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.

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.

The PVG scheme helps ensure that people who are unsuitable to work with children and protected adults cannot do regulated roles with them. People who are barred from working with these groups cannot join the scheme. It is against the law for an organisation to employ someone to work with children or protected adults if they’re barred from doing it. 

From April 2025, it is an offence to have an individual in a regulated role with children and protected adults without PVG scheme membership.  It’s also illegal for the barred person to do or try to do a regulated role.

Report by Katherine Ivory

Are you getting the most as a coach from your planning software?  Technical competency can really help with planning good sessions, but obviously involves learning an additional set of skills. SOA has a wealth of support available amongst its active members, ably demonstrated at the most recent online Coach CPD session on Wednesday evening.  We had an excellent session led by Lynne Walker (BASOC) on using Condes for coaching, with coaches from clubs including FVO, Interlopers, INVOC, Moravian and TAY getting together to learn some very useful tools and tricks.

This year, having sought feedback again at the end of 2024 , the Scottish Inter Club Championships will again be compiled from a club results of events from twelve events during the year. The events have been selected with a view to those which most clubs will try to attend as a means of encouraging club members to attend the large events and so the majority are either Championship events or national events other than one event in the north and one in the south.

After the sunshine in Dallaschyle, we were treated to the orienteer’s dream and the east end of Culbin. A vast expanse of sand dunes featuring terrain rich in complex contour detail, cloaked with pine forest of varying openness and runnability.  The rarely used north eastern part of Culbin was a delight with soft moss underfoot as we ran up and down and in amongst the dunes with small pockets of lower-visibility forest to catch the unwary. 

This weekend saw a double header in the Highlands with Inverness Orienteering Club (INVOC) hosting the Scottish Middle Distance Championships at Dallaschyle just outside Cawdor and Moravian Orienteering Club hosting the first Scottish Orienteering League (SOL) event of the season in the east of Culbin Forest.

This week marks Neurodiversity Awareness Week, an important time to raise awareness and celebrate the unique strengths and skills of neurodiverse individuals. As the world begins to better understand the variety of neurological conditions and cognitive styles, it’s essential to foster an inclusive environment that allows people of all neurotypes to thrive. This week offers an opportunity to explore the ways in which orienteering can be both supportive and empowering for neurodiverse participants.

This article will discuss how orienteering provides opportunities and challenges that may appeal to those in the neurodiverse community. It will also explore the history and purpose of Neurodiversity Awareness Week, highlight the inherent advantages that orienteering offers to neurodiverse participants, and share practical ideas and suggestions on how orienteering clubs can make events more accessible and inclusive for everyone.

Largely thanks to funding from the Orienteering Foundation some of our clubs employ club development officers including; MOR, MAROC, ESOC, CLYDE, INT and FVO. Primarily our development officers focus on club outreach and building capacity within clubs to recruit new members. 

Every three months SOA have a club development officers online forum where club development officers come together and share what they have been working on and any future plans. This has proven a great opportunity to share good practice and to bounce ideas off each other. 

For our March forum we discussed planning for the year ahead and reflecting back on last years achievements. Below is an overview of the CDOs future plans and what they have been up to:

The 6-Day Company is pleased to announce that a further payment to Scottish clubs will be made from the surplus generated by Moray 2023 as a thank you for supporting this event. After the success of Moray, it was announced that an interim payment of £5,000 would be made pending the financial outcome of WOC 2024. The financial strength of the 6-Day Company is important as it helps to guarantee the future of the event and it was felt that a payment of £10,000 prior to the conclusion of WOC could result in the Company reserves falling below our stated policy.