Peter Ross, the planner for our evening's entertainment, has provided the following information:

Welcome to a brand new NSL area around Ashton upon Mersey, an urban village just south of the M60 between Junctions 7 (Sale/Stretford) and 8 (Carrington spur).

The Old Plough, a very welcoming Hyde's pub, have reserved their mezzanine floor for us which will be large enough to take everyone. To be honest the car park is not on quite the same scale, and so all but the early birds will require nearby street parking.

Supper will be beef hotpot with pickled red cabbage at £7 per head. The pub will also provide a more expensive bar menu but it will only have limited resources (Anthony) and the queues could be long. I'd go for the hot pot.

The competition area is very flat. There is scarcely a contour from one end to the other. Some parts - the posh bits of Sale - are technically straightforward. There are other, less affluent, but equally friendly areas that are far more complex (speaking purely in orienteering terms). The whole will make for a very interesting night's orienteering. See the attached snippet.jpeg for what awaits the intrepid.

Finally, the area is new and exciting but the scoring system will offer the familiar challenges: each control will be worth the first digit X10, and the penalty for being late will
cost 1 point for each 2 seconds. Good luck.


If you are planning to come along, please send me an email to reserve your map; if you are planning to eat, and want the beef hotpot, please indicate that in the email as well. Food arrangements appear to be a bit less flexible than usual (the hotpot comes in batches of 20!) and we need to give accurate numbers to the pub by next Sunday (7th December). Please contact me by Saturday 6th December (10 pm) at the latest. Thanks.

See you there!