Edinburgh Southern Orienteering Club

Hair of the Dog 2021Saturday 2 January

ESOC’s New Year fun event had a different format this year, and still had many enthusiastic participants.

The traditional Hair of the Dog social event consists of a fun orienteering run with some kind of puzzle element, followed by a social with food and games. This year there were two orienteering options, available on MapRunF as ESOC Challenges from 24 December until 2 January, plus a Zoom social at the end of the week.

The orienteering options were:

  • Edinburgh - Whinny Hill and Meadowfield Park Christmas Tree Challenge
    A Christmas tree shaped course, with the additional GPS art challenge of drawing decorations on the tree.
    Martin Caldwell and Alison O'Neil came out top of this challenge with their highly decorated versions. Alison ran a detailed star on top, Martin ran a fantastic fairy.
  • Midlothian - “Beating about the Bush” at the Bush Estate, Penicuik
    A MapRunF course where the controls on the map were letters of the alphabet – the aim was to make as many words as possible within one hour, by visiting controls in order.
    The winners here were:
    Helena Nolan - 1st overall and top WV (102 points). She scored by making the words Christmas, Present, Manger, Horses, Snowman, Tinsel, Shrine and Santa.
    Ron Nolan - 1st man overall and 1st MV (88 points)
    Alison O'Neil - 1st Senior woman (87 points)
    Mike Hodgkin - 1st Senior Man (52 points)
    Alex Hodgkin - 1st Junior Male (52 points)
    Becca Hodgkin - 1st Junior Female (40 points)

The weather was quite mixed between Christmas and New Year, with snow just after Christmas making some beautiful scenery. The amazing photos from both venues have already been shared on social media.

The Hair of the Dog Social quiz, held via Zoom in the evening of Saturday 2 January, had several rounds of questions:

  • Name of the Dog - 10 famous dogs were to be identified
  • O flag or no O flag? - contestants were shown extracts of images from Google showing orange and white 'things'
  • UK O Club logos
  • a fun round where the task was to draw a picture on a paper plate which was on your head, with points for accuracy.

The overall winners, by a clear margin, were Judy Bell, Megan and Keith Brown.

Thanks to everyone for taking part, and to David Robertson for supplying most of the above report.

The next ESOC Social is on 24 January and will be our Burns celebration on Zoom.

Other entries categorised under: Social