The Bob Graham 24 Hour Club

Your personal and basic round details are automatically filled in for you from your registration data.

If you recorded your round using a GPS device then you can fill in the schedule from that recording.

Supporter info is auto-filled where possible from the details of those we have on the system.

Quite a few people use GPS trackers (Opentracking, Garmin InReach, SPOT, etc.) to allow friends to follow their progress as they attempt the round. However it should be noted that they typically only update their position every one to ten minutes, depending on device and account settings. This makes them somewhat unreliable for determining a precise time at each top.

This limitation comes about because rather than just logging their position they transmit it, either via mobile phone signal or via communications satellites, back to the company’s servers from where it is displayed on a web page. That communication is potentially very expensive so they try and minimise its use. That communication also consumes battery power, another reason to limit the recording rate.

GPS devices (Garmin Forerunner series, Suunto, etc) on the other hand do not transmit their data so can afford to record data more frequently. Again it depends on the device settings but is typically from every 6 or 7 seconds down to the actual GPS transmit interval of 1 second.

The code won’t let you enter certain combinations of values as they don’t make sense - existing members can’t be used as reciprocal pacers for example.

The code behind the form does its best to make sure that the values you enter are valid and correct and also in a format that limits confusion. An example would be the timings, these should be two digits long so “1” would be corrected to “01” but “10” isn’t altered.

Names are correctly capitalised so “jones” and “JONES” both become “Jones”

At the right hand of each section title bar is a summary of how complete that section is. This is displayed as “6/7” or similar. It only applies to the required fields so if you enter a club name then that isn’t included in the count.

The “Supporter info” section is slightly different as it checks that both each individual supporter is filled out correctly (at least one of the check boxes is ticked) and that overall you have entered supporters for all five legs of the round.

The form is somewhat generic and should handle the details of most attempts. There may be some pertinent information relating to your round that isn’t covered: you did the round with a relative; etc.

In this case simply add a note in the covering email explaining what it is that you couldn’t enter via the form.

We are only interested in the first part of your postcode. That is the part before the space. This is usually one or two letters followed by one or two digits. Do not enter your full postcode.

Examples:

CA12

S7

This only applies to where you helped on successful attempts, not those where the contender didn't succeed.

If you know their membership number, type that in the membership number box, the system will fill in their details when you move out of the box.

If you don’t know their membership number type in their name then choose the right person from the list that appears. This list is scrollable.

If you assisted someone earlier this year then they will not have been assigned a membership number so just type in their name.

Click on the “Add another member whom you assisted” button to add another member to the list.

Only fill in this section if you are related to an existing member.

Select how you are related from the dropdown list.

If you know their membership number, type that in the membership number box, the system will fill in their details when you move out of the box.

If you don’t know their membership number type in their name then choose the right person from the list that appears. This list is scrollable.

If you assisted someone earlier this year then they will not have been assigned a membership number so just type in their name.

Click on the “Add another relative” button to add another member to the list.

This is the date on which you completed your round and is required. However if you intend to upload a GPS file of your round then this field will be completed as part of that process.

If the completion date is auto-completed from a file and is more than a day different from the start date then the latter is marked as invalid and so needs to be corrected.

Currently the system only handles GPX and .FIT files. If you used a tracker from OpenTracking/Kong Running then there’s a means to access your split times.

Clicking on the button will open your Operating System’s file program. You will only be able to select GPX or FIT files, all other types will be greyed out or unavailable.

The code first performs some “Pre Flight checks”, assessing whether the file is valid and not corrupted in some way and gives a rough estimate of the time gap between the recorded points.

The code runs through the file and attempts to find recorded points that match each summit. When it is finished (which typically takes only a second or two) the following section indicates the number of matches it has found.

The intervals between locations in the GPX file from OpenTracking/Kong Running is too great to be used by the code that analyses GPX files. However we have access to your split times...

Enter your the the tracker web address that was given to you in the input box, click on the “Get my data ” button.

Each summit has a “geo-fence” around it meaning that there doesn’t have to be an exact match in location. However the size of this geo-fence is a balance between being small enough that the recorded time is accurate and ensure that the contender has visited the summit but being big enough that any errors in the recorded location can be accounted for.

The “Pre Flight checks” adjust the size of the geo-fence according to the time gap between recorded points in an attempt to compensate for coarser positioning.

The code looks for all the points within the geo-fence and uses the time of the closest point. However if the GPS satellites (which constantly move in the sky) are in an unfavourable configuration then it is possible that no recorded points lie close enough to the summit.

In some instances the code is unable to find a point that sits within the geo-fence around a summit. In this instance the times default to “-1” and you will have to enter the times yourself. Times should be in 24hr format, i.e. 2pm would be entered as 14 in the hour field and 00 in the minute field.

Note that if you run the file upload again then you will overwrite any values you enter yourself.

Times are rounded to the nearest minute. So if the closest recorded location to a summit has a time of 14:28:25 it gets rounded down to 14:28 whereas if the time was 14:28:35 it gets rounded up to 14:29.

The size of the geo-fence is adjusted according to the estimated interval between recorded points to try and ensure that times at all summits are recorded. See the comments under “Why hasn’t the code found all the summits?”

If the nearest point was close to the limits of the geo-fence then the recorded time may be a minute earlier or later than your actual time. Combine with the rounding and you may see a time difference to hand recorded times of two minutes or so.

If this is the case, just hand enter the correct times.

There are two classes of supporters - members and non-members. All members are listed but only those non-members who have helped on five or more successful rounds.

For members:

The quickest method is to enter their membership number, the system will fill in their details when you move out of the box.

If you don’t know their membership number enter their surname and then select them from the list that appears. This list is scrollable. Their membership number is to the right of their name.

For non-members, it they have previously helped on a successful round:

EITHER: Enter their surname and then select them from the list that appears. This list is scrollable. The system will automatically check the “Previous support” box

OR: For those who haven’t helped at least five times, just enter their name, then check the “Previous support” box.

For non-members who haven’t helped before then just enter their name and leave the “Previous support” box unchecked.

Then for each supporter check each box where they assisted. Note that each supporter should appear just once.

Finally, Don’t forget the road crew!

All members are shown in the members’ list but the pacers list only shows those who have helped on five or more successful rounds. Remember the list is scrollable. There are almost 10,000 non-members who have helped but less than five hundred are included in the on-site list. It’s just a case of numbers.

In this instance you will have to fill out the details yourself.

Make sure that you spell their name correctly. It can be worth deleting characters to find a minimum set that gives you a result. Also you don’t need to type the first part of their name, any string of three characters or more from their name will suffice.

Use this to indicate if the pacer has supported a successful round prior to yours.

This helps us avoid entering the same person into the system more than once.

If they have helped on a successful round but don’t appear in the drop down list you will have to check this box yourself.

A reciprocal round is one where two (or more) contenders witness each other with very little other help on all legs except at the road crossings.

This does not apply to an existing member accompanying you for the entire round.

Nor does it apply to doing the round with a friend but with a full set of supporters.

Use this to indicate when the supporter helped at the road crossings.

This should include those who didn’t help on the fells.

It’s up to you to decide what level of help is sufficient to warrant being recorded.

You should have support/witnesses for the whole round. The code checks for that, i.e. that you have at least one supporter on each of the five legs.

Once you are sure that you’ve entered all the data required and that it is correct, click on the “Create my Form” button and in a second or two the button will become a download link.

Click on “Download your Form” and do a quick check on the downloaded spreadsheet. There are five sheets:

• Personal Info
• Schedule
• Support
• Road Crossings
• BG Club use only

Check that the values on the first four sheets are correct but don’t touch anything on the last sheet as the data is in a format that makes it easy for us to work with. If anything is incorrect but you entered the data on the form correctly then let the Membership Secretary (Bob Wightman) know so that the problem can be investigated.

Start a new email (don’t continue any existing email thread you may have had with the club as that just makes sorting things at our end harder), use a subject line like: “BGR ratification for ” attach the spreadsheet and send it to the Membership Secretary (Bob Wightman).

Don’t send a link to your company’s document management system or your cloud storage. We aren’t going to be able to access it.

To avoid the server holding lots of ratification forms, they are removed automatically after thirty days.

Once the Membership Secretary has checked your form and updated the system you’ll get a reply with a basic outline of how the invitations work for the dinner where new members receive their certificates.