Appreciating Our Volunteers

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.

A climate of mutual respect and gratitude ensures that all volunteers, of which we have many, are appreciated – so please remember to say thank-you even if you had a lousy run.  So much effort goes into putting on events, as we all know, but sometimes it is easy to forget that, as we are on our way home, someone is out collecting controls.

Coaches work hard to give members new and old an opportunity to progress.  Coaching also requires a culture of mutual respect.  Whilst athletes are encouraged to recognise the effort that has gone into a coaching session, coaches should also remember that their athletes are whole people who thrive on encouraging and constructive feedback and deserve rewards for effort as well as performance.