Beach Start at Ganavan - photo Chris Spencer

Now that I have just about recovered from what seemed a very tough 6 days of orienteering in Oban, I thought I'd reflect on the event and look ahead for the rest of the year.

For those that went to the 6 -days, I’m sure you will agree that it was a really great event, with a good mixture of challenging courses, fantastic scenery and a chance to be sociable and catch up with friends and family (The event has a strong international draw with a couple of our friends coming all the way from Australia and South Africa!). Photo courtesy Chris Spencer, Moravian

FVO played a significant part in the event’s success, particularly on our day on Day 1. On behalf of the committee and myself, I would like to say a massive thank you to all of you who volunteered to help on Saturday and Sunday including a number of non FVO & Tay members. Helping at the beach start and watching thousands of orienteers head off on their courses made me realise what a task it is for a relatively small club like ours to take on hosting such a big event. We can only achieve this by the quality of help, high commitment and experience at the club.

The day wouldn’t have gone so well without Louise, and I would like to thank her for her considerable efforts planning and organising ahead of the day, ensuring that we all turned up (arms twisted or not!), and knowing exactly what we had to do. I would also like to thank Trevor and Dave for making the most of a compact area and planning some great courses, and Ben, as assistant controller, for keeping everybody in check.

We also had a number of FVO members helping the central organising team: including David, processing all the starts, and SI consulting at the events every day; Gareth (a man of many talents) helping to to build a shower block at the campsite; and Steve delivering another set of quality maps for the event.

Onto the races. The FVO Women showed the men how to do it. Congratulations to Hazel winning W45. Other highlights on FVO overall results are:

• Grace Molloy 3rd on W12A,
• Emily Nicholson 2nd W12B,
• Ceana Heron 2nd W20S,
• Fiona Berrow 2nd W21L
• Janine Inman, 3rd on W21L.
• Martin Dean 3rd on M50L - holding up the men’s side

Finally, I would like to remind people of all the activity lined up for the rest the year, including restart of the Wee series, this Wednesday kicking off at Victoria High School and Club training starting next Monday with pilates.

Other dates for the diary include:

• 11 Man Relay – 29th August
• Deeside Training Weekend – 10/11th September
• Compass Sport Final - 16th October
• Club Champs – 19th November
• Club Awards and Dinner Dance 19th November
• Scottish Score Champs 27th November

I look forward to seeing you there

Roger