The last Scottish Orienteering Urban League (SOUL) event of 2025 was hosted by Edinburgh Southern Orienteering Club at Newhaven this year and saw the 2025 SOUL League winners receiving their trophies.

Scottish Orienteering recently delivered a practical orienteering taster session for secondary PE teaching students at the University of Stirling, giving future teachers the chance to experience how orienteering can be introduced simply and effectively in schools. We had some extra fun as it was the last day before the holidays so everyone arrived in festive attire!

A total of 24 students took part in the two-hour session, which was led by Louise Adams (SOA Lead Development Officer), with support from STUOC President Laura Brown. The session focused on easy-to-learn, easy-to-set-up activities that are well suited to school environments and adaptable for different ages and abilities.

Edinburgh Southern Orienteering Club (ESOC) has been trialling a new initiative, Ozone, aimed at supporting young juniors at local events through fun, informal activities that build confidence, skills and enables them to meet other children at events.

Although still in its pilot phase, the Ozone has so far provided a strong example of best practice for engaging younger participants and their families, while supporting progression into independent orienteering for juniors that currently participate with their parents.

The World Anti-Doping Agency recently released the 2026 Prohibited List, which comes into effect on 1 January 2026. The Prohibited List is updated every year and outlines the substances and methods that are prohibited in sport. Every athlete and their support (parents or coaches) should familiarise themselves with the changes and what methods and substances are prohibited.

Last night, we held our December Community Conversation focused on safety within our sport. The meeting was led by the Scottish Orienteering Association Safety Director, Tim O’Donoghue, who shared updates regarding how safety is managed at the British Orienteering Federation (BOF) level and learnings which could be taken from incidents reported.

With Christmas fast approaching Three Wise Men* (accompanied by a former SOA Events Manager – Colin Matheson) made an initial site visit to Grandtully, chosen venue for next year’s Scottish Individual and Relay Orienteering Championships.  The timing of the visit coincided with a paid pheasant shoot, but fortunately it was determined they would be heading west while we headed south.  The area is less green than the last day of Strathearn 2019, and the area around the likely changeover and finish location is delightful.

With lots of calls on all our member’s expenditure at this time of year we are grateful to those who have renewed their SOA membership ( 2026 membership opened on 1st November) – either through British Orienteering or direct through SI entries. Did you know that you could give SOA an additional gift this festive period at no cost to yourself if you are a UK taxpayer?

If you are a UK taxpayer and have signed the Gift Aid form, the UK government will pay an extra 25p for every £1 of your membership fee?

Gift Aid is a simple government initiative which allows you to increase the value of your donations at no extra cost to you. HM Revenue and Customs regards membership subscriptions as ‘donations. Therefore, the SOA can claim Gift Aid  on your membership fees.

Those who renewed through SI Entries will have had the opportunity to consider providing a Gift Aid donation but there are at least 450 senior members who join through BOF who have never signed a Gift Aid declaration. Did you know that means for every senior member, who is a UK taxpayer, the SOA could claim £3 in Gift Aid and we can claim for up to four years previous membership fees.

It takes less than 5 minutes of your time and only needs one form filled in, with your name and address, and sent to our finance director. If you are a UK taxpayer and would like to sign up for gift aid please use this link to complete the Gift Aid Declaration

Thank you!

Events Director

The SOA Board has been reassessing the roles on the SOA Board and believe that the term Operation
Director does not effectively describe the role. As such it has been decided to rename the position as
Events Director. The role of the event director is to bring a strategic view in respect of the events
which are delivered in Scotland and the areas which could be used to deliver some of these events
together with an awareness of event official requirements.

Secretary

The secretary of the SOA Board fulfils the role of minute secretary and organises Board meetings
whilst all bringing an additional viewpoint to the SOA Board. The SOA Board meets 7 times a year (4
in person and 3 online) at present.

The 2025 series of monthly open-to-all online Community Conversations will draw to a close after the final one on 3^rd December (December Community Conversation sign up form) and a big ‘thank you’ to everyone who has taken part and contributed so far. Your input and engagement have been invaluable in helping strengthen connections across clubs and with the SOA team. We would love your feedback and suggestions to ensure that the series continues to evolve in 2026 to deliver on what’s of most value to you. 

The November session in the SOA’s monthly online Community Conversations series focused on the crucial topic of supporting and developing our volunteer base, including our pipeline of event officials. This is of course core to delivering on our mission for orienteering to be a thriving sport for all.

One of Scottish Orienteering’s four strategic aims (read more here) is around lifelong pathways, and a new one for Volunteers was published earlier this year (Lifetime Pathways infograms) (many thanks to Jen Leonard, FVO, for developing the original pathways graphic).  This sets out clearly for everyone what the opportunities look like and how to progress.  

How can SOA and clubs best work together to encourage and engage members as club volunteers, to drive positive developments for orienteering, at all levels? Some of the foundations might be around training and sharing technical information; however, a great deal is around the ‘people’ side of things.