Moravian Orienteers

Copies of the minutes of our August AGM, the revised constitution and the updated Club committee can now be found on the Governance page. Thank you to everyone who attended the AGM, and particularly to those who have offered to fill essential roles on the committee.  Please support our committee whenever you can - we are all volunteers who love orienteering, and want to share the fun that the sport gives us all!

We had another enjoyable informal MTBO event at Sluie on last Saturday - thanks once again to Steve for organising and James Stewart for planning the event.  The event was enjoyed by all, including family groups on the short course. Results are available here.  After the ride we were able to enjoy scones and coffee!  Thanks to David R, Denise and Penelope.  The next event in this mini-series is at the Carse of Ardesier on Saturday 14th September - contact Steve (mormtbo(at)gmail.com) for further details.

Two new permanent orienteering courses are now available to try at Brodie Castle,
courtesy of the National Trust for Scotland.  The courses are aimed at those new to orienteering, particularly youngsters and family groups. See the Getting Started: Permanent Courses page for further information.

It is with sad news that Moravian has learnt of the death of Derek McNeil in his 82nd year. Derek was a stalwart of the Club and British Orienteering over many decades. With a BOF membership ID of 1091, he was a very early member of British Orienteering and had remained an active member and participant of Moravian right up to last year. He was a regular at Moravian events and, in recent years, was often seen accompanied by his daughter, Katy.  He was always a willing volunteer, both at events and on the Committee, and approached everything with a smile and friendly word. He will be sadly missed by the Club. Our thoughts and condolences go out to his family and friends.

The 2024 Northern Orienteering Urban League is 'up and running' with three events of the five completed so far. Moravians hosted the third event in Forres on 19th June.  Michael planned two great courses, and Andrew organised the event.  The league table after three events is linked here.  Andrew leads on the Long course, closely followed by Colin in 2nd place. Fran Britain is the best placed Moravian on the Short course, in 8th place.

Entries for our next event in Elgin on Wednesday, 3rd July are now open. Pre-entries close at midnight on Sunday 30th June.   The link to enter either or both of the remaining the events is here: SiEntries - YourOMaps Northern Orienteering Urban League.

Try out the updated permanent orienteering courses at Quarry Wood, Elgin.  Choose from Yellow, Orange or Light Green courses. Or maybe use the all controls map to design your own training run! Visit our Permanent Orienteering page for more information. Courses start and finish at Leggat Car Park, at the western end of Quarry Wood. Thanks to Forestry and Land Scotland for their support for this initiative.

News from The JK Easter Event 
There was plenty of excitement (and mud!) generated over the four day event by the 15 Moravians who travelled down to the Midlands. 
You can see all the results from this page.

Here is a summary from Eddie

15 Moravians made the long treck to the English Midlands for the JK Trophy, considered Britain’s foremost annual event. We returned with great results far above our size. Indeed the Scots in general came away with a huge tally of medals despite the terrain being totally alien to anything we have here.

The sprint event was a very interesting University at Loughborough. Not overly difficult, but consistently requiring concentration, a bit like Sin City in Lossiemouth. It was far too much for my brain.

Our Chairman Andrew however had a stormer. After a massive collision knee to knee collision with an elite guy coming round a bend the other way, he picked himself up and won the bronze, just 8 seconds off gold – he would clearly have won without the collision.. By prizegiving time he was unable to walk.

Isobel won the first of her 3 silvers of the weekend in W20E

Day 2 was a middle race and day 3 a long one, with the 2 days adding together for the overall trophy.

Andrew Campbell, our Chairman, writes….

I am delighted to report that the Scottish Orienteering Association has awarded the Club its Silver award. This is great news! It reflects a real team effort from club members involved in submitting its bid to the SOA. The accreditation involved a detailed review of the club's activities, governance and profile. Moravian is the fourth club in Scotland to achieve Silver accreditation, after ESOC, BASOC and FVO. The key elements of the SOA accreditation scheme are summarised below.
''The scheme is run by the Scottish Orienteering Development Officers, who meet with and support clubs at all levels through the process. The scheme is independently assessed and clubs can apply for Bronze accreditation, followed by Silver and then Gold. This will help clubs achieve an accreditation award, which many grant and funding sources now require. The key aims of the scheme are to support and empower orienteering clubs to:
- Create an environment which is inclusive, safe and child friendly, based on good practice and the best it can be for participants, coaches, officials and volunteers.
- Develop high standards of club governance.
- Encourage lifelong participation in our sport through sustainable club development and pathways.''

This six event series, run jointly by MOR, INVOC and BASOC, is now completed.  We encountered some wintry weather conditions over the last three months, and had to delay our Burgie Event twice!   Thanks to Angus Laird (INVOC) for updating the league results -  we can now announce the class winners.  The Long course was won by Finlay McLuckie (M16), ahead of Rory Black (INVOC) and Angus Laird (INVOC). Kate McLuckie (W16) was 6th, and 1st female.  The short course was won by Henrik Borrowman (INVOC) with Eddie Harwood (M70) and Morag McLuckie (W55) tied for 4th place, Morag being 1st female.  Just one point behind in 6th was Rob Parkinson (M65). Congratulations to all who took part, and thanks to the planners and organisers of these popular events.  

A huge thanks to Andrew and Liz Campbell who co-ordinated the annual club awards evening at Roseisle on Saturday evening. It was a really successful event, at which we not only celebrated individual successes during the past 12 months, but were able to hear about the early days of the club following its formation in January 1974.

The evening started with Andrew, assisted by Michael Bishenden, presenting awards for orienteering successes and contributions to the activities of the club over the last year - see photo of award winners opposite. Neil Mclean (now an M80) then entertained us with his recollections of the formation and early days of the club back in the 70s. Neil proudly showed us his original Moravian O top - a collector's item! He and David Ritchie shared some of the early maps (a few in black & white, and even had results from those early events. One set of results include David as a youthful M21 near the top of the A course! We then all enjoyed a shared meal - what a great spread of tasty food. Several with healthy appetites were able to go back for seconds!