Make sure you don’t miss out on any selection opportunities this year. We have gathered them all together in one place.

Community conversations bring members together each month to share experiences, successes, challenges and ideas on an allocated topic. This month’s conversation focused on development and recruiting newcomers. Community Conversations are open discussions so provide a great platform to see how other clubs work with newcomers and what learnings could potentially be taken forward into your own club.

This year’s Scottish Night Championships gave everyone the opportunity to practise their headtorch orienteering skills prior to the British Night Championships this weekend. East Lothian Orienteers kindly hosted the event at Balgone Estate, just south of North Berwick.

Our wonderful sport relies heavily on volunteers who have built up loads of experience over the years in a multitude of roles – coaching, officiating at events, serving on the committee, running SI, organising weekends away and generally helping out. All of you who do these jobs have a lot to pass onto new people coming into those roles. Working with experienced volunteers complements the training that formal courses provide and is a vital part in ensuring succession on the volunteer front.

A big thank you to everyone who participated in our first monthly online Community Conversation of the year, held earlier this week on the topic of Communications & Marketing.

A vital part of SOA’s function is to bring together people from across the Scottish orienteering community, and these monthly sessions aim to provide regular opportunities for sharing experiences and discussing successes, challenges, and ideas. Each session has a different focus but with the common goal of exploring things clubs are doing or would like to do to develop and promote orienteering, as well as ideas for practical things that SOA could do to support clubs, particularly as we are now embarking on the new four year strategy period Looking to the Future – the new four-year strategy for Scottish Orienteering 2025-2029

As the delayed white Christmas cold weather descended over Scotland a group of us hardy orienteers made our way up to Speyside for a chance to get in some top-quality terrain. The camp was joint for SEDS (Scottish Elite and Development Squad) and the British Orienteering squads to people travelled from all over the UK to join.

The camp was based out of Kincraig which provided a great location for the training areas and most importantly a warm hall to sleep in. The general plan of the camp each day was Wake up > Breakfast > Train > Café > Train > Tea > Sleep, which seemed like we were nailing the athlete lifestyle.

As the year comes to an end it’s always a good time to take stock, and a lot happened in Scottish Orienteering in 2024. The World Orienteering Championships (WOC) obviously stands out – the event was very visible and the energy and enthusiasm of the hundreds of volunteers who delivered the event smoothly and safely on each day was clear for all to see. Volunteers are usually visible at our events but there’s also a lot of less visible hard work that goes on behind the scenes. It’s just as important for our sport so I’d like to shine some light on it.

Scottish Orienteering is rooted in volunteering and pitching-in, most obviously at club level where countless individuals give up their time and energy in many different ways. They do a fantastic job at delivering key things that make Scottish Orienteering tick.

However at this time of year we feel it is important to say thank you to those whose, often unacknowledged, contribution is key to supporting our small staff team and helping Scottish Orienteering. There are two types of volunteer role which directly support the SOA – Board Directors are the most often highlighted but this article is here to say thank you to those SOA Volunteers whose quiet work in the background is not often noticed. Their roles include coordinating the competitions calendar, making sure winners get their trophies, providing valuable technical expertise, and managing the Scottish squads for the annual Home Internationals competitions (Juniors, Seniors and Veterans) as well as in the background guiding our work on equality, inclusion and diversity.

They do a fantastic job, don’t seek the spot light -but their dedication, expertise and commitment plays a vital role in ensuring that orienteering continues to flourish across Scotland. As highly active and enthusiastic orienteers they are familiar faces at our events, but you may not be fully aware of the work they do behind the scenes on behalf of all of us. You can see them on our website, Our lovely volunteers , but the current roll of honour is below.

So as we reach the end of another successful year, a special thank a special thank you to them, and here’s to a well-earned break before the start of another busy calendar!

Current SOA volunteers: (in alphabetical order)

Caroline Clarke – Trophy coordinator

Colin Eades – Planner advocate

Esther Gooch –  Advisor on Inclusion Group

Janice Nisbet – Veterans Home International team (VHI) manager

Katherine Kirk – Advisor on Inclusion Group

Kirsten Strain – Senior Home International (SHI) team manager

Judy Bell – Scottish Junior Orienteering Squad (ScotJOS) team manager

Paul Hammond – Scottish Orienteering League (SOL) Scores coordinator

Rachel Kirkland – Scottish Orienteering Urban League (SOUL) coordinator

Robin Strain – Electronic systems coordinator

Roger Goddard – Scottish Junior Orienteering Squad (ScotJOS) head coach

Steve Scott – Fixtures secretary

Ted Finch – Clocks and GPS timing

The fixtures calendar for the next year has been finalised and we are very grateful to all those clubs who have volunteered to host the key dates in the Scottish Orienteering calendar in 2025. To avoid disappointment, get them in your diary now!

The Scottish Inter Club Championship has now been in its revised format for two years now. We try to select twelve different events spread around the country with one in each month. We are as ever looking for feedback on the format and suggestions how it could be improved. Please email fixtures@scottish-orienteering.org or nikki@scottish-orienteering.org with any comments before 12th January 2025.

One of the main skills we use when orienteering is planning.  To allow you to plan for the year ahead and develop your skills we have drawn together a list of the current coaching and volunteer training opportunities for the year ahead.  To avoid disappointment, get them in your diary now!

Sign up forms can be found on the SOA Website and will be advertised in due course or contact suzanne@scottish-orienteering.org for more details.

Our article “SOA Annual Training Programme” details the annual cycle for our training programme but if there are any courses you would like to see or want to know more contact our Coaching and Volunteer Officer, Suzanne Robins-Bird. It helps us to plan and provide the courses you want if you sign up in plenty of time and communicate your needs to us.