Eglinton Park

Eglinton 1:5000 map

On the weekend of 20th & 21st February I was working with a group of Duke of Edinburgh leaders who are mainly based in North Ayrshire. I was delivering a Teaching Orienteering course, parts 1 and 2. Beforehand it was arranged that we would be inside at a community centre in Saltcoats on the Saturday morning and the Sunday afternoon. The other sessions (Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning) would be at Eglinton Park, a 15 minute drive away.

Faskally weekend

Faskally orienteering map

Way back in the mists of time (around August 2009) Terry O’Brien asked if I would control the Scottish Night Champs (SNC) at Faskally near Pitlochry. This is a lovely wood full of detail but many paths and tracks. The SNC would form part of a weekend: controllers’ course Saturday afternoon, SNC Saturday evening and the Knoll Kollection on Sunday. Hopefully this package would attract a reasonable size of entry.

Coach education and assessing for orienteering

Niall assessing a candidate coach

Retirement at the end of September 2009 came at a very fortuitous time for me. During 2008 and 2009 there had been many changes happening within the coaching side of orienteering. These were connected with orienteering coming under the United Kingdom Coaching Certificate (UKCC). This is a nationally recognised coach education qualification which sits at the heart of a cross sport initiative to make the UK world leaders in coaching by 2016. There is more technical content – so coaches can be confident with not just HOW to coach but also WHAT to coach – and each course is well supported with coaching resources and mentoring.

Northern Ireland: Tourists in January?

North Coast cliffs

A January visit to the North Coast and Antrim Glens might not be the most appealing holiday to all - so why did we do it? I had been asked to carry out an ‘Internal Verifier (IV)’ visit to a course at Cookstown in mid-January. Paul had never been to Northern Ireland and so thought it might be a good idea to come along and we would then take a few days to explore part of the country. I checked out the financial side (basically I could claim the cheapest travel cost for the IV so a bit of research enabled me to do this, and yes, the way we were going was not the cheapest) and then booked the ferry.

New Year Deflab Fun Run 2010

Happy smiling faces!

The second EckO New Year deflab fun run took place on Sunday 3rd January 2010. The format and location was meant to be the same as last year, but the icy weather put paid to part of that! John Anderson reported that the road up to the Nature Reserve at Taynish was impassible but he suggested an alternative.

A White Christmas

Back garden

OK, so it didn’t snow on Christmas Day in Dunoon but I don’t care as everywhere was white and the sun was shining out of a blue sky!

My first Christmas after retiring. Did I get the cards and letters off on time? Well I suppose that the answer is ‘Yes’ as I made the last posting date for second class.

Sutherland’s Grove, Festive Frolic

Map

‘The day Lynne was faster to three controls than Andy Dale’

At least 13th December 2009 was a Sunday . . . but it felt like a ‘Black Friday’. Niall’s advert said “This event will be a little bit different as it is Christmas. It will have a distinct Christmas theme and will be great fun for all the family and suitable for all abilities.”

Well he was wrong about some things. It was not suitable for all abilities - my brain failed me totally and I was not alone. Why? Well, read on for what was involved in Santa’s Surprise…

November

Holy Loch from Benmore Gardens

November has been revealed to me this year. After many years of working inside, I had forgotten just what it is like. OK, so I walked to work almost every day for the past two years, but then you forget about the weather when it is dark both ways and you need to have the waterproofs on most days.

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