We are now in the ‘off’ season after a very active spring and early summer Orienteering season. A chance to quickly reflect on the season and look forward to plans for the Autumn.

Congratulations to everyone taking part in all the events whether that was in our successful WEE local series or further afield in South Wales for the JK, Northumberland for the British or the long drive down to Guildford for the Harvester. The list of successes is impressive and highlights include: FVO victory for men and women in the Harvester Trophy; the senior woman winning the UK Orienteering league; and Graham Gristwood taking the King of the Forest title at the British. There have been numerous victories in other individual races, including success for our juniors with Lizzie winning the JK and British on W12, Peter and Grace Molloy on M12 and W14 respectively and the oldies also holding their own.

A measure of this outstanding performance is FVO currently holding 2nd place in the UK Club league, with only the mighty SYO in front.

Outside of domestic season, congratulation to Graham for his quality results in the World Orienteering Championships in Italy last week, achieving 20th in the Long and 7th in the Relay.

Looking forward to the Autumn and next year here are a few dates for the diary:

• 7th September - Plean start of our Come and Train series organised by Jen Leonard, with on hand coaching for Juniors and Adults (dates now on the BOF fixtures and soon to be on our site)
• 13th September – We are hosting the Inter area junior relay and 8 man relay – venue TBC (Jon will be looking for runners)
• 4th October – CAT #2 Bantaskine
• 11th / 12th October Race the Castles Edinburgh where we are hosting the Sunday race in Stirling with Jon Cross organising
• 1st November – CAT #3 Callendar Park
• 22nd November – Club champs at Beecraigs / CAT #4 and our ever successful dinner dance (further communication to follow from Louise)
• 25th January - #5 Venue TBC
• 1st March - CAT #6
• 29th March - CAT #7
• 6th June – FVO SOL 5 Tullochroisk as part of a double header with Tay Rannoch with Louise / Gary Organising, which should a attract a number of WOC runners

We will also be running our popular palates session on Monday nights at St Mary’s Hall, Dunblane, starting up first week of September and also the Night Series organised by Martin Dean.

As always we will be looking for helpers, and I’m sure everyone will pull together to make our events a success. Jen will be looking for organisers for the CAT series and Martin for the night series. We are also looking for a volunteer to plan at the SOL at Tullochroisk. Please can you let me or Louise know if you are interested. Ideally we would be looking for someone who can visit the area over the next couple of months to check out vegetation.

I wish everyone a great summer break and all the best for those enjoying holiday events in the UK or abroad.

Roger(FVO President)