Month: April 2025

The Future of the Scottish 6 Days Events? Join the Next Members’ Community Conversation (Mon 5th May)

The next members’ monthly online Community Conversation is on Monday 5th May (7.30-8.30pm), and you can now sign up to attend by signing up here.

This time the subject will be the Future of the Scottish Six Days – the flagship Scottish Orienteering event. The Scottish 6 Days is a vital part of Scottish Orienteering, providing not just high class orienteering and international competition on our home turf but also a key source of revenue to support Scottish Orienteering and clubs and members.

However, we are facing some challenges. Over the last few years finding a club to be the central organising team has proved difficult. Deeside 2025 will be the 4th time in the last 6 events that we have had to pull together a central organising team from across Scotland and often the same volunteers are filling the same roles in successive events or the same faces are filling multiple roles. The same applies to the major day roles. It is also becoming increasingly difficult to find areas that have sufficient locations with a combination of great competition and parking for hundreds of cars.

We had a great conversation with club chairs in early April and there is still fantastic support for the 6 Days. But we need to urgently look at the delivery model. Some discussion questions include:

  • Does the 6 Days concept still work or does it need to change?
  • How could the 6 Days be formatted/structured/ staffed?
  • What would help the clubs/members give it more support and commitment?

So please take this opportunity to share your thoughts. The session will be introduced and hosted by Dave Kershaw, Chair of the Scottish 6 Days company (which is wholly owned by and accountable to the Scottish Orienteering Association). Everyone is very welcome, and younger orienteers are particularly encouraged to contribute their perspectives and ideas.

To sign up, please register with the email address you will be using on the night by signing up here by 5pm on 5th May 2025.  A link will be sent out to registered participants before the session.

If you can’t attend the session but would like to be involved in shaping future thinking for the Scottish 6 Days, a write-up and recording will be available via the Community Conversation Page. You can also contact Dave via chair@scottish6days.com or Richard Oxlade, the SOA Chair via president@scottish-orienteering.org.

For any queries on the Community Conversations sessions, contact Nikki Howard, COO, via nikki@scottish-orienteering.org

Entries Open NOW for the Scottish Schools Festival!

Hopefully by now, you’ve got the date in your diary for this year’s Scottish Schools Orienteering Festival. If not, here’s another reminder!

  • Date: Thursday 5th June
  • Venue: Pittencrieff Park, Dunfermline
  • Entries: OPEN
  • Deadline: Monday 26th May.
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FVO spoil us with a new forest area and Tea and Cakes in Limeriggs

Issues with permissions might have meant that we headed for Airdrie for our 2nd Scottish Orienteering League (SOL) event of the year instead of the Trossachs but it didn’t mean we had any less fun! Forth Valley Orienteers rose to the last minute restriction of permissions in the Trossachs to bring us a new area at Limeriggs. The planner went as far as to say it had Swedish parts and while only some may have travelled far enough to reach them there was plenty to challenge.

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Sprints in the Roxburgh sunshine

For some the 2025 Scottish Sprint Championship and 3rd Scottish Orienteering Urban League (SOUL) event of the year was the first weekend of the Easter Holidays and for others it was a delightful taste of Vitamin sunshine paired with a pair of Urban brain teasers.

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Supporting Growth through the 2025 Development Fund Awards

We are pleased to announce the latest round of funding awards made through the SOA Development Fund. This fund is designed to provide financial support to projects that contribute to the development of the sport and fit within the remit of the SportScotland agreed development objectives for the sport. Specifically at this point, we asked clubs to come to us with projects that focus on the recruitment and development of 20-40 year olds, continued development of participation following WOC 2024 and support for clubs that saw a dramatic decline in membership following the Covid pandemic.

Congratulations to the clubs that have received awards: EckO, GRAMP, INVOC and MAROC. These clubs all provided project proposals that satisfy the above conditions and have committed themselves to helping develop our sport.

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