While some progress is being made to suppress the virus and incredible efforts towards vaccinating adults is taking place, from the First Minister’s statement today it looks as though our events and activities remain suspended for now. We must all follow the guidance to stay at home with the hope of more positive news to come.
We will work with sportscotland on the guidance for 12-17year olds and also work to prepare our clubs with any additional information we obtain about what Level 3 may look like come April.
Today, Jan Kersel joined our SOA Team Meeting and provided a valuable update on all the developments taking place across Argyll & Bute. It was uplifting to hear the impact of the appointment of Jan on EckO and we felt compelled to share her story. Enjoy!
We are looking forward to hosting the second of the Child Wellbeing and Protection in Sport courses on 22nd February and were delighted to get good feedback following the first course earlier this month. There are some spaces left on the courses on the 9th and 18th March, so if you are interested please do sign up here
One question which we were asked to clarify following the course was who needed a PVG within orienteering in Scotland?
Today we say a farewell to Colin Matheson from the Scottish Orienteering staff team after over 10 years. Colin will be stepping away from his roll as Events Manger for SOA to focus on Lochaber 2021 and will continue to work on Scottish 6 Days on a 2 day a week basis. We are indebted to Colin for all his work on events, advancing data for clubs and creating crucial links to enable access in many areas. We are holding off on a big finale for Colin until we can meet in person and we can celebrate all of Colin’s achievement on behalf of Scottish Orienteering.
As part of the 2021 Virtual BOF Coaching Conference, the SOA organised and convened a session on Additional Support Needs in Orienteering. The objective of the workshop was for coaches to share experiences of working with youngsters with ASN and to map out some simple tips for others to assimilate.
For the first time the annual IOF High Level Event Seminar (HLES) was held online and saw a record attendance of over 100 from 5 Continents and covering all disciplines – FootO, SkiO, TrailO and MTBO. Videos of the event are publicly available here The focus of the event is very much on World Cup and World Orienteering Championship level events – Scotland is hosting the Sprint World Orienteering Championships 2024 so the HLES is very much part of the run-up to this.
A new version of MapRun – MapRun6 has been released and is now available for download from your smartphone app Store. It has been released as a separate App, “MapRun6”, so that it can co-exist with MapRunF as it is progressively adopted by users. If your club has been benefitting from using MapRun then please consider making a donation towards the development and operation of the app.
Hi everyone, my name is Euan Baird and I’m delighted to be completing a work placement with Scottish Orienteering as part of my undergraduate degree at the University of Stirling. I’m currently in my fourth year of BA (hons) Sports Studies and I’ll be assisting Scottish Orienteering with various grassroots projects they’re running. I’m excited to get started and looking forward to this challenge.
With the First Minister announcing yesterday that lockdown is set to continue until the end of the month and the pressures of working at home, furlough, home schooling can feel endless. This is further challenged by the current restrictions on our usual outlets socially and also physically through our beloved orienteering and other sports/outdoor pursuits. We recognise that dealing with lockdown can be tough, regardless of age and that staying at home is likely to be having an impact on most people’s mental health to some extent. We encourage all members to Take the Time to Talk on 4th February
