BASOC eNews January 2025
Happy New Year! Enjoy your runs in sunlit forests during 2025.
1. BASOC AGM and Activity
The AGM will take place on Sunday 19th January 2025 in Kincraig Community Hall at 11:30am. It would be great if as many club members as possible can attend.
The AGM will be followed by a social lunch and a training activity planned by Ray (putting into practice his learning from doing an online planning course, thank you Ray).
More details are on the BASOC website. BASOC members have been sent AGM papers by email.
2. CompassSport Cup / Trophy
Join the club at Kinnoull Hill for the first team event of 2025 on Sunday 23rd February. The event is based on the colour-coded system but the team element means we are looking to get at least 13 club members taking part across the courses to make up a team score. Last year BASOC punched well above our weight taking 6th place among much bigger clubs so we hope to repeat or better this in 2025.
Most people will run in their age-category but if you are willing (or would like!) to "run-up" please let Jane know as there are only two counting scores per class. Last year Jane, Rebecca and Laura all ran in men's categories to help the team score!
Details are on the TAY website. All entries are via Club Captains via a Google Form and the closing date for entries is Feb 7th 2025 to allow Club Captains to allocate start times and make course changes if needed. If you can't make it there is a "No" option in the Google Form so you don't get pestered again for an entry!
Courses are as follows:
Course 1 Brown | Men Open |
Course 2 Short Brown | M20+, M40+ |
Course 3 Blue | Women Open |
Course 4 Blue | Men 50+ |
Course 5 Green | W20+, W45+ |
Course 6 Green | M60+ |
Course 7 Short Green | M70+, W60+ |
Course 8A Green | M18+ |
Course 8B Green | W18+ |
Course 9A Orange | M14+ |
Course 9B Orange | W14+ |
Course 10 Very Short Green | M80+, W70+ |
Course 11 Light Green | Non Competitive |
Course 12 Yellow | Non Competitive |
3. Northern Night Cup (NNC)
The NNC starts up again on Wednesday 22nd January 2025 at Boat of Garten. Jane is planning with Janette as the organiser.
Entries are through SIEntries and close on Sunday 19th January. Enter now to make sure you don't miss out.
NNC5 is on 29th January at Quarry Wood, Elgin with the final NNC event at Torvean Golf Course, Inverness on 5th February.
4. Tuesday=O
5. INVOC & MOR events
Saturday 15th February: INVOC have an event at Nairn East Beach
Sunday 16th February: MOR have an event at Binn Hill (a new area!), part of Lossie Forest
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.
6. Events across Scotland in 2025
Scottish Orienteering have produced information which summarises all the known events in 2025. It is a useful reference - get out your diaries and start marking what you are interested in going to, along with closing dates for entries.
Some events coming up soon:
- Edinburgh Big Weekend, run by EUOC. A night event on Friday 24th January around Kings Buildings, a city centre race on the Saturday and on Sunday there is Holyrood Park colour-coded race. Entries close on 15th January.
- Scottish Night Champs and Musselburgh Urban SOUL event weekend, hosted by ELO (East Lothian Orienteers) on 1st & 2nd February. Entries are through Race Sign Up and close on 31st January.
- British Night Champs are being held at Touch near Stirling on Saturday 8th February; FVO are the hosts. Entries close on 29th January.
- Scottish 6 Days 2025 will take place from 27th July to 7th August on Royal Deeside - RD2025. Entries have now opened and prices rise on 31st January.
7. BASOC Coaching Day, December 2024
On Sunday 15th December 12 BASOC athletes (and Rhona from INVOC / ESOC) headed for Loch Vaa South to take part in a morning of enjoying the Loch Vaa contours. Prior to the session, there had been an optional Zoom call on the Friday evening, going through the basics of Systematic Orienteering. After all, briefing about an exercise in a cold, wet, windy, muddy car park is not ideal.
Everyone set off on their choice of exercise - there were two lots of practising 'Long legs' (that's the length on the map, not on the orienteer) and a detailed Line exercise. There were varying degrees of success - and everyone arrived back at the car park by 12 noon.
The session ended with a fun Clock Relay where the athletes were paired up at random. One of the pair went and placed a 'control' at the number marked on the map; on return to base, the map was handed over (you can see Janette & Jez performing a dance while doing this!) and the other of the pair went to retrieve this 'control' and move it to the next map number and then returning to base. And so on. The number of points to place depended on the perceived running ability of the team. Clare & Suzanne just managed to beat Ray & Rhona!
As with all good sessions, it finished with most heading for a local eatery, in this case Route7 Cafe. Lots of chat and food - unusually there seemed to be an absence of cake consumed! All must have been saving themselves for the festive goodies!
8. Christmas Cup
Thank you to Masterplan Adventures for putting on the fantastic multi-day Christmas Cup over New Year in what were very wet conditions as well as tough physically and technically. Challenging courses in fabulous terrain around Aberfoyle tested everyone. The high quality maps, physical areas, and well planned courses made for three days of excellent forest orienteering. All topped off with a sprint/splash around South Queensferry to blow away the cobwebs on new years day.
Rebecca (injured and managed D1 but then left due to rising water levels) “I loved D1, it was a brilliant course”.
Janette (whilst recovering from flu) D4 “A very wet orienteer around Queensferry. Whilst not fit to complete the courses thoroughly enjoyed walking around part of the courses and focusing on technical accuracy in route execution”.
Clare (injured) & Alice were also there.
9. British Orienteering Development Conference
This online series of webinars is being held from 9th January to 2nd February.
All the webinars are free, there is a variety of topics - check it out to see if anything interests you.