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British Middle Champs 2021

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 require concentration. Today (5th June) it was in an area called Summer House Knott and it “did not disappoint”. Three other Gramps are also competing – Tim Griffin and Bob Daly both narrowly missed top ten placings in M55 and M60 respectively, but looks like Sam Griffin had to pull out. Hopefully he’ll still be OK to try again tomorrow at High Dam.
Good luck guys!

High Dam update: Sam definitely back up and running and came 13th in M18E, 7th for Bob Daly, 17th for Tim but unfortunately looks like David might have crocked himself very early on in the course and been forced to stop as results show lots of missing controls. (It’s either that or the Newby Bridge Hotel food was just too tempting and he decided to go back for Sunday lunch – either way, hope you’re OK David).

GMC – fingers crossed for 6th and 7th Nov

We’ve brought the weekend forward slightly at the request of the landowner so now targeting 6th/7th November.
Obviously things may change, and change back again, but when the music stops we hope to be able to offer marquees at the mid-camp depending on C-19 rules at the time but we’re pretty confident that otherwise everything else will be the same as previous planned – Lochnagar area, bag transport, lavish prizes, challenging courses and lots of fun to be had!

We hope to open entries in July so watch this space…..

Is it mapped?

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.

Scottish Champs entries open 13/6/21

Scottish Champs (at Craig a’Barns) is open for entries: https://www.sientries.co.uk/list.php?event_id=8389
Details on ESOC’s site https://www.esoc.org.uk/events/craig-a-barns-jun-13-2021

Worth getting in quickly – only 500 entries allowed

Scottish Junior Cup Race 30/5/21

Entries are now open for the first Scottish Junior Cup Race at Auchingarrich, Perthshire, on May 30th.
At this stage priority is being given to junior competitors and accompanying adults, but after 19th May entries will be opened to all SOA members until the maximum capacity of 200 is reached.

C’mon GJOs – now’s your chance to get back out there and practice ready for Six Days!
Enter before 19th May to avoid disappointment.

More info on SOA website.
Entries via Sientries

Child Protection / Safeguarding

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

From 26th April we can attend other clubs’ events and City/Shire boundary officially permeable

So starting with Maroc’s Cambus O’May Forest Sprint Wed 28th April, fill yer boots!
Still need to be member of SOA/BOF or O club though, pre-entry via forms on websites etc etc.

WED 28/4 Cambus O’May (M)
WED 5/5   Dunnottar Woods (G)
WED 12/5 Denlethen Woods (M)

Few more Forest Sprints to go and then GRAMP’s Summer Series kicks in starting at Hazlehead 19th May.
Full list of planned venues is up on the Summer Series page now but please check individual posts nearer the time for updates as we may have to rearrange things on the fly depending on local travel restrictions or other C-19 factors.

Got a few spare minutes?

Mairi Eades is doing a research project on about why adults in Scotland go orienteering for her uni Sport and Recreation Management degree. Could you spare a few minutes to complete a short questionnaire?

• Participants must be 18 or over, are living in Scotland (or would normally, if it weren’t for Covid) and currently or have previously orienteered.
• All answers will be anonymous, and the results will be observed in topic groups, which will be written up and published to the University and Scottish Orienteering.

Click here for the questionnaire.

Have you peaked yet?

“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)

Want to move the curve for wisdom? Then look out for news on club training which we hope to recommence next year along with more Come and Try It sessions.

Calling all speccy wearers…

Would you like to help a Loughborough student, William Smith, help you by coming up with a solution to misty specs while out orienteering? Then please take a few minutes to complete this survey to help him get a better insight into the problem (his words not mine!!)

Is it mapped?

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.

Crathes 6/12 Results

We misinterpreted the messages about “Guides” and “car parks” and weren’t expecting a very well supported open air market going on full swing in the Guides’ field. Thanks to Sam and Lesley for taking it all in their Organiser/Planner stride and organising some impromptu parking marshalling on top of hanging the last few controls this morning.
Did anyone go shopping after their run? (Anyone who knows me and my email address won’t be surprised to find out that I was a bit annoyed when I got home, looked it up to see what it was all about and discovered I’d missed out on a chance to purchase goodies from “Flump and Fudge” amongst others!)

Yellow Results and Splits
Orange Results and Splits
Green Results and Splits
Blue Results and Splits
(BTW, I am working on how to get the flashy SI generated html results file uploaded to WordPress but a quick search for instructions talks about editing key files in the background and I wanted to get results up asap so it’s separate pdfs again for now while I chew it over until I feel brave enough to dabble!)

RouteGadget BOF points (calculated overnight)

Invoices have been fired out – you should have received an email from Grampian Orienteers c/o no-reply@izettle.com. You need to click on the “Show invoice” button and that will then open up a browser window showing an itemised invoice (Senior fees, Junior/Student fees, non-NTS member parking fee) and a payment button at the bottom for you to pay by card please. If you have any queries about your invoice contact webmaster@grampoc.com.

Have you visited the BOF website recently? See anyone you know?

Go on – take a careful look at the scrolling photos at the top…. https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/home

Scottish Women and Girls in Sport Week 2020

Have you spotted the articles going up on the SOA site highlighting the achievements and contributions of various individuals?
Heidi Ross and Marie Bernards of AUOC were in the spotlight on Tuesday. They’re doing a great job currently coaching via Zoom amongst other things to help keep AUOC fired up about orienteering and it’s obviously working as it was good to see some of their teammates out at Balmedie for the first DNC including Lucie Hamplova and Margarita Radeva.
Nice to see the lads too obviously but you don’t fit the (rather binary) W&GSW criteria, so sorry, but no namecheck this time!

Sam’s in the Squads!

Congratulations to Sam Griffin on his selection for the ScotJOS Squad and the British Orienteering Talent Squad Tier 1. Despite the lack of events this year, Sam’s been keeping fit with lots of running and cycling and we had wondered if he would be able to remember how to orienteer still but any concerns were squashed on Wednesday night when he came over to the dark side and romped round the DNC Long course at Balmedie in 5th position on his first night O ever.

Check the announcement on the SOA website to see who his ScotJOS team mates will be. And the BOF site for the Talent Squad.

So now the question is… with no cake stalls allowed at the moment how are Team Griffin planning to raise funds this time?

Nothing to do with orienteering but…

…does feature three Gramps. Can you spot them?

Glen Dye snaps and thoughts

Well, who would have thought all that mud, marsh, bog and assorted wet stuff would have produced so many excited, grinning faces? We’re a weird bunch!

It’s been a very strange few weeks as what was supposed to have been a simple little local event firstly attracted folk from far, far further afield than we’d ever have expected normally and then got snarled up in local lockdown shenanigans towards the end. I have to admit that at various stages of the process both Pete and I thought “Why bother? It’s bound to get cancelled due to another Lockdown.” But I’m glad we did. It was just as enjoyable for me watching those grins (and listening to the traditional moans about fitness or making the same old mistakes – nothing changes that much!) and we both appreciated it when many of you came to find us to say “Thanks for a great bit of old school orienteering” or “Thank you for rebooting the sport and helping us get out again.” You’re welcome!

Although it means fewer helpers required on the day with no Registration queue, we found the main complication was pre-entry and start time allocation during the run up to the event. I was on holiday for 2 weeks shortly after entries opened so a big thank you to Kimi Raikkonen (aka David Esson) for fielding all those emails and plotting the start times as well as acting as Covid Officer liaising with SOA. This meant all I had to do was think about logistics, normal safety stuff on the day, handling the money side and volunteers.
I think job sharing will be the way to go for a while now and why not into the future as well?

Also thanks to Helen Rowlands (non-runner) for putting in a shift as chief car park attendant assisted by Paul Duley and Ian Hamilton; the Gomersalls for overseeing the Green and Short Brown Start (Lesley’s doodling shows it was quite a relaxed affair obviously); Bob Daly and Tim Griffin, Ace Control Collectors Inc; George Esson who assisted David on Download; and last but not least, Jonathan Smith for helping me fish kit out of the shed and then ferry a lot of it back again after the event to save me another journey.

Rachel

Thank you, EUOC!

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 UCL said 86.1% of infected people picked up by the Office for National Statistics Covid-19 survey between April and June had none of the main symptoms of the illness, namely a cough, or a fever, or a loss of taste or smell the day they had the test” and decided that discretion now, even though they feel fit and well and were really looking forward to a dose of Deeside, will hopefully help avoid a second full Lockdown later as well as showing concern for fellow orienteers and anyone else they may have come into contact with on the journey.

Thanks, guys!

Is it mapped?

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

MapRunF: how to amend your results for missing controls

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’m happy to trust MapRunners to do this yourselves too and adjust after. It’s all a lowkey, fun way to get us back into the swing of things after all.

Want to geek? Here’s how using the “Hey, I think the GPS missed one” (HITMO) function:

1. Reload last night’s event if necessary (no PIN required now – they expire at 23:00 on the day of the event)
2. Select “Show Results” at the bottom and then last night’s event from the top of the list.
3. When you see your trace on the screen, select the menu button top right and then “Review Results (HITMO)”
4. Tap the info button top right for instructions how to locate and select missing controls. The same instructions can also be found here.
5. Tap “Submit a Revised Result” at the bottom.

You can’t edit times though so what I suggest in future is if you visit a control and after a few seconds still no ping and you’re certain you’re in the right place then move on and HITMO at the end if necessary. And I promise to be more careful plotting the remaining courses for this year’s Urban Sprints series.

Rachel

Cove Urban Sprint

It was great to see so many old friends again tonight, tempted out for a run despite the weather threatening to dump on us big time.

Thanks for being game guineapigs and joining the MapRun Tribe. A few lessons learned, not least that I need a new pair of glasses having plotted no. 8 in the wrong place – please accept my apologies for that. We’ll see if we can make some adjustments to the manual set of results tomorrow to compensate those of you who were affected.

It seems that responsiveness varies quite widely from phone to phone. I found myself having to loiter for several seconds at some controls waiting for the next satellite to come round but it did give me time to get my breath back and plan ahead.

The most weird thing reported, by Phil, was having an icecream van drive by drowning out the sound of his phone beeping.

MapRun was the original app which gave you the experience you had tonight but required an administrator to upload courses. Then came MapRunF which also has some natty features allowing you to set your own courses or check control positions all by phone. And now there’s MapRunG for Garmin watches which Sam Griffin was trialling tonight. We’ll let you know whether it gets the thumbs up.

Danestone next week. Look out for an email from David Kirk with details and email address to pre-enter. Thanks for your patience waiting for your allocated start time or quietly slotting yourselves into a gap if you spotted it. Remember it’s all about maintaining 2m distancing between ‘strangers’ so don’t blow it by crowding round phone screens afterwards! (Didn’t think that one through when I suggested using MapRun.) As orienteers you’ll be wanting a scale so…
2m = 6.666667 orienteering kites side by side.

Crathes event 5/8/20 CANCELLED

As the local Aberdeen Lockdown has just been implemented and the Planner and many competitors live in the City and can’t now travel that far we’ve had to cancel the event at Crathes tonight.
We may be able to rearrange it for later in the year so watch this space for news on both Crathes and our other Summer event at Tollohill that may also be affected.

Covid 19

We want clubs, volunteers and participants to feel safe, confident and also enjoy their first experiences returning to orienteering events. So Scottish Orienteering have put together an Event Guidance document and a COVID-19 Risk Assessment which has been approved by Scottish Government and we also have the support of sportscotland.

Why club members only at the moment?
It’s to do with contact tracing should the need arise, minimising numbers of people using an area at any one time and so we can practice our new anti-C19 measures.

What are these new anti-C19 measures?
Simple things to minimise the amount of person-to-person contact and the risk of person-object-person transmission so for example we ask runners to register in advance, pay by contactless gizmo, no results displayed at the event or anything else like cake stalls that would cause folk to gather in larger groups, provision of sanitiser as well as general observance of the current government guidelines. For a fuller list, see our Covid 19 info page.

Round 9

Round 9 – Something a bit less orienteering – but map required… what year and where were they?

Round 8 – Back from holiday and

Round 8 – Back from holiday and visiting a local place… Clue: A-mazing! – Same as usual Location Year and what event?

That nice welcoming ‘ding’!

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 pays no money and takes ‘yer choice!

More ideas are being worked on by a couple of other Gramps too and we’re open to suggestions for either areas to use or courses to convert. Ping an email to webmaster@grampoc.com to get your requests/offers in for either MapRun or lowkey trad courses as we start to prepare for travel restrictions being lifted even further.

And the ‘ding’ bit? That’s how Tim Griffin described the noise his phone made at each control when test running Perwinnes Moss.

Round 7 – “We shall orienteer soon!”

(Fingers crossed, if we remember how?)… What’s the name of the woods, competition name and date!? Good luck…

Round 6 – What was the year!

Round 6 – What was the year!, Location and which day of the event and where are we? Clue: Scotland

Round 5 – Fast turn around

A bit closer to home…..
Clue: Less than 200m from a GRAMP area! 👣

Round 4 – Takes on a “holiday feel”

Round 4 – Takes on a “holiday feel” with two maps – where are we is the 1st question? Courses and date…
Clues – Both “Not in Scotland” and Clue to the lower one “Planner was Mike Edwards” – Good luck !

Round 3 – of where are we? Two maps today

Round 3 – Two maps today – Map 1 with controls 6, 2, 1, 8 – where are we and what event? and map with controls 5, 4, 7, 8 where are we, course and when? – Good luck !

Where are we? Round 2

Round 2 – Where was this course? What was the course colour code? and what date? Scotland…

Where am I?

Where was this course? What was the course colour code? and what date?

Holiday abroad anyone?

As some of you said you’d like to do more of the virtual O here’s one somebody else made earlier. No cryptic shenanigans just straight forward questions to answer thanks to an Italian club in Trentino.

Question form (in English – they’ve cottoned on they’ve got an international audience) has links to the O map and Google imagery. Too late to submit the form now to take part in the competition but do it anyway with a big THANKYOU! on the bottom.

Visit https://oritrentino.it/virtual-cpop/ for more of these but you’ll have to translate the questions.

Tics

In anticipation of Phase 1 and greater flexibility meaning we can get out and further about, here’s a wee reminder that starts about 1 min 40 secs in on BBC’s Out of Doors Out of Doors – Archaeology, Cloud Gazing and Wildlife Watching – BBC Sounds

Abz Uni Kings Campus virtual O answers and winners

Answers

Congratulations to Helen and Stuart for winning the “answer them all” category gaining 980/1000 points in a time of 4:00 GMT (Gin Mit Tonic) and I know they will now be puzzling over how they got that now they have the answers to check as it doesn’t match up. (Clue: arbitrary bonus points awarded for bothering to convert four score merks into £sd.)

Jeremy came second despite sprinting out of the blocks as soon as the quiz was posted, even supplying photographic evidence, but then fell victim of WiFi problems so didn’t manage to answer them all before the deadline and incurred a few penalties in his panicked rush to submit by Monday.

Pete won both the “500 points with least number of controls” and “most controls in 30 mins” categories by dint of no other entries.

I know of more folk, non-Gramps, who had a go but didn’t want to submit answers so would you like another of these but without the competition side to it? Leave me a comment.

Abz Uni Kings Campus virtual O

Take a virtual tour of the Abz Uni Kings Campus map using Google Maps/Streetview to “visit” controls and have a look around to find the answers to questions in this Score event.

The questions are all based on what’s visible in the latest Streetview imagery so don’t bother visiting on the ground as the same objects may not be there any more. This is purely armchair orienteering so grab a coffee/tipple and get clicking instead.
All control sites are either right on or visible from the nearest Streetviewed vantage point or can be found via the Photosphere blue dots.

Control scores vary from 10 to 100 depending on whether
– the answer is staring you in the face
– you need to do a bit more manouevring/zooming/panning (like Trail O)
– a bit of a parallel Google hunt required triggered by what you observe
– cryptic clues with the answer word lengths in brackets, e.g. (3, 6, 3)
– a couple which will really test your Google search skills unless you happen to be or know a local historian (but the answers suggested themselves within a few clicks while I was noodling around so shouldn’t take you hours.)

Google Maps centered on Start
O map with Score controls
(You may find it easier to have two devices on the go to view side by side.)
“Loose” control descriptions if you want them – they are also on the O map
Question sheet xls pdf

1. Choose a challenge from the four types listed at the top of the question sheet, depending on preference for easy ride to brainbending.
2. Time yourself – be honest!
3. Visit your chosen controls and fill in the answers
4. Send your sheets to webmaster@grampoc.com by 11th May. Postable lavish prizes may be up for grabs!

Gramp Orienteering Bingo Game – April 2020

Which Gramp members, past or present, or anyone can get a tick off the boxes to get a cross (X), a frame around the outside, or a full house?!

Click on the pic to view biggified version.

Answers – Gramp map sprint recognition – 8 Apr 2020.JPG

Answers to the Orienteering Puzzle

1. Aberdeen University, building: new library
2. Seaton Park and Hillhead, building: ‘the boiler room’
3. Hazlehead Park, building: café
4. Westhill, building: shopping centre
5. Danestone, building: Grandholm dental clinic
6. Cove, building: Altens hotel
7. Duthie Park, building: toilet block
8. Westburn & Victoria Park, building: toilet block

Well done to all the winners – prizes…. found on the next event.

Click on the pic to view enlarged version.

Gramp map sprint recognition – 8 Apr 2020.pdf

Hello,

Sprint map recognition brought to you by Sam, they are all from Gramp Sprint area, and there’s a bonus point if you guess correctly the function of the building shown in each extract. 😉

Prizes for all…!

See attached PDF. Answers in next week.

Posted by Jeremy.

Gramp map sprint recognition – 8 Apr 2020.pdf

Answers to “Gramp Orienteering Lock in Quiz”

Well done to all of you who tried the "Gramp Orienteering Lock in Quiz".

Answers -> And see attached PDF.

1. Hazlehead
2. Scolty
3. Crathes
4. Tyrebagger
5. Glen Dye
6. Forvie
7. Foggieton
8. Balmedie

Next Quiz Due tomorrow Wednesday 8th April.

Answers – Grampian Orienteering Lock in Quiz.pdf

Gramp Orienteering Lock in Quiz

Hello,

What with all the Orienteering suspended – do you know or can you find which location belongs to each map snippet?

– for many this will be easy…

– answers in 1 weeks time.

See attached PDF.

Comments welcome!

Grampian Orienteering Lock in Quiz No. 1.pdf

All orienteering suspended due to Covid 19 coronavirus

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 exercise fix for some weeks if not months to come. Cue MapRun! BUT… DO NOT TRAVEL UNNECESSARILY JUST TO DO THIS AND PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE ARE NOT OFFICIAL BRITISH ORIENTEERING REGISTERED EVENTS OR ACTIVITIES.

We’ll see about adding some more courses for you to have a go at when restrictions are relaxed but for the moment keep it local, don’t all go at once and respect the 2m rule. Stay safe everyone!

GRAMPIAN MOUNTAIN CHALLENGE 7th/8th NOV: postponed until 2021

Johnshaven SOUL

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 2 ex-Gramps) in action…..

I particularly like the one of Iain with the creels next to the wheelie bins. It’s urban, Jim, but not as many people know it.

New Membership Secretary

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 out there wanting to assist us with some of these backroom roles please get in touch as we can always find a suitable slot for your particular skills/preferences.

Right now we could really do with someone (or two someones if you work better as part of a team) to ramp up our Facebook site or help us swap to other platforms you think might help and to come up with some fresh ideas re advertising or otherwise spreading the word to newcomers.

Does this sound like you? Please get in touch with David Esson or one of the other committee members.

SOA Gift Aid declaration

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 a declaration that we’re a UK taxpayer.

SOA has claimed £3K so far which all goes to help run and develop orienteering in Scotland. Needless to say every little helps so if you lost the email, didn’t get it in the first place because your email has changed or simply haven’t got round to it yet then please do it now.

http://bit.ly/SOAGiftAid2019

There’s a paper-based version if you prefer – just shout out to webmaster@grampoc.com and I’ll forward a copy.

MapRun

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 and pdf course files.

Controllers Course 11/1/20

IMPORTANT CALL TO ARMS!!
SOA are running a Controllers Grade C course on 11 January, 2020 at Roseisle. We need more Controllers so that we can continue to put on as many Regional and National events as we’s all like to see, so if you’re interested in helping out not only Gramp but also the rest of Scottish Orienteering then please contact Denise Martin, SOA Coaching and Volunteer Coordinator, on 01479 861374 asap.

Christmas Brain Teaser

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. Have fun!

Rachel ha ganado tercero W50 en El Trofeo de Las Pueblos Blancos

Three events of very different natures, in or close to 3 of the typical Pueblos Blancos in Andalucia, go to make up the competition. Typical Spanish organisation which means very relaxed but it all comes together in the nick of time even if it means some nifty improvisation like using oranges straight off a tree to weigh down the maps at the Start if windy.

Sadly, prizes will have to be left behind again as bottles of olive oil and sherry vinegar made with Pedro Ximenes are bigger than 100ml and we’re hand luggage only. Had we won the whole jamon top prize in the race number draw we would definitely have bought a suitcase and checked it in!