Badenoch & Strathspey Orienteering Club

BASOC eNews February 2025

Laura and Jane - winners of the Kincraig activity
Laura and Jane - winners of the Kincraig activity
Credit: Pat Morris
Published: Fri 7 Feb 2025

Minutes from the AGM, BASOC 25th birthday, CompassSport Trophy, events coming up and other tasty titbits!

1. BASOC AGM

The AGM was held on the 19th January 2025. Thank you to Jo and Suzanne who stepped down from the Board, and to Rebecca who has joined the Board. Jo will be continuing her vital role as access officer. We are still looking for some volunteers for Board and non Board roles if any members are interested in getting a little more involved in club running or individual events / activities. The minutes and Chair report are now available, have a read so that you know what is going on in your club.

The AGM was followed by a fun activity; here is a report from Laura about it:

The post-AGM activity, kindly organised by Ray & Pat, took place in two parts. After dividing everyone into teams of 2 people, first was an indoor activity, challenging the teams to match together descriptions, map symbols and orienteering symbols for different features. The rest of the teams were no match for Rebecca, who had been recently revising all the symbols.

This was followed by an outdoor activity, with each team of 2 people dividing up to collect a letter from each of the control points. When the 9 letters were collected, the teams competed to see who could make the most words using the letters that had been collected. Jane & Laura were the winners of this activity, despite forgetting Ray’s instructions that all words needed to contain the letter K. Inspired by the size of Janette’s medal from the Glasgow to Edinburgh Ultra, Pat provided medals to the winners that matched in size, if not in weight.

2. CompassSport Trophy

This is taking place at Kinnoull Hill, Perth on Sunday 23rd February. Club Captain Jane says: "This is a “last call” for CST entries - I need to send them away by Sunday 9th Feb. We have 13 entries so far, with 10 counting spaces filled. Hopefully we will manage to coordinate a cafe meet up afterwards too!" Look back at the January eNews for the sign up form if you would like to come along.

The team at the moment is:

3. BASOC has a birthday!

BASOC turns 25 this year and this is something to celebrate.

To learn more about your club, one of the founder member Marion has written about the beginnings of the club. There will be a '2000' style event on Sunday 1st June - red pens for drawing up your course (this is part of your race time) and pin punches (Ed: although I had a SI dibber in 1999 as they were first used in Scotland that year at Highland '99 six day event!).

4. Night Events

Northern Night Cup

BASOC (Jane - planner, Janette - organiser) hosted round 4 of the Northern Night Cup in Loch Vaa on the 22nd January. It was a great evening participants coming from near and far for the opportunity to run in fabulous forest. The courses provided a challenge for most and there was great energy and discussion over soup in the hall afterwards. The 6 event Northern Night Cup series concluded at Torvean on the 5th February. Congratulations to Laura who was 3rd in womens short, to Karen and Ally who competed in all 6 events, and to all of those who took part. The joint series with Moravian and INVOC has become a key part of the winter calendar.
NNC league, womens short podium

  1. Morag McLuckie
  2. Tara Black
  3. Laura Holland

The overall league results are now available.

British Night Champs

The British Night Champs takes place at Touch, near Stirling on Saturday 8th February. There are six from BASOC entered -Duncan, Chloe, Rebecca, Clare, Alice & Jo. We wish them good running with well charged head torches!

5. BASOC Tuesday=O

Remember to look at the BASOC webpage about Tuesday=O and training. There is training listed for 11th, 18th and 25th February.

Volunteers to run any of the sessions are always welcome! Contact Janette if you are able to help.

6. Local events

This is a great chance for some orienteering before the CompassSport Trophy on 23rd February. Hopefully lots of club members will be able to travel to one or both of the events. The WhatsApp group has a car share channel. Get in touch if you are a BASOC member and want to join the WhatsApp.

Consult the Scottish Orienteering Calendar for other events.

7. Event dates for your diaries

8. Edinburgh Big Weekend

This took place over the last weekend in January, 25th & 26th January. Janette, Rebecca, Jo, Ian and Alice all (eventually, thanks Storm Eowyn) made their way to Edinburgh for a weekend of orienteering.

Saturday Urban race: Womens Vet class Janette = 2nd, Rebecca = 4th. Former BASOC member Alison Campbell won the Womens Open class.

Sunday Arthurs Seat & Holyrood Park: from Janette "Rebecca was the star today on a Blue course with some tricky bits and icy underfoot conditions that were not for the faint hearted. Well done to Jo & Ian too."

Janette: " Great urban race, really well planned. And sheer personal astonishment that year after year I enter the Sunday hoping that there will be good running conditions and then spending most of the course cursing the ice and focused on staying on m y feet. Lovely vibe organised by the university club."

Jo: " Great event on Arthur's Seat in spite of slippery terrain. Visited lots of areas I didn't know even having lived in Edinburgh for 20 years. Ian broke his own record taking 79 minutes from his 3 - 4 having done a massive 180 degree error. definitely worth the effort."

Rebecca: "I really enjoyed all the twists and turns of Edinburgh’s old town on Saturday. The course was well planned and offered lots of opportunities for route choice. A really impressive effort from EUOC and all their volunteers meant that the Friday night ‘Fight with the Night’, which had been cancelled due to Storm Eowyn, was rescheduled to become the Saturday night ‘Fight with the (not quite) Night’. After the two urban races on Saturday, it was great to get back off the tarmac and up Arthur’s Seat for Sunday’s event. The weather stayed fine but cold and the view from the start offered a beautiful vista across the Firth of Forth out towards the Bass Rock. The labyrinth of gorse and paths made for some tricky navigation in the first part of the course, I made a big mistake from 2-3 before starting to get a handle on the map and terrain around control 5. It was a great fun weekend with a really nice vibe and I enjoyed the mix of urban and hill."

9. BASOC kit

Rebecca has taken over as BASOC kit supremo and here is a message from her " if anyone would like to try kit on or purchase items I can arrange for kit to be brought to Tuesday O. I will also bring a selection of items to the Compass Sport Cup event later in the month. I can be contacted on the ‘kit’ section of the BASOC WhatsApp group or by email."