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Round winners – October 2024 (Round #172)

Congratulations to the winners of round October 2024: Björke from Östergötland turfed home his sixth Gold, AJHB from Greater London added a third Silver to his medal row and gerald_flux.rc from Berlin turfed home his third Bronze. Well done mates!

Upcoming events

If you are organizing an open event, don't forget to write to insider@turfgame.com a couple of months in advance to get the information about your event into the newsletter :)

LusseTurf in Västerås will be held again this year the weekend before Lucia (13^th of December). More information will come! There will be zones, "lussebuns" and good fun!

Bonanza 2025: 7^th of June in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

The Bonanza will be held outside of Sweden for the first time in 2025. The Edinburgh turfers have two very successful ”Sconanza”s behind them and are now planning for a fun-filled long weekend in June 2025. The Bonanza itself is on June 7th, but there are extra events on both June 6th and June 8th! To pre-register interest, complete this form, which will also help give an idea of expected numbers. So far 40 organized turfers have pre-registered. See you in Edinburgh!

Two good things from Turf-dev by Drassen
”The first thing I'd like to tell you is that we are currently giving the development some love. The Android app has been gradually crippled by some bugs that were introduced by Google when they updated their Google maps libraries this summer. The bugs sometimes made the app crash when experiencing a change in signal strength. This is finally solved, which can be clearly observed in the crash-statistics that Google provides, here seen in the picture.

An issue that we faced during the refactoring and upgrade process is however legacy support. In short terms we will soon stop supporting android versions 7.X and earlier. This affects 0.5 percent of our users and is a priority we need to do in order to provide a better app. We will continue to make small updates and enhancements these coming months. If you want to be a daring early adopter, you may join the turf beta at google play.

The second good thing is the continuing development of TurfTeams. If you live in Stockholm you may have noticed quite a few new motivated users during October. These users were a part of our wellbeing-at-work initiative. TurfTeams users are just like normal users except they get some extra treatment in the form of toplists, statistics, support, on site kick-off, etc. We hope you all invited them to Turf nicely and also gave them a fair fight for the zones:) If you'd like your own company to join in on a health challenge, turfteams.se is the place to start.”

An important part of Turf is the issue system, which we keep getting back to again and again. The updates regarding the frequent crashes of the Turf app was high-lighted both by issues and posts in social media. To quote a somewhat annoying Swedish commercial, ”Writing about it in social media, helps a little. Writing an issue, helps more.” However, one issue makes no update, many are much more likely to get result. So if you experience something with the Turf app you feel is not normal, write an issue :) Don't expect others to do it for you.

We all know that warded is the place to keep track of how many times you have taken a specific zone. The colour code goes as this:

1 take (green), 2-10 takes (yellow), 11-20 takes (orange), 21-50 takes (red) and 51 takes or more (purple). Some years ago the term "fetlila" (fatpurple) was coined when taking a zone 1000 times or more. More recently "toklila" (crazy purple) was used by Oxid in Uppsala when describing a zone you'd taken 5551 times (or more). What will the next step be?

Turf Picture of the Month

This months Turf Picture is of the zone LossieLight taken byTheInquisitor:

LossieLight

If you have a Zone picture you want featured as Turf Picture of the Month, send it to insider@turfgame.com Please include your Turf nick for recognition!

Turfa lugnt/Safe turfing!

//Munin

...if you want to contribute to future Turf Insiders, send your story to insider@turfgame.com :) C'mon and share your big and small stories with the Turf world.

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Round winners – September 2024 (Round #171)

Congratulations to the winners of round September 2024: grock from Norrbotten turfed home his first Gold, AJHB from Greater London added another Silver to his medal row and Ni_ki_ta from Norrbotten turfed home her first Bronze. Well done mates!

This was a record round with 13 turfers scoring more than one million points.

Upcoming events

If you are organizing an open event, don't forget to write to insider@turfgame.com couple of months in advance to get the information about your event into the newsletter :)

Halloween Classic 24 in Umeå, October 24^th

Read more about it HERE (only in Swedish).

LusseTurf in Västerås will be held again this year the weekend before Lucia (13^th of December). More information will come!

Bonanza 2024 took place on the 14^th of September in Enköping and over 400 turfers took at least one zone in either of the two Events on this sunny day. It was the last Bonanza with Cissiliana as Event General and she passed on the duty of this office to MiniHolger during the Bonanza banquet. Here are some words from her:

”Two years ago I took over the prestigious assignment from MasterOfTurf, Event General. I am grateful that it was already decided then that the next Bonanza would be held in Umeå (2023). Many thanks to everyone who arranged the 2023 Bonanza, you did it exemplary and independently. I suspect that my successor MiniHolger, like me, will have an easy job with his first Bonanza. Edinburgh has shown to put their best foot forward with many of its own events already.

The solution this year (2024) had to be that Västmanland was given the task supported by Uppsala. Despite some setbacks and thanks to a lot of hard work, it can only be said that it was a success.

Thank you to all of you who participated and enabled the "233 Crowdy medal".

Crowdy-233

HERE are photos and videos from the day and HERE you can dig the playlist.

MiniHolger, I am sure that your enthusiasm and good will will take the event administration to new heights, best of luck!

I would recommend all of you to organize a closed event, it is easy to manage and very much appreciated. Contact events@turfgame.com to get an account and guidance. For open events, like the Bonanza, comes some obligations, everyone shall be invited, there should be facilities such as WC and showers and there must be some kind of prizes.

There are many schools that use Turf in gymnastics, please spread this possibility further: skolevent@turfgame.com. The scouts also have their own event mail: scoutevent@turfgame.com.”

The Bonanza was organised by turfers from Uturf (Västmanland) with lots of help on the actual day from turfers from Uppsala. Optimus from Västmanland was the head co-ordinator, but a lot was left to the other and everything fell into place on the Bonanza Day.

Here are reflections from Optimus:

”The World Championship in Turf, the so-called Bonanza, was organized for the 13th year (there was an extra winter round in 2012 so this was the 14th Bonanza overall). The Bonanza this year was in the city of Enköping in Sweden (all Bonanzas have so far been in Sweden) and the organizers were for the 3rd time Turfare from Västerås/Västmanland (previously in 2012 and 2018) with support from Turfare from Uppsala/Enköping (which organized a Bonanza in 2013).

The attendance of competitive players was good! Not everyone had pre-registered (zones are set based on the number of pre-registered participants), but the number of zones were enough for everyone. The previous record for Bonanza Foot (where you can only move between zones by your feet) was from Stockholm 2019 with 249 participants. Now Enköping 2024 is the new record holder with a whopping 270 participants in the Bonanza Foot Event!

Västerås 2018 keeps the record in Bonanza Bike (where you take zones by non-motorized bike) with 217 participants, Enköping had 135 cyclists, and also the total number of participants which was 441 in Västerås 2018 against almost as many in Enköping this year - 405 tufers.

The overall wins in both classes, which receive Bonanza medals in Gold/Silver/Bronze, were:

1st in Foot: Skogshjort, took 89 zones of which 81 were unique and scored 1,839 points.
2nd in Foot: rabbit_rail, took 86 zones of which 34 were unique and scored 1,558 points.
3rd in Foot: Raudonvirsis, captured 83 zones of which 48 were unique and scored 1,541 points.

1st in Bike: recycling, took 89 zones of which 72 were unique and scored 1,727 points.
2nd in Bike: mrcoolwhat, took 89 zones of which 59 were unique and scored 1,584 points.
3rd in Bike: MrJokerit, took 94 zones of which 55 were unique and also got 1,584 points (but behind 2nd).

When the competitions were over there was a banquet in the evening attended by about 125 turfers. Food, good company and some entertainment were offered. It was also presented where and when Bonanza 2025 will take place. And it will be for the first time outside of Sweden - in Scotland and more exactly in Edinburgh! The Bonanza itself is on June 7th, but there are extra events on both June 6th and June 8th/9th, including a 24Hr Event! More info about this will come from the organizers in Edinburgh later! To pre-register interest, complete this FORM, which will also help give an idea of expected numbers. See you in Edinburgh!

The organizing group wishes to thank all the turfers who showed up at the event, great that so many came!

And we, the turfers, would of course like to thank everyone who was involved in organizing and put in the time and commitment to make this happen! A superb and nice arrangement!”

During the Bonanza banquet, the Turf Awards for 2023 were handed out. Big congratulations to all the winners of the Turf Award, you are awesome!

Best Turf performance 2023 - Tempest - Round winner by taking only New unique zones (6548). Visited 82 municipalities, cycling around 10 mil a day for 29 days and sleeping in his car.

Turf Star of the year 2023 - Akeman - Turf motivated this wheelchair-bound guy to get outdoors.

Turfer of the Year 2023 - DasHuhn - 10 years old boy from Berlin went to Silver and reached rank 51 after a bit more than a year.

Most spectacular takeover 2023 - simmalugnt - Only takes aqua zones.

The Turf Award winners are nominated by the Turf Community and the winner is voted by the Turf Community. Soon it will be time to nominate for Turf Awards 2024!

Turf Ultimate Region Fight 2024

The Turf Ultimate Region Fight took place during September and is likely the reason behind the many turfers scoring 1 million points or more this round. It was a battle over five weeks and nothing was decided until the last week. Norrbotten and Västmanland (last year's winner) were fighting hard for first place. Norrbotten held a firm grip over points and takes, whereas Västmanland scored better in round uniques, until the last week. It was an equally exciting battle over third place between Skåne and Scotland, which Skåne in the end won.

Here are a few words from Kygni, the team leader for Norrbotten:

”We started the region fight by inviting as many participants as possible to our team, which resulted in 26 participants from several cities in our region. In the beginning of the first week, we realized that we were quite good, so we tried to get in a good place on the scoreboard from week one. At the end of week one, we were one point behind Västmanland on the scoreboard, and from thereon out, we tried to beat them in points and takes every week, but we were lacking in round uniques. However, since we came in second place in round unique week 2, 3 & 4, we caught up by one point to them all of the aforementioned weeks. In the end, a lot of turfers on Team Norrbotten set personal records in all three categories, and the Gold and Bronze this round went to Luleå and Piteå, which is very impressive.

Almost everyone above the red line took personal record in points and several also took personal record in round unique zones. We had a very good coordinated team effort with great participants pushing themselves to the limit and also traveling a lot in search of round unique zones. Three of us went to the Bonanza and the furthest one of us Traveled was to Berlin. I am very proud of my team, we did a really great job and now we are planning how to celebrate our victory.”

Skåne has written about the Region battle from their point of view HERE.

Apart from all the competitions that took place during September, turfers joined together and went on adventures together. In Stockholm, a group of 12 turfers (both from Stockholm and other places) got together and rented a water taxi to go to that mystical place called Märket, where two countries and three regions meet. Rymprak was part of this adventure and here is her recap of that day:

”The journey to Märket

In the middle of the Åland Sea between Sweden and Åland lies the world's smallest island shared by two nations, Sweden and Finland. The Swedish part is in turn divided between Stockholm County and Uppsala County. There are therefore three turf regions on this small island.

We were 12 excited turfers who took a specially ordered taxi boat there on a Sunday in September 2024. It was the second attempt as the weekend before it was windy and foggy, but this time it was sunny and calm on the sea.

Once there, we had an hour to take over the three zones. We split into groups and in the end, everybody managed to take all the zones despite poor mobile coverage. Thanks to those who shared their connection!

The Finnish volunteers who are working on the restoration of the lighthouse at Märket probably wondered what we were doing as we wandered around shouting "turn off" and "I'm in" to each other. 426e844d-b986-4229-80bd-33da1926fada

The volunteers were happy when we bought tote bags and t-shirts as souvenirs and some went on a guided tour of the lighthouse.

Everyone was satisfied and happy and ready for the one-hour boat ride home in a more rough sea. Some turfers were starstruck by the fact that our skipper was the multiple speedway world champion, Anders Michanek, 81 years old.

//Rymprak together with anitem, Emlomaliv, Anniña, HaileGåBraSel, albee, grufgran, Lillatanten, Lill-Johan, TenorenJohan, embeoo, mowog”

Three German turfers made an Explorer trip to Denmark during September and here is JoasK story:

”After completing the Netherlands Explorer at Easter, the Denmark Explorer was on our agenda in early October. This time, there were three of us: DXP2K, Sven_R, and me, JoasK. We didn’t just visit the five regions to earn the coveted Explorer Medal, but also captured a few Monument Zones and many Uniques.

Aalborg and Copenhagen stood out in particular, presenting themselves as Smart Cities – super clean, perfectly organized, and, above all, extremely bike-friendly. Why can’t Germany achieve that? With the fantastic weather, it was especially fun. Beyond the challenge of the game, it once again showed how much of a wonderful eye-opener Turf can be.”

As many of you noticed, a new medal serie was released on Bonanza Day: the Monument-series with a 4 levels. So far no one has recieved the highest level, Mondo (named after the Swedish pole vaulter that is currently the world's best pole vaulter).

Since the introduction of the new Medal serie, many issues regarding missing Monument attribute are reported. A reminder what a Monument zone is:

"A zone placed in the direct vicinity to or directly on a monument. A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage. The zone name should normally reflect the monument name. Only one zone per monument can have this attribute."

So, any old statue is not by default a Monument, any old building is not by default a Monument. It will take a little more than it being old, to make it a Monument. We understand you want more Monuments, but at the same time, Monuments are rare and should be so.

If you do come across a zone with an amazing Monument in it, and it does not have the attribute, write an issue. Most likely the zone is either from before the Monument attribute was introduced or the zone maker who made the zone, was not aware that there was a Monument in the zone.

Turf Picture of the Month

This months Turf Picture is of the zone CribGoch taken by Cruachan:

#CribGoch #turfgame

If you have a Zone picture you want featured as Turf Picture of the Month, send it to insider@turfgame.com Please include your Turf nick for recognition!

Turfa lugnt/Safe turfing!

//Munin

...if you want to contribute to future Turf Insiders, send your story to insider@turfgame.com :) C'mon and share your big and small stories with the Turf world.

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