By Louise Adams – SOA Development Officer

On Thursday June 4th, pupils from across Scotland came together to orienteer around the woodlands of Beecraigs Country Park to compete for a national title. This year’s event was a resounding success, bringing together over 400 enthusiastic pupils to showcase their navigational skills, sportsmanship and teamwork.

June’s Community Conversation brought together members from across Scottish clubs to share thoughts on supporting and encouraging newcomer families.  This theme follows on from the May discussion on creating welcoming environments at events.  (May Community Conversation)  Involving parents is usually key to retaining and developing new juniors, and supporting a balanced orienteering demographic.  How can we best support parents to get involved in our sport?

As part of Volunteers’ Week we have been celebrating the many volunteers in the sport and all that you do. Scottish Orienteering provides a number of courses and workshops to try to assist members on the various volunteering pathways. We would like to take this opportunity to let volunteers know about existing courses and ask your opinions on the types of courses you would like to see provided in the future to support you and how you would like these to be delivered.

If you could take a moment to complete the Volunteers Questionnaire we would appreciate your input.

Following on from the successful WEST Area Scottish Championships weekend, St Andrew’s Orienteering Club of Glasgow (STAG) treated us all to the combination of the Scottish Sprint Championship and the 3rd event of 2026 Scottish Orienteering Urban League calendar based in the classic urban challenge of Cumbernauld.

The May instalment of our Community Conversation series once again brought together members (as well as a visitor from Canada!) to discuss how we can create a more welcoming environment for newcomers at events and club activities.

The session focused on the experiences of people taking their first steps into orienteering and explored practical ways clubs and volunteers can help participants feel comfortable, supported and eager to return.

The Bank Holiday weekend in May saw the West Area Clubs (AYROC, CLYDE, ECKO, FVO, SOLWAY, STAG and Tinto) pull together to deliver the Scottish Championships Individual and Relay Championships with Terry O’Brien BEM (STAG) co-ordinating the weekend. Grandtully in Perthshire provided a stunning arena and access to two distinct terrain types – open sloping runnable birch woodlands and plantation forest. With representation from every club there was chatter, socialising, junior entertainment, plenty of cake to replenish post run and always importantly great planning with seamless organisation!

Thank you to BASOC and GRAMP  for their stellar work in hosting the recent Scottish Orienteering League (SOL) events which provided very different areas to test our skills. Results can be found on the Scottish Orienteering League page

Dunachton (BASOC)

This area provided a lovely mix of birch woodland, grazed farm land and open moorland with areas of intricate contour detail, crags and boulders, dense juniper and ruins to test our concentration.  Despite being the weekend after the JK the organization was seamless. Thank you to the Organiser Janette MacLeod, Planner Jane Chisholm and Controller David Esson (GRAMP).

We tend to all have our aims when we enter events – we can’t all win, but often have aims like beating a clubmate or rival, finishing in less than a certain time, doing better than last time or simply just having fun in the outdoors. Preparing before the event and looking at how you performed after the event can help you to take stock and make it easier to reach goals in the future.

Scottish Orienteering are offering 2 free workshops to support participants attending the Scottish Orienteering Championships.  The first will be held before the event to help you prepare  and the second after the event to help you to objectively analyse how you performed.

Scottish Orienteering is proud to support Clean Sport Week (taking place this week – 11–17 May 2026), the annual awareness campaign led by UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) that champions fair play, integrity and drug-free sport.

This year’s theme, ‘Built not bought. 100% me.’, celebrates athletes who achieve true, lasting success through hard work, talent and commitment. It sends a clear message: champions compete clean and don’t take shortcuts.

Following on the success of the Capture the Flag game at the Scottish Championships in Barry Buddon last year, we are organising a Junior Get Together and Games at the Scottish Championships at Grandtully again this year.