At a successful SOA AGM on Monday, Richard Oxlade the President of Scottish Orienteering announced that Jon Cross of Forth Valley Orienteers (FVO) had been awarded the SOA President’s Medal for 2022.

His selection was based on the following nomination:-

“On behalf of Forth Valley Orienteers, we wish to nominate Jon Cross for consideration as a candidate for the 2023 Scottish Orienteering President’s Medal. For the past 24 years, Jon has served as the FVO team captain, and during his captaincy, the club presence in major events has increased exponentially, due in no small measure to Jon’s diligence and extensive range of contacts within the sport. In Jon’s first year as captain, FVO was able to enter five teams to the Scottish Relays with the best place a 3rd in the ad-hoc; by this year, the number had increased to 20 teams, with seven medals across the board. Perhaps Jon’s greatest achievement as team captain was in 2015 when, after overseeing eight consecutive victories in the Compass Sport Trophy (for “small” clubs), Jon masterminded an FVO win in the Compass Sport Cup, while we were still strictly speaking a “small” club. From 2015, when we had 97 members, the club has continued to grow to the level that we are now a bona-fide “large” club with more than 250 members, and this is due in part to the massive effort that Jon puts in, year on year, in recruiting athletes to run in major competitions for FVO. Jon has the deepest address book in British orienteering, and can always be relied upon to recruit a spare runner on the few occasions that we’re short a number. Jon served a two year term as Club President during an extremely difficult period for the sport nationally, with COVID protocols restricting what we could do, and thanks to his innovative leadership, we emerged from the lockdown period in an even stronger shape than when we went in. Key to this was the expansion of the Club Development Officer role from one day a week to two days, and Jon line-managed the CDO and ensured that all activities related directly to the long-term vision of the club.

In late 2021, when it appeared there would be no British or Scottish Relay Championship, for the first time since the Foot and Mouth epidemic of 2001, Jon took it upon himself to (almost single-handedly) organise a stripped-down version of the championship to enable continuity of the event, with nearly 50 teams taking part. Jon stepped down in 2022 from his role as a selector for the GB Squad after more than 15 years, many of which were spent as Chairman of Selectors. During the pandemic he lent his support to the Performance programme as volunteer team liaison, helping with the considerable logistical issues of getting athletes abroad to attend international competitions. Jon is one of the Directors of Masterplan Adventure responsible for staging the Sprint Scotland series, Race the Castles, Coasts and Islands and other quality events. In 2019 he and Graeme Auckland contrived to have the Adventure Show stream the JOK Chasing Sprint live on TV, from Callendar Park Falkirk, complete with live commentary, which greatly enhanced the public profile of the sport. Jon’s involvement at the highest levels of the sport continues, as he will be one of the planners for WOC 2024 in Edinburgh, and was in Denmark last summer to cheer on Team GB and to share good practice with the Danish organisers. Jon is always collaborative in his approach to orienteering activities, and is very willing to share his extensive experience with new event officials. He recently qualified as a level C controller, and will play a major role going forward in enhancing the profile of our club, and the sport nationally.”

Many congratulations from everyone in the SOA to Jon on being awarded the President’s medal for his contribution to orienteering in Scotland.

Today in a celebration of the young people that contribute to our sport, we are highlighting the activities of our nominations for Young Orienteer of the Year 2023. We are delighted to announce that the winners this year are Charlotte Horne and Isla O’Donoghue who between them are the mainstays of Aberdeen University Orienteering Club.

The hallmark of STAG’s Volunteer of 2022/23 is that he continues our Club’s evolving tradition of not just expressing an interest in taking our mission forward but oozing industry, inspiration and imagination in his delivery.

Today features some key contributors that Forth Valley Orienteers have highlighted as members who are helping their club continue to flourish.

Young leaders have been stepping up to their new responsibilities – Sam Hunt and Grace Polwart supporting the FVO Stars coaching, with Sam also planning events, and Scarlett Kelly organising events.

Today’s volunteers are the INVOC coaching team who have all been working incredibly hard to make high quality coaching available to a wide range of youngsters.  In addition to club sessions, some of the coaches run sessions in local schools as well, encouraging youngsters to get into the sport. The following report from club lead coach Jacquie Laird explains:

The INVOC coaching team started the current model of sessions in lockdown when we began with online sessions on Wednesday evenings – first the older groups, then we added the TD3 group. As lockdown eased we started adding back in alternate weeks forest sessions on Wednesday evenings for an hour. This seems to work well – less pressure than weekly sessions for coaches and parents ferrying kids. 

Well it’s time of year again when we say an extra big thank-you to all of our volunteers. This week we will highlight those who have been nominated as having gone above and beyond the call of duty but celebrating them serves to remind us that our fantastic sport could not go ahead without the contributions of all our volunteers – so thank-you one and all for doing what you can to support Orienteering.

The SOA accounts for the year to 31st December 2022 have now been finalised and approved. They are available to view here

Well what a weekend! Some great terrain, fabulous courses and amazing team spirit on show this weekend at both the Scottish Orienteering Individual and Relay Championships.

2023 was the turn of the west area clubs to host the event and the west clubs – Ayrshire Orienteering Club (AYROC), Clydeside Orienteers (CLYDE), Forth Valley Orienteering Club (FVO), Loch Eck Orienteering Club (ECKO), Solway Orienteering Club (SOLWAY), St Andrew’s Orienteering Club Glasgow (STAG) and Tinto Orienteering Club (TINTO). ECKO allowed their maps of Creag Mhic and Inverawe Country Park to be used, obtained landowner permissions whilst members of all the west area clubs acted as officials and volunteers to ensure everything went off smoothly and we all had a great event.

Last Saturday we had our first joint training session for the West (SWAT) and East (ESOA) area regional training squads. The regional squads are for juniors TD3 and above. The aim of the regional squads is to let juniors have fun and make friends through orienteering. The training took place at Galamuir led by SWAT coach Roger Goddard. The FVO stars TD1-2 also joined in with the training. The FVO Stars will go on to join SWAT once they are TD3. 

At the start of the session the juniors broke into four different coaching groups: FVO stars, TD3, TD4 and Adults. The SWAT and ESOA squads worked on simplification and relocation. The relocation exercise was very tricky with a few very well hidden fences and earth walls making the exercise challenging. Despite the woods being described as ‘disgusting’ by an enthusiastic SWAT member there were lots of smiles and lots of learning.  

TD3 Group working on Simplification

The SOA AGM will take place on Monday 5th June online at 7pm.

Today we have published the AGM Booklet which includes all proposals and nominations of Directors which require your voting. There will be the option of proxy voting by post and online and we hope to engage in some dialogue prior to voting in person. We still welcome further nominations for the vacant Board Director positions and truly hope you will consider putting your name forward.

We have outlined all the proposals for voting below.

AGM PROPOSALS

You can download the Proxy Form here or it can be completed online Online Proxy Form

The 2022 AGM Minutes can be found here

A link to the AGM can be obtained by emailing nikki@scottish-orienteering.org