March Social 2026Tuesday 10 March 2026
This month's social took us to Clermiston, to the west of Corstorphine Hill. Like the previous ESOC social evenings, those who braved the weather were rewarded with a devious twist to the orienteering even and a very well planned Turf event.
Tom Dutton reports on the orienteering side...
We met on the quiet street of Pearce Avenue, which we would all become very familiar with over the course of the evening. Hannah distributed the (first set of) maps while Luke efficiently fed control descriptions from a car window. Hannah explained that the twist of the 60 minute score event was the releasing of new controls in two extra waves throughout the event. We could return to Pearce Avenue after 15 minutes and 30 minutes for new maps showing additional controls. There were to be 6 initial controls worth 10 points, 8 second wave controls worth 20 points and 10 final wave controls worth 30 points. As an added bonus, the occasional control would have a bag of chocolate marking it, as a prize for the first lucky visitor! (The chocolate prizes were hidden at contols 4, 14 and 24)
As we didn't know where on the map the later controls would appear, my initial strategy was to run in the opposite direction to most others and try and bag some early prizes. Although this didn't reward me with any chocolate from visiting the first set of controls, I managed to collect all 6 and return to the start in time for the map 2 release.
The 8 additional controls for map 2 were further away and hinted that the map 3 controls were further still. Getting back before map 3 release to maximise time with the 10 furthest, highest scoring controls would have been a good strategy, but I was tempted on a further, less-obvious route to try and find some first-visitor-chocolate. This paid off, the second control on wave two rewarded me with a bag of mini eggs! Spurred by this success, I raced on to the rest of the wave-2 controls but found no more prizes on this wave. In my enthusiasm, I went too far and ended up returning 5 minutes after map 3 was released.
This gave me less time to find the most valuable 10 controls of wave 3 and little chance of being a lucky first visitor, so I tried to collect these in the most efficient order. The last control on my route was the furthest from the finish, leaving a long fast run required to get back in the time. I wasn't quite up to this, and suffered 60 penalty points for being 1.5 minutes late.
The weather was worsening, so we moved to the nearby Spice Lounge for drinks and a prizegiving by Luke. I got the prize for highest score (more chocolate!), Peter a prize for best time-keeping (closest to 60 mins without going over) and Martin and Sarah shared a prize for control-wave-efficiency.
Another fun ESOC orienteering social, thank you very much to Hannah and Luke!
EdMedic23 reports on the Turf event...
Lightinkorean planned an excellent evening of Turfing around the East Craigs area, resulting in a hard fought battle for the win. Without knowing the exact zone locations, it can be hard to predict where to start and sjami44 did not luck out with his choice of the high school fields. The streets of East Craigs - some very boxy, some sneaky paths and back streets - made for some great route choices. Only 5 out of the listed Turfers made it on the evening which slightly reduced the competition for zones and meant that pph (points per hour) from holding zones was extremely important. Edmedic23 had an initial lead but the was quickly overtaken by all of FeTaTo, MarkkuEsoc and sjami44.
Ultimately, it was a great example of how speed is not necessarily everything in a Turf event as EdMedic23 snuck the victory despite having neither the highest number of takes nor the most uniques.
The prizes were superb, including homemade Turf keyrings and chocolate!
Turf event results can be found here.
Our next social is on Wednesday 22 April - make a note in your diaries now!