rowlands for going back out to keep an eye on beginners.

Summer Series Tyrebagger 10/7/19

Results

Apologies for the control in the wrong place. Clearly those who read the warning note on the board were less likely to waste time but that is no excuse for my mistake, sorry.
Thanks to David, Hugh, Jeremy and Bob for taking in controls as well as to Matthew Thompson an ex-Grampian Junior who had come simply for a run without knowing we had an event.

Neil

(PS last weeks results updated to show Yann Newey and Katja Neumann on the correct course – Short Tech not Short.)

Balmedie 7/7/19

Results
Splits
Routegadget
BOF ranking points   will be calculated overnight Tues – need 10 BOF/SOA members finished to trigger points so no points for Brown certainly 😦

Thanks to Matt for planning today’s challenges in the dunes – apart from one slightly misplaced control and the rain showers the only ‘complaint’ I heard was an early runner on the Brown realising that his footprints in the sandy bits in the north would be a dead giveaway to anyone following.

Provisional results and splits posted above and RouteGadget for you to upload your GPS route or draw your own as Matt will be keen to get feedback to develop his planning skills further. RG user guides can be found here.
Please email webmaster@grampoc.com if you spot any errors like spelling or age classes or anything else.

Planner: Matt Parkes
Organiser: Adrian Will
Controller: David Esson
Volunteers: Hannah and Duncan Will, Helen and Stuart Anderson, Neil McLean, Pete Lawrence, Hugh and Ros Nicholson, Nigel Robison, Bob Daly, Ed Stronach, Rachel Scott.

JOK Sprint on The Adventure Show Live

The JOK sprint on Friday 28th June was broadcast live on the Adventure Show and can still be viewed on BBC iPlayer nationwide for a while yet. It was held at Callendar Park, Falkirk.

There is a good write pre-race up here: https://www.ontheredline.org.uk/articles/jok-chasesprint-preview mentioning our very own Sam Griffin.

3 Gramps entered – Rory Halliday and Sam & Tim Griffin – and there’s plenty of footage of Gramp tops running away fast from the cameras, the strategically placed banner at the Finish as well Sam being interviewed by Dougie Vipond. He came 2nd in the Junior Men’s race a mere 6 seconds behind the winner. Congrats!

The programme lasts 2 hours and includes reruns of coverage of various O events our Adventure Show friends have covered in previous years, like the Trail O Champs at Crathes in 2015. Definitely worth a watch before it gets taken down end of July.

Summer Series Balmedie 19/6/19 – Results

Here are results from Balmedie. Uncharacteristically fine summer weather for the barbecue afterwards. Thanks to Murray for organising the orienteering – and collecting the controls in while the rest of us were enjoying the barbecue. Thanks to David for organising the barbecue.

Gramp Junior success at the Scottish Schools Orienteering Festival 2019

Three GRAMP juniors attended the Scottish Schools Orienteering Festival held at Hopetoun House. All three represented Aberdeen Grammar school and ran really well to get second place S3 boys team . Sam continued his good form of the last few weeks to win overall and retain his title from last year. Patrick came 4th and Rory 11th. Well done boys!!

Scottish Orienteering Champs 2019

Solway Orienteers hosted this year’s Champs way down in the southwest corner if Scotland and several GRAMPs made the long trek down to compete. We have three podium places – congratulations to Neil, Sam and David!

Neil McLean M75L 1st
Katrina McLeod W21E 10th
Lindsey Esson Yellow 7th
Sam Griffin M16A 1st
David Esson M40S 3rd
Tim Griffin M50L 13th
Bob Daly M60L 5th

Gramp 1 Sam Griffin/Bob Daly/Tim Griffin came 2nd in the 11+ points Relay category

Gramp 2 Michael Greenwood/David Esson tried their best in the 17+ points category but being one leg short of a full team meant that they were logged as DNF.
Hope they had fun anyway.

Summer Series starts 22/5/19

Visit our dedicated Summer Series page for the full list of dates and venues and links to videos and info for beginners to explain a bit more about what the sport involves. Everyone welcome – bring friends/family and have go!
Download the pic above and post it up at work/school or forward this post to help spread the word please.

JK 2019 & BOC 2019

I had hoped to bring you some updates from JK 2019 but still can’t figure out the results by class so that’s still pending. I did have a trawl through Steve Rush’s photos and found this photo of the lesser spotted Daly though.

BOC 2019 in Yorkshire is still going strong with Relays today (6/5/19) and there were plans for a GRAMP 2-man-3-man team – well, if you’ve travelled all that way down then make the most of it! Over the weekend Bob Daly came 33rd M60L, David Esson 26th M40S, George Esson 15th M70S.

Father and son in action above on Arncliffe and Kilnsey North for the BOC 2019 Individual race – looks a bit cold and claggy but plenty of stile action to keep everyone warm judging by Routegadget.  (Photos by Steve Rush)

Proof of the Pudding – WSOC 2019

Remember all those cakes we’ve been eating recently? Here’s photographic evidence from the World Schools Orienteering Champs of Sam Griffin during the warm up day.

JK 2019 Podium Success

Gramp has already had podium success at Day 1 of the JK 2019.

Sam Griffin came 2nd in the M16 Sprint. His father also got a top ten placing in M50.

Today is Middle Distance day, and we have three more Gramps competing, having kept their powder dry yesterday!😂

Good luck to Bob Daly, Paul Duley, David Esson and Tim and Sam Griffin👍

Picture is Middle Distance finish. Are there prizes for being first to the event😎

David

Junior Sprint Selection – Go for it Sam!

GJO Sprint Maestro Sam Griffin is going down to Lancaster University this weekend for the BOF Junior Sprint Selection Race where M/W 16 – 20s from all over the UK will be competing.
It’s a fantastic location to test aspiring squad members, with multiple complex route choices on a very busy map so full on mental concentration required as well as fleet feet all the way to the finish.

Have a good one, Sam!

Cat [gjo]

Think Fast | Run Hard | Go Orienteering – coaching videos

Even if you can’t manage the Run Hard bit it’s definitely worth taking a look at this suite of 8 coaching videos funded by Sport England and produced by SLOW Orienteers along with GB Team members explaining and demonstrating various techniques to help you plan your routes between controls and nail them more accurately thus saving time and energy and making you feel chuffed with yourself as it all goes to plan. (Plus you get to put faces to the Elite names you might have read about.)

1. Setting the map – so that what you see on the map matches what you see in front of you and you don’t have to think “upside down”
2. Using the compass
3. Attack points – getting as close to the control as possible first by using bombproof features so you know exactly where you are
4. Aiming off – deliberately aiming to one side of your target when running towards a linear feature so that when you get there you know exactly how far along it you are and don’t have to guess between turning left or right to home in on the control
5. Large contour features – making those brown lines leap out at you from the map as being hills or valleys
6. Route choice – could go round it, could go through it but which is best in terms of length vs height gain vs undergrowth?
7. Intricate contours – making the really squiggly brown lines make sense – how to spot a re-entrant or a depression as opposed to a ridge or small hill
8. Simplification – forming a route plan based on the bigger picture so you can “put the map away” and don’t slow yourself down checking off every last boulder

(Personally, I just need another video now to help me remember to do all these things while I’m out there rather than tune out and drift off into a dwam as I sometimes do!)

SRUC tick research project has recommenced for 2019

The idea is to build up a database to help estimate the risk of exposure of humans to ticks and tick bites in Scotland and many of you helped this citizen science project by Scotland’s Rural College last year by reporting the presence, or absence, of ticks after you’d been orienteering or doing other outdoor activities in Scotland.

Preliminary results have been released by SRUC. Orienteers are an obvious group to target and you can see evidence of the 2018 campaign where SRUC folk attended some of the larger events in Speyside, Moray and Deeside to raise awareness and gather data.

(Guess who submitted the purple walking report in the middle of The Minch? Who do you know with a mischevious side to their personalities and that knows an orienteer with a boat?)

There’s a lot more analysis to do yet and the project will be looking for comparative data from this year between 1/3/19 and 31/10/19 so follow the links above and register or dig out your username and password from last year and get reporting.
And if you think March is too early for ticks, it’s not! Rachel had one after the British Night Champs at Dinnet tail end of Feb.

On a more serious note, Ewen Rennie sent a link to a petition to improve The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) upcoming guidance on Lyme Disease that orienteers might be interested in.

Another news flash! Sprint Training @ Westhill Wed 27th

Maroc are borrowing Westhill for some sprint training on Wednesday and Gramps are welcome to go along too. David Esson has made up a short course of 3.6km and will supply a map for you if you want to stretch your legs after last weekend’s excesses. No controls so GPS yourself if you want some timing.
Email him on chairman “at” grampoc.com for the pdf of the map to print out.

Meet on Wed evening in the Ashdale Drive car park next to the shopping centre ready to run at 6pm. Don’t forget to bring a headtorch as some of the back alleys might be quite dark. Not sure what rules apply re under 16s and activities like this but we can work something out.

Alternatively, if you can’t make Wed you can still get a map from David and go round whenever suits. Or if you fancy something urban but longer than sprint take a look at the Street O maps we used a few years back.

British Night Champs 2019

Well done to assorted Gramps for braving a looooooooong walk in and out as well as the technicalities of Dinnet to contest the British Night Champs over the weekend.  Congratulations to the medal winners and commiserations to those who ran out of steam/brainpower especially after helping at the SOUL at Cove earlier in the day.

W21L Katrina McLeod 5th
W50L Helen Rowlands 4th
W50S Rachel Scott 1st
W55L Lesley Gomersall Bronze

M40L Gordon Urquhart Bronze
M40S David Esson 1st
M55L Sam Gomersall 4th, Ian Hamilton 7th
M75L Neil McLean Silver

(Only L courses get medals.)

Lovely clear, calm moonlit night with geese honking out on the loch and territorial tawny owls making their presence known no doubt upset at the hundreds of bobbing lights going about. All courses started with a bit of a track run to lull you into a false sense of security before spitting you out into the complex woodland over by Burn O’Vat and beyond for some tricky diagonal legs before blasting back along the south side of the loch on fast open grassy muir if you had the legs and breath left for it.
Hats off to Big Jon and Maroc for pulling this off after a long time in the planning and preparation and especially Scott Reynolds who probably never wants to see another brikke or computer for at least 6 months!

River Dee RadioRiver Dee Radio feature on night O and BNC

Have you seen the new look SOA website?

SOA have launched the long awaited new look website (new behind the scenes too for the geeks amongst you) and looking very inviting with plenty of action pics and intuitive top level menu.

Go explore and see what you think.

2019 Scottish Night and Sprint Champs

We can’t claim any champions this year but we can claim some near misses.
Pete, Rachel, David and Katrina ran at the Night Champs held at the John Muir Country Park just outside Dunbar 2/2/19 – very flat and fast compared to most DNC fare but good fun and an amazingly clear and starry night to enjoy a quick blast through some pines and mini dunes.

Rachel might have managed 1st or 2nd W50 had she not lost her dibber early on (aye right?!), Katrina came 4th in W21, David 5th M40 and Pete 5th M55.

Pete and Rachel then camped out in the van nearby  before driving over to Broxburn/Uphall to say hello to the Hicklings, Jayne McG, Richard and Ann trying out their new ESOC personas organising and helping out at the Sprint Champs 3/2/19. The Farquharson 3 and Sam Griffin joined them for 2 races: the first for the Sprint Champ titles and combined times with that and a second race for SOUL 2 results.

Sam came joint 2nd M16 only 8 seconds behind the winner following a bit of operator error with his SIAC dibber at the finish – bit of a dibber theme developing here? – bad luck Sam, I feel your pain!  Morven and Kirsty came 4th and 5th W14, Katrina 7th W21, Laura 5th and Rachel 7th W50, Pete 5th M55.

Photos all courtesy of Steve Rush BOK who pops up at urban races all over the world taking photos while his wife and daughter are out racing and  who will be doing the honours at GRAMP’s next event, SOUL 3 at Cove. Speaking of which… entry fees go up by £1 tonight and last online entry is 18th Feb if you’re still swithering and haven’t entered yet. Entry via Fabian 4.

Steve’s Flickr account

DNC Glen Dye 6/2/19

Results  Splits   RG (sorry – georef’d version of the map isn’t playing tonight so you’ll have to adjust your GPS tracks manually)

Thanks to Sam for planning and the family for assisting on reg and anyone else who helped collect the controls as that was the final Gramp offering for this year’s DNC.
Only 2 more to go, where does the time go? Seems like only yesterday we were getting all excited at the prospect of darkness by 4 in the afternoon and wondering whether to upgrade our headtorches this season.

Short course 3.3 10 controls
Long course 4.9 12 controls

Compass Sport Cup Qualifying Round, Dunrod Hill, near Greenock, 17th March

The Compass Sport Cup qualifying round this year is being hosted by CLYDE at Dunrod Hill, near Greenock.  This is an inter-club competition; however, you need to do your own entry. Three Scottish clubs will qualify for the finals on 20 October 2019, organised by Mole Valley at Pippingford Park, Crowborough.

There is some information on the CLYDE website, but no entry details yet:

http://www.clydesideorienteers.org.uk/home/events/clyde-compass-sport-cup-scottish-heat-17th-march-dunrodhill/

The rules are fairly complicated (see link below if you are interested).

There are 11 courses:

1 Brown Men Open

2 Short Brown M20- M40+

3 Blue Women Women Open

4 Blue Men M50+

5 Green Women W20- W45+

6 Green Men M60+

7 Veterans Short Green M70+ W60+

8A Junior Men (Green) Men 18-

8B Junior Women (Short Green) Women 18-

9A Orange Men Men 14-

9B Orange Women Women 14-

The first 2 GRAMPs on each course will count towards our overall score. You are allowed to run-up an age class or classes and women are allowed to run as men, but not vice versa.  You are welcome to enter any course you wish but you need to enter the appropriate course if you want your result to count towards GRAMP’s score. Start times need to be allocated by the club, not the organisers, so if you enter, please let me know (treasurer@grampoc.com) if you have a start time preference (early, mid-, late etc).

Compass Sport rules etc can be found at:

http://www.pgopage.co.uk/compasssportcup.htm

HHH Hazlehead 2019 Results

Lovely crisp morning, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves out on the courses, and they certainly enjoyed warming up afterwards with the homemade soup back at the Esson’s house.

HHH Hazlehead 2019 Splits.pdf
HHH Hazlehead 2019 Results.pdf

Hazlehead Hogmany Hangover Handicap 2/1/19

Another fiendish brain bending scheme has been hatched for the HHH by George Esson so better start reading the details and inwardly digesting now…

Norwegian Master Maps – with a twist

On a Norwegian Master Map course, at the Start and at each subsequent control, the competitor finds a small segment of the map showing his next leg, which he/she then completes from map memory.

The twist? At some controls there will be a multiple choice question with three possible answers, and a map segment corresponding to each answer. If your answer is correct, at the next control you will find a kite, an emit unit to punch, and a map segment(s) for the next leg. If your answer is wrong you will find a kite and a unit (which you may punch if you wish to know how expensive your error has been) but no map segment. You will then either have to go back to the last control and pick another answer, or remember all three control site options and go from one to the next. If you get all the answers right first time the course is 3.0 km.

For this course the rule regarding proximity of controls has been disregarded.

Blank maps will be available for those lacking confidence in their memory.
Map Scale is 1:4000

A 1.2km Yellow course will also be available

Assembly is at the car park adjacent to the gates to the cafe, on the way to the golf club.
what3words  party.flag.backed

Entries and Starts 11 a.m. to 12 Noon.
Cost – £4 Seniors, £2 Juniors.

Party afterwards

will be at the Essons, 215 Springfield Road, Aberdeen AB15 8JN (just round the corner – well two or three corners). All welcome.

Bring your own left-overs and drinks; soup and tea/coffee will be provided.

DNC Forvie 12/12/18

Well Murray certainly made us all think all the way round with a couple of exceptionally difficult courses. Chapeau to those who whizzed round in ridiculously quick times and commiserations to those who really struggled on those fiendish long legs.

Results  Splits   RouteGadget

Gramp Post AGM Christmas Score 2nd Dec

Many thanks to Family Griffin for providing the post-AGM orienteering activity to run off all the delicious food from the night before. They even managed to persuade Father Christmas to take time out from seasonal preparations to lend a hand as roving bonus control 129 worth 30 points and a chocolate from his sock.
Slightly more elusive was a decorated Christmas tree (96) not marked on the map but also worth 30 points if you spotted it on your way round.

Thanks to all for coming along and supporting Sam’s fundraising and well done to the Short Score Maestro Patrick Lang who visited all the controls within the 30 minute time limit.

Scores on the doors
And in detail so you can see what controls everyone else bagged and in what order

And thanks to David Esson (new Chairman) and Sarah Wallace (new Secretary) for assisting with computing and control collecting today but more importantly stepping up to take on those roles on the committee. Further AGM news to follow…

31/10/18 Hazlehead (DNC) Results

Results  Splits

Ta muchly to Dennis and his mate at 243 for a spooky spin round the fairways and greens tonight.

Woooooooooooooooooooooo!

Deeside Night Cup 18/19

A wee heads up to test your torches and dust off your night O tactics over the next few weeks as battle recommences on Halloween – come out if you dare!

Every Wed evening from 31/10 to mid-Feb in a wide variety of areas up and down Deeside and a bit beyond (Forvie’s back in the mix this year – yippee!) with two courses of 5km and 3km both TD5 or Green standard.

If you’re a newcomer to night O or only just working up to that standard but fancy having a bash then give us a shout (flump@care4free.net) and we’ll try to find a TD5 standard runner to shadow you for your first couple of goes. Gramp also has a couple of headtorches for hire if you want to try before you buy your own.

Check out the DNC blog for a provisional list of dates and venues: https://dncchat.wordpress.com/

Urban Sprints trophies

Anybody in contact with the following folk? Can you remind them to return their Urban Sprint Trophies please? Get them to eEmail flump@care4free.net to arrange collection at local event or posting.

Petra Hampton, Rachel Salway (MAROC), Claire Tunaley (MAROC), Lachlan Kirk (GRAMP)

So how do they orienteer?

According to Space Weather News for Sept. 6, 2018

JUPITER HAS AN EXTRA MAGNETIC POLE: NASA’s Juno spacecraft has discovered something extraordinary about Jupiter. There is an extra magnetic pole near the giant planet’s equator, dubbed “The Great Blue Spot” by researchers who identified it. Jupiter’s unexpected magnetic morphology is a sign that strange things may be happening deep beneath the cloudtops. Visit today’s edition of Spaceweather.com for the full story.

Strange things, eh? Jupitans going about with triangular compasses?

Telegenic volunteers will be required for 2022

The Sprint World Orienteering Championships 2022 has been awarded to Edinburgh. Well done to EventScotland and Edinburgh City Council for working with the BOF/SOA bid team and helping sway the decision in Edinburgh’s favour.

The proposed venue for the Event Centre is the University of Edinburgh’s Pollock Halls of Residence campus. Preferred dates are in the middle of July. The idea is to have the three televised finals in Edinburgh’s iconic locations.

IOF release here

Feedback wanted from orienteers in Scotland for tick research project

Have you spotted the SOA website article on reporting ticks for a research project?

Great Schools Orienteering Festival success for Gramps (aka Aberdeen Grammar)

Three junior Gramp members (two ‘old’ hands and one very recent one) competed in the Scottish Schools Orienteering Festival at Pollock Park representing Aberdeen Grammar recently and came away with a first and team Silver in S2 Boys…. can we get more next year?! Read the P&J report here.
Congratulations guys!!

Forest Sprint Series – Final Results

Here’s the final points table for the series.  Best four results count towards the final score.  Well done Tim Griffin (2nd) and Sam Griffin (6th).

FSS Results 2018_Final

Forest Sprint overall results after 5 events

Here is the overall league table for the Forest Sprint Series after 5 events.  Positions are based on best 4 out of 6 events.  One more event to go: Bellwood, Aboyne, this Wednesday.  Still a lot of scope for positions to change.

FSS Results 2018_Post 5 Events

Forest Sprint @ Mulloch 9/5/18

Many thanks to all those who made it to Mulloch tonight, especially considering the not-quite-perfect weather conditions. Thanks also to Gareth, Bob and Zoe for help control collecting.

Results

Well done to those who recognised the photo locations, may be we should put on some photo-O too!

Note on forest rides. Mapped rides are the wider gaps through the mature trees and may be obscured at ground level by younger tree growth – look up! There are old and new extraction lanes running parallel to the mapped rides that are may look like rides, can be good route choices but are not shown on the map. Some examples below. I hope this helps.

Mapped ride (bit soggy underfoot)

Recent extraction lane

Mapped ride with younger trees. Crossed in foreground by recent extraction lane.

Mapped ride

Extraction lane

Forest Sprints start at Foggieton on 11th April

The first of the Forest Sprint Series will be at Foggieton, Wednesday 11th April.  Car parking and registration at Cults Primary School.  Registtration 18.00 – 18.50, will probably be ready a bit earlier.

One course which should be suitable for everyone, 2.7 km, TD3 (ish).  No road crossings.  The forest is nice and runnable at this time of year; most of the undergrowth flattened after the winter, and no nettles!

Relay Teams for British and Scottish Relay Championships

British Relay Championships @ Torphantrick 20th May
The British Relay Championships are being held on the 20th May up at Torphantrick up in Royal Deeside. It is probably one of the most runnable areas in Deeside, and should be a cracking venue for the Relays. If any Gramp member wishes to run at the relays, please let David Esson know asap. Closing date for entries is 4th May but he’ll do the team entries so all you need to do is email him asap with your name, age class, whether you prefer a long or short leg and TD5 or lower.
Doesn’t matter if you are competitive or not, if you fancy it, put your name down for it!

The various Relay courses are the following:

Men’s Premier (20-35)
Women’s Premier (20-35)
M14, W14, M18, W18
M40, W40, M50, W50, M60, W60, M/W70

Mixed Adhoc, Junior Adhoc, Mini Relay

So you can see there is a wide range of courses to suit everyone and if we don’t have enough takers for an age class team then we’ll mix and match you into an adhoc as competitive or fun as you want. Best bit is that the Club pays, so really you get a free run in an awesome area, if you fancy it!

Scottish Relay Championships @Roseisle 27th May

Having had a practice run at Torphantrick, the Scottish Relays are the next week up at Roseisle beside Burghead. Think Balmedie/Forvie but with trees so if Torphantrick is going to be fun, then Roseisle is going to be phenomenal! More details on the relay categories to follow and closing date for this is 13th May.

Let David know if you are interested in running here too! david.esson

(All Gramp members should have already received an email with this info – if you didn’t then it’s time to check we have your email address up to date so please email webmaster to confirm.)

New club kit running tights

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.

World Sprint Orienteering Championships 2022

Exciting news on the SOA website yesterday confirming that The Scottish Orienteering 6-Day Event Company, along with the bid partners of the Scottish Orienteering Association, EventScotland and the City of Edinburgh Council are submitting a bid on behalf of British Orienteering to stage the World Sprint Orienteering Championships 2022.
Along with the announcement is a map showing 5 embargoed urban sprint areas in and around Edinburgh.

Let’s hope they get it as although it will mean a lot of hard work the buzz from being involved in something as big as this is tremendous and the spin off publicity is great for attracting newcomers – STV and The Adventure Show are bound to film it if nothing else.

Introduction to Orienteering Hazlehead – 3 sessions 14th & 28th April and 12th May

Click here for more details and registration form.

Mountain bike centre at Durris

Bit quiet on the orienteering front until the Forest Sprints start (more details on those to follow very soon) so in the meantime here’s something that might interest those energetic crossover athletes amongst you.

The North East Trail Centre Organisation have unveiled plans for a new centre for mountain biking in Durris (Cairn Mon Earn at the summit of the Slug Road)  with a chairlift, ski slope, cafe etc etc and also ideas for nordic skiing trails and other activities like “orienteering”. Mountain bike orienteering maybe? as mooted at our AGM?

Take a moment to tell them your thoughts and ideas by completing their survey – open until March 15th.  Click here.  (It’s a bit of a monster link so might not work – if so go visit the NETCO Facebook where you’ll find the original link and see what they’re all about.)

Bennachie under threat?

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.

SOA wants to tap into your thoughts about orienteering in Scotland

The SOA are reviewing if they’re really focusing on the right things to achieve their aims, and if/what they should be doing differently.
Richard Oxlade and Anne Hickling are leading on this as the ‘strategic’ team. There is an online survey with a deadline of 28th February so please take a look and respond to help direct the SOA over the next few years. The survey is short and sweet and is really designed to get you all thinking and talking about how GRAMP and SOA can work together to develop membership, performance, club activities. As the old adage goes: if you don’t ask, you don’t get, so wax lyrical and help Richard and Anne on their mission to help us.

Richard will feed back the results at a workshop in April in order to generate actions, to which you are also invited. More details here.

Compass Sport Cup – 11th March

And now for something completely different…

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?)

Gramp website stats

I know how some of you nerdy folk out there just love graphs and stats so here’s a quick selection from the GRAMP website back end stats facility that illustrate one or two interesting things:

The 2012 spike was due to Scottish Relay Champs traffic for that year as we organised it at Craig Coinnich. Otherwise it does look like traffic is falling off slightly – could be due to more folk checking our Facebook page in preference? Or maybe we’re slacking in spreading the word about our wonderful sport? Sarah Wallace has taken over as publicity/social media guru so have a chat with her if you think you can help in that regard.

Most popular posts for 2017 include some obvious ones like Summer / Forest / Autumn Sprint Series and the Forvie SOL pages but look what’s at number 4…. Permanent Orienteering Courses.

Can you help Stuart Anderson with setting up/maintaining a POC local to you? How about getting out that flashy new smart phone you got for Christmas and setting up some Mobo courses?
And once that’s all set up and running, leave some intriguing QR codes dotted about to lure folk to take a look?

Finally, here’s a world map showing where someone or something looking at our website supposedly comes from. Bear in mind that a lot of these “views” will be bots rather than actual people in Laos or Bangladesh or other unlikely areas wanting to find out about our next event but it looks pretty impressive, doesn’t it? We can always dream.

Have you renewed your membership yet?

From 1st November this year, the SOA introduced an additional membership option, to give existing and new members the option of joining their local club and the SOA only.
There are therefore two options for membership renewal:

1. British membership (joining your local club, the SOA and British Orienteering)

• The primary option for members who participate competitively and hence enter Scottish/UK events, and who wish to take on official and coaching roles
• You can renew your membership as normal by logging on to the British Orienteering website.

2. Scottish membership (joining your local club and the SOA)

• Additional option, for people who primarily orienteer locally and who don’t take part in competitions across Scotland or the UK. There are some limitations on event entry and taking on official and coaching roles but we can mentor you which will cover the paperwork aspect and still allow you to get involved helping put on the local events you enjoy so much.
• You can join as a Scottish member online.

For more information and to understand the differences between British and Scottish membership, click here. To explain why SOA introduced the option, read more here.

Whichever option you choose Gramp look forward to seeing you all plus friends and families again next year starting with the Hogmany Hangover Handicap at Tyrebagger on 2nd January.

Sasha’s in the GBR Senior Squad for 2018

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)