The Skåne Turf Challenge

The turfers of Scotland have accepted a challenge from the turfers of Skåne and need your help!

In March 2021, a battle commences. A battle like no other. A Turf war on a European scale. A bloodthirsty battle over Turf zones that will chill you to the core. And one that YOU can get involved in!

Yes, the Turfers of Scotland take on the mighty Turfers of Skåne, the southernmost region of Sweden, for the month of March 2021.

Their challenge was issued to us in September, with the words, “We - the tall, beautiful and muscular turfers of Skåne - hereby challenge the squirrel turfers of Scotland to participate in a regional competition. We propose one of the rounds January to May 2021. We let you decide which round as you are being the challenged party. We would like your response latest by first of December 2020.”

There was enthusiasm for accepting the challenge, and after some discussion, March was chosen, because it’s a 4 week round, there’s more daylight than January or February, and fewer distractions than April or May. Accordingly we have accepted the challenge and now need to raise a team.

Our zone-setter for Scotland, Kingslayer, responded: “So, you are up for your first regional competition! I can promise you an exciting and fun month, and regardless whether the team wins or loses, the participants traditionally always overachieve and normally land a number of new medals, personal bests and achievements they had no idea they were capable of before the competition.”

If you would like to be part of the Turf team in March (even if you haven’t tried Turf before), or if you have any questions, please contact our Turf Co-ordinator, Crawford Lindsay: email hidden; JavaScript is required
Everyone’s welcome – you do need to be based in Scotland, but don’t have to be an ESOC member.

Here are more details about the competition, sent by the Skåne turfers:

Regional Competitions – General Info
A regional competition in Turf can be held in any way - any kind of discipline can be used for competing. We suggest the model below, partly because this will be Scotland’s first time and it’s easy to understand and follow, and partly as we easily can get automated support from turfportalen.se with team setup, participant lists, points and standings as we have used this model many times.

Basic Principles and Rules

Both teams shall nominate a team captain who is contact person, the person who manage the team’s list of participants and drives the recruitment process.
Any turfer who lives in the region must be allowed to participate and should be asked, the competition is NOT between clubs (e.g. Turf Skåne and ESOC) but between the full regions. Our philosophy in Skåne is that all should be asked and allowed to participate: old, young, foot turfers, bike turfers, well-trained and not so well-trained. Recruitment is typically made in the chat, club newsletters, social media and direct physical meetings.
When the round starts, the teams are frozen, i.e. no one can be added or removed.
Each participant will turf just as in any round and gets takes, points etc as usual, but in addition the turfer’s result go to the team as well. We compete in three disciplines by week and by total:
a) Each team’s average points
b) Each team’s average number of takes
c) Each team’s average round unique
After each week the scores above are reset, but turf takes in the round are NOT. For round unique you therefore need to find new ones week 2 and 3 and so on.
Scoring: each discipline a team win after a week awards the team one point, i.e. 3 points are at stake every week. After last week there is also a total calculated for all three disciplines which gives an additional 3 points.
In a 4-week round there are (3 points x 4) + 3 points = 15 points at stake (these rounds can never result in a draw)
In a 5-week round there are (3 points x 5) + 3 points = 18 points at stake (these rounds can result in a draw)
Participants often can’t turf for full four or five weeks. They might need to attend specific events or travels with family or work or might get sick for a few days. We therefore calculate all scores on the top 80% of the teams in each discipline and by each week and total. This way a turfer can be “excused” for some time without affecting the team’s performance.
In the unlikely event of a draw each team shall nominate a champion which shall go for the fastest Beaver/Weasel/Ferret of the two between 12:00 and 14:00 CET / 11:00 and 13:00 GMT after the main competition round has ended. The champions must NOT have a Ferret medal. Warded shall be used as proof to decide who won.
The competition should be held in a friendly and positive atmosphere, but playful and humorous teasing and tantalizing is OK ;-) The important thing is that everybody has fun during the round and feel they have contributed to the team’s success and hopefully made new personal achievements.
If the challenge is accepted Skåne will secure competition support from Turfportalen which also will be used to maintain the list of participants up until the start.

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