May Social 2024Roseburn, Tuesday, 21 May
Sarah McAdam writes:
"Our May Social brought us to Roseburn in the West of Edinburgh for a Harry Potter themed 60 minute orienteering score event. There was also a foot or cycle Turf event at the same time.
For the orienteering, firstly the Sorting Hat got to work, allocating club members to one of the four houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Some competitors had arrived wearing the colours of their preferred house in the hopes of influencing the Hat. Some made it into the house of their dreams, but as we know the Hat never makes a mistake! Then the briefing revealed the layers of planning that Catherine and Ursula had put into the evening, with house points, individual points, bonus owls, and a Harry Potter quiz all on offer!
With an hour on the clock, we quickly tried some house strategizing before setting off in different directions, chasing the elusive coloured pipe cleaners that would win us those house points. My route took me down the Water of Leith where the community litter pickers had diligently been cleaning up quite a few of the control points I headed for. We had gotten a clue that some mathematical patterns might help us to identify which numbers our houses’ points were hidden at. I was initially thrown by the missing pipe cleaners, wondering if House Slytherin’s controls had fallen foul of an invisibility spell, but finding my first green pipe cleaner put paid to that. Fortunately, other members of my team were more mathematically minded and spotted our pattern.
Those lucky enough to find an owl had the chance to escort it back to the finish for a bonus of 70 points and the quiz also offered an additional opportunity to collect an additional 5 points per correct answer. Since my knowledge of the evenings subject didn’t extend much past knowing Harry’s last name, I stayed out for the full 60 minutes. A particular highlight of my run was visiting the control with the description ‘Catherine’s House’!
When the houses had all returned, the owls back in their nests and the quiz’s completed, we gathered in the Murrayfield Bar, standing in for The Great Hall. First came the results of the House competition, with the ever popular Slytherin taking the win, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw in joint second and Hufflepuff in fourth place. Slytherin team members benefitted from some additional House win bonus points, and these along with owls proved to be deciding factors. In the senior competition Alison Harding won overall with 200 points, while I benefitted from the fact that my team members had had a much more successful time finding those Slytherin green control points, which helped bring me up to 190 points and into second place. In the junior competition Rachel Rose took the win, with her supreme Harry Potter knowledge helping to propel her past all of us mere muggles. Her points total was the highest across both junior and senior classes, a hugely impressive 260 points. Junior runner up was William Atkinson, and Seb and Ianthe Bleakley came in joint third.
Many thanks to Catherine and Ursula for pulling together such a creative evening!"
bythesea writes about the Turf element of the evening:
"ESOC FTT#17 brought out seven turfers to enjoy the varied topography of the Roseburn and Murrayfield areas on Tuesday evening. Although FTT stands for Foot Turf Tuesday, participants took part both on foot and on bikes on this occasion – maybe F was for Fun? The weather was fine and dry throughout. Planner MarkkuESOC created an event with some intriguing choices, including zones that appeared to be close together but were on different levels or had physical barriers between them. The human eye can see more shades of green than any other colour, and turfers uncovered names of shades as they took the green-themed zones. Congratulations to the overall winner, JammyDognut, leading almost from the outset, with 817 points and 31 takes, who made a great tactical decision to start in the flatter area near Roseburn Park, and then cycle through the well-connected zones to the west of the event area. Second place went to Suilven, who opted to cycle the hillier middle section of the event area. First prize for foot turfers, with 508 points and 19 takes, went to SeaCat, who opted to start by heading north on the Roseburn Path and then work his way south, keeping pace with some of the cyclists in terms of points and zones collected. All the participants chose different routes, spreading out and between them making full use of the event area. Thanks to planner MarkkuESOC for an event that balanced challenge with fun."
Full results and details of the Turf event can be seen on the ESOC FTT #17 event page of the Turf website.
See this document for a description of how a Turf event works: Participating in a Turf Event