Holyrood Park

ESOC local event in Edinburgh and the Lothians

Sat 21st Oct 2017

Type of event: Local-(D)
Near: City of Edinburgh

It was such a lovely surprise that today turned out dry and almost sunny instead of the threatened storm. Everyone was able to enjoy the considerable challenges presented by Whinny Hill and its eponymous gorse bushes without the additional problems of driving rain. The optional Mass Start on Green was a new idea taken up by the bravest, with the additional interest of a "spectator leg" through the car park. Today was notable for the number of enquiries about what we were doing from passing runners and walkers; all good publicity for the club and for this great sport. We are so lucky in Edinburgh to have Holyrood Park on our doorstep; and grateful to the Edinburgh University Orienteering Club for letting us use their map; to the Planner Andrew Lindsay for his ingenious courses, and to the strong team of ESOC members who made the event happen.

Janet Clark Organiser 0131 225 7771

Lost property: A rather nice Sekonda watch with a broken strap was found near the Start. Contact me as above if .you lost this today.

A great area in the centre of Edinburgh but still suitable for all orienteering skill levels. Updated information added to main web item on Friday 20th October.

Cademuir

South of Scotland Orienteering League (SoSOL)

Sun 17th Sep 2017

Type of event: District-(C)
Near: Peebles

Organisers Comments

Thank you to all who attended our SoSOL at Cademuir - it's 6 years since our last visit to this wonderful, varied area and the return was overdue. After a rather wet week in the borders no one was quite sure what Sunday would bring but the weather, although cool at times, remained largely dry. After a brief delay to the start-for which we apologise- competition got underway and all who cared to voice an opinion seemed to enjoy themselves. Thank you to Martin and Ken for the very well received courses.

The day otherwise ran fairly smoothly, so thank you to all involved. Special thanks goes to Peebles High School for an excellent registration and parking area and to Patricia Anderson and the Forestry Commission for allowing us to use the area.

Tyler, organiser

These are the simple results

These are the winsplits

Here is the Routegadget for the event

String Course Participants are here

Controllers comments

I hope you all enjoyed your day out on Cademuir. It’s a beautiful place, with stunning views, so I hope you looked up and took it all in. I also hope you enjoyed Martin’s courses. I certainly enjoyed working with him and know he avoided most of the steep and overgrown areas, albeit some climb was unavoidable. The results indicate that some of the courses were slightly long, which I should have spotted, sorry. I also apologise for the delay to the first starts.

It was also a pleasure to work with Tyler. Although he was new to organising, he got on with his tasks and delivered an excellent event. The event was also heavily supported by Janet Clark, Bill Stevenson and the many ESOC volunteers.

Thank you all.

With more time and more volunteers, we might have picked up more than the 100+ map corrections we captured and might have been able to share more tasks including control hanging. This is not a criticism, as it is a common problem across the sport; however, I would like to take this opportunity to encourage everyone to learn to plan, organise or control events. These roles can be just as rewarding as competing and Cademuir was a good example, as I spent many happy hours on the hill, enjoying stunning views of purple heather clad hills and catching sunburn. If you want to discuss what is involved, look for me at another event and have a chat. I am happy to help.

Ken Daly (Controller)

PLANNER’S COMMENTS:

When I took on the challenge of planning this event I had never visited Cademuir before, so I had a lot to learn about this varied and detailed area, however it was good to have no idea of where the earlier courses went. The forestry side of the map has changed enormously since our last event here, with extensive felling and new paths all over the place. Many thanks to Bill Stevenson for updating the map again and again.

For an interesting route, the easiest courses had to wind their way up through the woods. At a couple of places this winding route became so complex and confusing that we needed to use tape to guide competitors safely through. Other courses had a mixture of forestry, with the choice of a short tricky route through trees or a longer safe one along paths, and open hillside, where detailed contours, cliffs and rocks were important. It will be interesting to see the route choices, specially on the long legs.

I am indebted to Ken Daly who provided me with great help, both advisory and practical, throughout the process and to everyone in the club whose combined work made this event run smoothly.

Martin (Planner)

A welcome return to Cademuir near Peebles, last used in Spring 2011.

Final Details now available. Specific start times not allocated, see Final Details for more information. If you need to print the Medical Form, it is in the General Information below - read more of this Event item below.

Covenanters Wood

ESOC local event in Edinburgh and the Lothians

Sat 09th Sep 2017

Type of event: Local-(D)
Near: City of Edinburgh

Organiser’s Comments

Today was the day that the ESOC Juniors took over and ran the show. Well done - what a fantastic event you put on. It made the task of organising easy to have so many happy smiling volunteers undertaking all the jobs – from registration and map sales, to running the start and directing people at the finish and assisting with the computing. We even had a junior planner – well done to Ben for some super courses which made the best of a small area. The rain threatened a few times but never came to anything – so it really was a perfect day to go the woods. After the orienteering, juniors were also spotted den building and playing on the rope swing over the burn – only a few people went home soaked! Apologies as there were a few gremlins in the computing but these have all been sorted now. We hope you enjoyed the event.

Planner’s Comments

I hope you enjoyed the courses as this was my first time of planning an event. In some ways it was a help that it was an area I know well but that also made it difficult to view the woods from other people’s perspective – using the map rather than local knowledge. I decided early on that the only way to get a green course which didn’t look like a spider’s web of crossing lines was to have butterfly loops from a central point. I hope you liked visiting the tree from different directions. It is hard to assess how it went, but well no one died, so that was a positive and everyone returned safely. I would like to look at route choice on the courses so I would appreciate if you would put your route on routegadget.

Club President, Ewart writes: Immense thanks to all the ESOKids who helped at Covenanters Wood today. You were professional in all tasks and were very welcoming and helpful to the competitors.
Thanks too to Judy for masterminding everything and to Ben for his work in course planning.

Apologies for the issues with the results at download. Everything has been sorted and the results below are correct.

These are the simple results

These are the winsplits

This is the link to routegadget

There's a few more photos on our Facebook page.

Event put on by ESOC juniors (with a tiny bit of help)

Beeslack Woods, ESOC Ultrasprint 2017

Maze combined with Park orienteering.

Sun 03rd Sep 2017

Type of event: Local-(D), Other
Near: Penicuik

These are the results for the courses

This is a PDF of the overall results

These are the winsplits

Planner's Thanks - Thank you for attending today's event at Beeslack. We do hope you enjoyed it - the weather was kind to us which helped make it a fun day. I would like to thank Fiona and the team with their fantastic work on registration, start and finish; Roger for his help and advice with the fine details and course planning; and Mark for helping me put out the maze (the right size!). Thanks to the team that helped me collect all the controls and maze before the rain started!

Jim Martin

Controller, Roger Scrutton adds: I would like to echo Jim's thanks to all involved. As far as I was concerned this was a stress free event.

Cheers, Roger

A fun event with something for everyone to enjoy.

Blackford Hill

ESOC local event in Edinburgh and the Lothians

Sat 15th Jul 2017

Type of event: Local-(D)
Near: City of Edinburgh

Results in pdf format. In case you can't open pdf format, here are results in a Word document.

Apologies these results aren't presented in the usual way. Split times will be uploaded, along with results in the usual format, in due course.

Organiser's Comments: It didn't look good this morning. St Swithins Day looked like promising rain today and for the next forty days. But, Fast Forward to 1pm, people had found on their phones an expected weather window till 4pm; the rain had stopped, and off we went!
We put the tent in a new place; nice short grass and high walls on two sides. It was still a bit windy, but the tent stayed up, and people started to arrive. First-timers, old hands, elite runners, toddlers in backpacks; the usual mix of competitors for a Saturday afternoon. Everyone was challenged by their run - some more than others. This is what it's all about. Please come again soon. Our next Saturday event isn't till September, but keep an eye on the ESOC website for the next chance to have such great fun!

An excellent, easy to get to area, with terrain suitable for all levels of orienteering skills. A grand day out if you are on holiday in the area.

South Queensferry Urban ‘Sprintelope’

Informal local urban event in South Queensferry

Wed 05th Jul 2017

Type of event: Local-(D), Social
Near: South Queensferry

Thanks for coming to our Sprintelope at South Queensferry, hope you enjoyed the courses planned by Craig Nolan. A special thank you to those who offered their map for recycling.

Complete results now available.

Thanks also to Robin Strain for putting the earlier provisional results together and providing a tidy version of the complete results.

A fun evening event for experienced orienteers