Category: News

At Scottish Orienteering , our values underpin everything we do.  These are:

• Welcoming – ensuring a positive experience to those who wish to participate in our sport.
• Inclusive – offering a range of experiences and entry points within our sport to enable everyone from all sectors of society to participate regardless of age, gender, sexuality, race or physical ability.  Identify and remove conscious and unconscious barriers to participation in the sport.
• Dynamic – to continue to offer new experiences and development opportunities for all our members, clubs and volunteers.  Develop new approaches and ideas to appeal to those in the identified “demographic participation gap”.
• Rewarding – to recognise those who make our sport happen through valuing our volunteers. To ensuring everyone’s experience of orienteering is rewarding in some form. 
• Respectful – of our environment and communities, and to our clubs, members and volunteers.

As clubs across Scotland wrap up their Night-O leagues, it’s been fantastic to see so many Night- O events over the last few months. 

We are excited to announce a new series of Adult Beginner Coaching Days taking place throughout March in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Inverness.

These sessions are part of a wider outreach project aiming to introduce more young adults to the sport whilst raising general awareness across Scotland. Whether someone has never held a map before or has only tried a local event once, these sessions will provide a friendly and supportive introduction to the skills needed to enjoy orienteering independently.

As it turned out out MAR Orienteering Club (MAROC) choose a suitable location to host the Scottish Nights Championships! The stone circles on the Muir of Dinnet map were ancient hut circles close to the monument on Culblean Hill which was the site of the Battle of Culblean which took place during the Second War of Independence. A bit of research by curious members discovered that the coat of arms of one of the battle leaders, Sir William Douglas was a large red heart – suitably appropriate for those members who decided to take their other half on a Valentine’s day adventure!

We are sure you are all well aware by now – and excited – that SOA is hosting the 2026 Jan Kjellstrom Festival in Perthshire over the Easter weekend, bringing orienteering back to some of Scotland’s very best terrain for the first time in over a decade.  

Things are shaping up for all four days of competition and we are delighted that entry numbers so far are looking good. Thank you to those of you who have already entered, please sign up your friends too!

We’re delighted to announce the winner of the Juniors’ photo competition congratulations to Yann from MAR Orienteering Club (MAROC) for this great shot that captures one of the dimensions of our sport: the beautiful places many of us associate with classic forest orienteering.

Clubs are always looking for new coaches to teach beginners and encourage more experienced orienteers to keep progressing. The Scottish Orienteering Coach Education Pathway allows for coaches to learn new skills and build knowledge through a combination of courses and experience. We have now completed the process of switching our qualifications over to the new Scottish Coaching Certificate in orienteering (SCCO) which is aligned to CIMSPA coach qualification standards and awarded by the SQA

Over the past year, Scottish Orienteering has been working with universities across Scotland to introduce orienteering to student teachers. We’ve delivered orienteering at Edinburgh, QMU, RGU and Stirling Universities, with Strathclyde and Dundee next on the list. The goal is to give future teachers the confidence, skills and resources they need to bring orienteering into their own classrooms- and get more juniors involved in the sport. 

Last weekend marked the first East Area coaching day of the year, held at Whinny Hill in Edinburgh. Led by Judy (ESOC), the day offered six coaching groups: TD1 juniors and parents, TD2 juniors, TD3 juniors, TD4/5 juniors, TD3 adults, and TD4/5 adults. Running from 10–2, the session gave everyone plenty of time to really focus on developing their orienteering skills.

We hope that most of you already know that SOA is hosting the JK Festival of orienteering this Easter – and we hope that most of you will be coming along to experience it, and to help us put on a great show!

The dates are Friday 3 April to Monday 6 April, with all days taking us back to high quality orienteering areas that have not been used for a decade or more.