Monday 25 May 2020

Get lost, or get navigating .


Who'd have thought learning a new skill was so much fun? A number of the old guys and not so auld yins have got together to produce some on-line table-top style navigational rallies to while away the long evening hours after a day in the garden or the garage. Something worthwhile to do when the TV is boring and Netflix goes blank leaving that we lost-signal circle going infuriatingly round, and round, and round.

Very reminiscent of yesteryear when the sport was at its height, navigational road rallying is an excellent way of getting the weans, the young, the not so young and even those of a more decrepit nature involved in the sport or re-discovering lost arts. In fact the auld yins could use this to get the youngsters interested and involved.

If you need further convincing, with the weans off school navigational rallying teaches them more than just how to find their way home. So it's a good educational tool without them thinking it's educational. It improves their maths and arithmetic skills, especially mental arithmetic. It also teaches them about geography - hills, glens and contour lines, and history, when you think of all the old battlefields and sites of historic interest that are marked on Ordnance Survey maps.

It also helps with their grasp of English and communication skills which will be most useful if they progress to stage rallying, where Pace Note reading is now essential, as is shouting words of endearment and encouragement at their driver - or inventing new ways of insulting them in place of the common or ordinary swear words. This also applies to diction so that the utterer can be heard and understood above the rattle of stones and revving of the engine.

As I said a number of old hands have clubbed together to create some navigational exercises just like a proper table-top rally. Full details are on the 'Scottish Navigational & Road Rally' Group public Facebook page.

There have been four of these 'events' held so far with the first attracting 46 entries and the latest over 75 with the various organisers expecting entries of 100 or more as word gets out. It would also appear that there are four more rallies ready and waiting in the wings ready to go out, and there's even talk of a 'championship'.

There's no charge for these events and there is a link to on-line digital maps if you don't have real paper ones stored in a shoebox under the bed.

Just like rallies of old, there are 'Classes' for Experts, Semi-Experts and Novices and brought to you by some of the brightest brains in the business with help from a few numpties just to keep the clues manageable and solvable!

There's more fun to be had here than a Lego competition in a brewery, just click on the link below to open up a whole new (old?) world of sporting fun, brain teasers and hairy lines:

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