The Club AGM was held on Monday September 24th. The current committee are all continuing, and we also welcome on board Jean Dewar and Lyn Carmichael. The main decisions we agreed are as follows:

Club Membership fees: The basic club fee remains at £15 for an individual and £30 for a family (two or more). The club affiliation fee that we have to pay to Scottish Athletics has been increased to £7 per head for all members, and this has been updated on the membership form. Membership forms were issued with the last Herald. A copy is also attached to this copy, and we will publish the list of memberships received so everyone can keep track of who has paid.

(The Athletics Scotland is a separate registration scheme managed by Scottish Athletics, and is not covered by club membership. New forms will be distributed when received, but those who are already registered with AS will receive renewal notices directly from Scottish Athletics.)

Training fees: The basic fee for training at Balerno High School stays the same at £1 per night.

Transport to fixtures: We tend to rely on the same volunteers to provide transport to fixtures, therefore we are introducing a small charge of £2 per head for everyone who requires transport from Balerno High School to club fixtures. We hope to build up a small fund that will be used to subsidise the cost of coach hire for events that are further away.

In order to add a bit of variety to the training over the winter we are planning to do a few different things over the coming months, including......

Some more observant members may have noticed that on the Club Membership form we're asking the junior members to tell us which school they attend. Schools are genuinely interested in your achievements, and this will help us to keep them informed! Secondly, we may be able to spot a potential school-based team amongst our membership for some of the local primary and secondary school competitions, or we could even enter a school-based team in some of the club competitions. At the last count we think the junior membership is drawn from about twenty or so different schools!

Autumn always sees an influx of new youngsters at training, and this coincides to us moving indoors into the Games Hall and Gymnasium. In order to make training as safe and enjoyable for as many as possible we are introducing a couple of measures which we hope parents will support.

Congratulations to Paul McIntosh who completed the formal part of a timekeeping coarse held during an official's training day at Meadowbank recently.

And many thanks to all the junior members who attended as the "guinea pigs" for the officials, and also the many more who volunteered. We received a lot of very favourable comments from the organisers for the willingness of so many young members to help out.

(The flat 400m was a very weak event !!!) The final league placings are given here.

* was in the relay team

The above meeting was held at Corstorphine Hill on Saturday 13^th October in dry sunny conditions. We only had two teams entered in the young female athletes race but the club was confident that our girls would be in the prizes. Our first team was Stephanie Lyall, Laura Blamire and Marbeth Shiell with the second team being Colette Shiell and Louise Gillespie with no third runner unfortunately. All runners ran the same course of 2400m over undulating grassland and paths.

Steph set the pace in the first leg only losing the lead in the last hundred metres. Her time was 8m 24s. Laura ran a gutsy second leg in 9m 50s with the team in 4th, but only a couple of metres behind 3rd place. Marbeth brought the team back into third place with a run of 8m 44s and the team were delighted to win bronze medals for their efforts.

Colette was 9^th on the first leg in 9m 56s and Louise 13^th in 12m 04s.

1 Pitreavie "A" 25m31
2 EWM "A" 26m25
3 Harmeny "A" 26m58
4 EWM "B" 27m40
13 Harmeny "B" 22m00 (two runners)

DON'T PANIC LAURA!! Whilst Stephanie (our first runner) was out on the course, Laura (our second runner) was beginning to get a bit concerned that she would forget the layout of the course and take a wrong turning. A well meaning lady beside us tried to re-assure her "You'll be OK, just follow everyone else.." then she noticed the club vest .. "..Oh, you're running after Stephanie, you probably won't have anyone to follow...." Aaaarghhhhh!

Dry sunny conditions greeted our runners at Cumbernauld on Saturday 27th October. The club had entered a team in both the young athletes races. Our girls team was Stephanie Lyall, Laura Blamire and Marbeth Shiell and the boys team was Michael Smith, Shaun Desport and Paul McDougall. All runners ran the same course of 2400m over undulating moorland.

Steph ran a great race in 10m 23s in the first leg to hand over an 11 second lead. Laura found the going tough but held on to finish in 12m 21s with the team dropping down to 10th place. Marbeth brought the team home in 7th place out of 19 teams with a run of 10m 46s.

Michael ran the first leg in 11m 09s to finish in 25^th place. Shaun ran 9m 16s and moved the team into 17th place and Paul brought the team home in 14th place with a run of 9m 03s.

A few members, parents and assorted hanger-on competed in this annual 10k race held this year on the 23rd September. Known positions and times are:

155 Tony Westbury 39min34sec; 388 Scott Nicholson 43:34; 408 Kristin Lownie 43:50; 748 Paul Titley (M40) 47:57; 1007 Stephen Blane 50:26; 761 Peter McGavigan (M50) 48:04 (Sunday jogger); 1338 Linda Duncan 53:57 (Paula's mum & Sunday jogger); 1439 Anne Douglas 55:03 (Lynsey's mum & Sunday jogger).

Belfast: Marbeth Shiell was selected for Scotland in the British Junior Fell Running Championships held near Belfast on Sunday 7th October. She was an excellent 3rd and 1^st Scot in the U16 race in 21m 08s. The race was over 3.7k with a climb of 285m. Team Points: 1 England 7, 2 Scotland 14, 3 Northern Ireland 35, 4 Ireland 35

With the cancellation of the Kirkcaldy meeting (originally scheduled for 9 Dec), the club cross-country championships will be as follows: Both male and female competitions will be decided on a points basis over 5 races with the best 3 scores to count. The races are Gorebridge on 20th October, Lasswade 11th November, Prestonpans 18th November, Dunfermline 1st December and Lochgelly 5th January. Please note that it is necessary to complete a minimum of two events to be eligible to win your age group championship.