Turf insider Mars 2021

« Turf insider Februari 2021 Turf insider April 2021 »

Turf insider banner.jpg

Round winners[redigera]

Congratulations to the winners of round 128: Király from Skåne added one more Gold to his collection, Welshman from Lounais-Suomi turfed home his first silver and ogirlSROC from North West England secured the her first bronze. Well done, mates! Seven turfers on Top Ten when this round ended, were not from Sweden, things are definitely changing! This for sure is proof that the Turf world is expanding and it makes me happy :)

Turf Award 2020[redigera]

The nomination process is over for Turf Awards 2020 and the nominations will be processed and at the end of March the voting for each Turf Award will open. When and how to vote will be posted on Turfs homepage.

Turf in Scouting[redigera]

Turf Insider got an e-mail from the turfer responsible for introducing Turf in the Scouting world:

“My name is Olle Alsén with the turf nick ollals and I have Turfed for some five years and have been an active scout all my life. If you want to get in touch with me, please use the email scoutevent@turfgame.com. Turf is slowly becoming a part of Scouting in Sweden and the UK. Turf was planned as a program activity for the Swedish national summer Scout camp 2021. It will still happen, but the big camp is moved to 2022 due to Covid-19. If everything works well, we will have 1 000 or more scouts turfing outside of Kristianstad during the camp next year. I tried to introduce Turf to worldwide scouting at the last World Scout Jamboree in 2019 in the US at the Summit Bechtel Reserve https://www.summitbsa.org but was not successful. It is a marvellous place. There are still 4 turf zones at the site which happens to be the biggest campsite owned by Boys Scouts of America with a capacity of 55 000 participants at the same time. I will keep trying to introduce it there through local leaders and staff. If anybody reading this is active as a leader at the camp or living nearby, please get in touch with me.

On a smaller scale turfing is becoming part of the local program in some Swedish scout groups. During 2021 some 10 leaders have asked for a log in so they can create private events for their groups. Again, Covid-19 has made some of them wait until the there is less risk of spreading the virus when instructing and when gathering the scouts before and after the event. I expect some of scout events will take place during late spring or summer. In Scotland, a bigger private event for teenagers is planned for May this year and they have support from the orienteering club active in turfing there. I also expect that some scout troops will have Turf as part of their summer camp. I know of some scout groups who have already had private events at camps organized by an experienced turfer, probably a teacher or a highly active turfer who have got the log-in from school events.

I have developed a support document for scout leaders who want to create an event and I am also prepared to support leaders who want to try Turf as a program activity in their unit. In addition to support scout leaders creating their own private events, I have produced and published in Scouting a program idea on how to use Turf zones to organize what we in Scouting often call “organization exercise”. You get several tasks to perform as a patrol within a limited time period. This is to foster teamwork and leadership. You will find a description in Swedish on this link https://aktivitetsbanken.se/sv/orientering-med-mobil-turf-enkel-version To support creating private events in Sweden I have slightly adapted the common instruction used for all events. Scout leaders can get it by asking me. I will make some small adaptions of the “Turf Quick Card Creating Events” for scouting to support non-Swedish speaking Scouts.”

Anyone can create their own private Turf event. Depending on the target group, there are different people helping you out with instructions and account. If you want to create an event for your birthday, after work or because you've turfed for 5 years, contactevents@turfgame.com. If you are a teacher and wants to use Turf as part of your PE class, contactskolevent@turfgame.com. And if you are active within the Scouting community, contact scoutevent@turfgame.com. It is lots of fun to create and hold your own event, so don't hesitate! It will also give you some insight into how it is to be a zone maker, since you will be creating the zones and naming them. Luckily you won't be handling any issues generated by the participants in your event ;)

Introducing our new Zone Makers[redigera]

The UK (and German) expansion is continuing and now we have seven brand new zone makers to create the zones needed. Three got their 'Turf Crew' credentials at the end of 2020 and the other four at the beginning of 2021. You heard from the first three giving their view on 2020 in Turf Insider #126. This time I have asked our 'newbies' for their impressions after a few months as zone maker.

KråkanKrax from Åland[redigera]

”I was happy when I received the request to train as a zone maker, which was both exciting and interesting but also time consuming. A big compliment to my mentor for his patience in helping me along the way and for my assessors/reviewers with "second opinion" and advice which has been a comfort during the training as they have long experience of how to think about where to lay zones. The biggest problem with zone making is not the placement of zones but the name many times and that street view often can be more than 10 years old.

Becoming a zone maker expands on how you look at Turf, it becomes so much more than just "hunting" zones as a turfer. You look at Turf and turfing with new eyes. I have found that I am more interested and curious about turfers where I have made zones than the turfers here at home right now :) I hope that one day I myself will have the opportunity to visit the places where I have placed zones, to see the locations of the zones and maybe meet local turfers and hear what they think. Thank you Turf Crew for letting me join.”

AnneliCH from Skåne[redigera]

”After a month as a new zone maker, some initial thoughts and reflections have been laid to rest, but new ones appear all the time and that's how it should be, I think. It has been both fun and frustrating during the training. I managed to put some zones in tilted position (editors note: the zone maker tool allows two map positions, tilted and normal. We make zones in the normal view for better positioning of the zones). To come up with zone names that are not taken and not touch some of the buttons in the zone making tool have been a challenge. The fun part is to look for beautiful, famous and odd places, think and figure out names (red: we only have 13 characters to 'play' with and are restricted to letters and numbers) and be part of the Turf Crew "team". I am both proud and grateful that I have been trusted to become a zone maker”

Brellir from Västerbotten[redigera]

”To be trained as a zone maker has given me an additional dimension of Turf and many nice and helpful colleagues in Turf Crew. Of course, there is a lot to learn both technically and mentally, but an incredibly fun challenge where I am constantly learning new things. Finding interesting, beautiful, different and sometimes just practical places for zones is challenging and sometimes time consuming, but also educational. I have used map and streetview so much in some places, it almost feels like I have been there in reality. Naming the zones can often take the longest time in the process of creating a new zone, and sometimes it is important to think outside the box.”

At the moment our newbies are busy making zones in UK and Germany, and I am sure you will spot them on the map in the cool black C(rew) shirts their Turf avatars can wear. That is if they have time to go turfing ;)

Region Battle: Scotland vs Skåne[redigera]

In March Region Scotland is batteling Region Skåne during four weeks, so don't be surprised if the Top 100 will be filled with turfers from Scotland and Skåne :) I asked CSL, one of the Scottish players in the region battle to give Turf Insider his toughts before the battle:

”When Skåne issued their challenge to us in September 2020, we didn’t know what was involved in a regional competition, and accepted with some trepidation.

In the weeks and months that followed, we found out more, with useful advice and encouragement from Kingslayer and Munin. Contacting people to raise our team was a challenge, and at first I feared the Scotland team would be mostly Edinburgh turfers, but finally it has a good spread of turfers from different areas, including 19 of the current top 20 on the Scotland toplist. Unfortunately the Covid-19 travel restrictions prohibit meeting up with others or travelling far outside our own local authority, so we can’t go and explore elsewhere with other turfers, which is a huge limitation. We can’t socialise either. It sounds a lot of fun – hope we can do this another time.

As predicted, the experience of organising the team has been like herding cats! After a slow start, I was deluged with emails and it was hard to keep on top of all the questions. Our team now has over a hundred members, and is a varied mix. There are established turfers (some of whom are very competitive), there are some new turfers (who are very enthusiastic), and everything in between. All are welcome, of course. There has been lots of discussion about strategy, with widely differing views. I have emphasised that the point is to enjoy the experience. We will see how it goes.

We will do our best, hoping to have lots of fun, and hoping for good weather (here at least) this round! Best wishes to the Skåne team, who I fully expect to soundly beat us. But there have been notable occasions in the past where Scotland has unexpectedly won against all the odds, so who knows?

- CSL

You can follow the battle at Turfportalen. A Region Battle is a good way to get to know the turfers in your region. With a common goal, it will be easier to go turfing in bad weather and the Assist medals will be pouring in. I bet some of us will be checking up on the battle on a daily basis and maybe even sneak a peak at Turf-TV from the warmth of the couch.

Turfa lugnt!/Safe turfing!

//Munin