It is still possible to print out a blank route sheet and fill it in by hand but in more recent years with speedy dispatch and handling in mind, Challengers have been encouraged to fill out an electronic form.
It is entirely possible to make a pig's ear of this sheet, as it extraordinarily easy to nudge margins and tabs all over the shop or turn the thing into three or four pages! The fact that the document available to download already has some some unintended errors to start with isn't great.
Uncle Roger might been very cross to receive such an abomination as it would not have sat well in his filing system at all! Twenty-odd years ago I sent in my and Bob Butler's entry forms, with our details cut up from separate pages of our two magazines. The cut forms were returned and we were required to resubmit on just the one sheet, as the instructions had clearly stated. Could it have been coincidence that we got our places from the standby list that year?
Lord Elpus and I are of the same mindset. Over the years we have taken a little pride in nudging the sheets back and forth to fit better on the pages, tidying up columns and rows, inserting tiny rows to make the text appear less crowded within the frame and rearranging the grid to make it more pleasing to the eye. Over-long headings are simplified, superfluous instructions removed, fonts swapped, and coloured text changed for greater contrast and ease of reading.
Of course, the complete fabrication that is the route description - the real meat of the document - remains the same whatever we do. But it makes us so much happier that it looks pretty.
Last night, just before the midnight chimes of Big Ben our vetted route plopped gently into our inboxes. This year our extraordinary Vetters were Les & Issy, and the Challenge Coordinators, Sue & Ali, were burning the midnight oil.
Happily, no changes are required. We are good to go!
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Postscript: An observation.
All Challengers should aim to get their route accepted, at the first attempt. From reading the Challenge Message Board it seems that a small number view the Vetters as a source of assistance when designing a route. It should be stressed that our admirable Vetters are volunteers and whilst happy to offer a route suggestion that might add interest to a Challenger, they might not be overly impressed receiving routes that are poorly prepared, needing countless revisions.
That’s a really interesting route Al, especially the first week. I can’t wait to read your account next year.
ReplyDeleteIt's just the small matter of the 159 days wait for the off, Al, and the ghastly two week trudge, then... if spared, the time to recover and think about making up another dastardly adventure for the blog.
Delete:-)
Don’t forget to get a look at that ancient volcano in Ardnamurchan.
ReplyDeleteMight bump into you guys! I'm a similar route Monday and Tuesday!
ReplyDeleteI shall look forward to seeing you, Scott
Delete😊
Interested to read your layout comments, Alan, and I agree it is a work of art. But I am surprised, with the pride you take in it, that you use upper case, which is so much harder to read than lower case.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting Vanessa. I wonder why that is?
DeleteIn an ancient past life as a Structural Engineer all our calculations were written by hand on a calc pad and *had* to be in capitals for clarity as Checking Engineers had to be able to read your scrawl.
Perhaps I'm stuck on an ancient rut?
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Alan, I don't know how I missed this at the time, but it has just turned up in my inbox! To answer your questions, I suspect the reason engineers are asked to write in caps is so they don't do joined up writing, which is when things become unclear as 'm's run into 'n's and 'u's etc. This obviously doesn't apply to anything typed.
DeleteThe reason lower case is easier to read than upper case is the variation in height of letters, so that the shape of the word gives you a clue and you can usually get the word without having to read all the letters. I used to do some work with adults with literacy problems and they always found that aspect helpful.
By the way, having now JOGLEd, I am totally in awe of your LEJOG with TGOC. I had hoped to do that till they moved it to June and I'm so pleased I didn't and had the extra time just for JOGLE!
Maybe see you in May?
V
And Vanessa wins the prize for the largest gap between question and reply!
DeleteI agree wholeheartedly. My joined-up-writing is abysmal, whereas my joined up capital letters are pretty damn good and pretty damn fast! And yes, thinking about it, I think you'res pot on, Miss!
The LEJOG/TGO thing was a bit of a struggle, as I could not possibly get behind schedule from the very start of the walk for about a thousand miles to get to Oban on time to start on the correct day. I'm so pleased you had such a good time on your own JOGLE, Vanessa!
xx