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?
Read More…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 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!
Read More…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
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).
Read More…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.
Read More…Over the past few years the SOA has organised a Club Networking Day with the aim to provide the opportunity for clubs to come together and exchange ideas.
This year we are responding to feedback and holding two events – one in the north and one in the south – to make the events more accessible:
● Saturday 12th September – Dunblane (Braeport Centre)
● Saturday 19th September – Boat of Garten (Community Hall)
April’s Community Conversation had a theme of marketing and outreach to newcomers. SOA comms & marketing Director, Katherine Ivory, started the session off with an overview of three practical tools that are being used to promote orienteering to wider audiences, leading into discussion about the new SOA leaflet for newcomers.
Communications work never stops, with continuous needs around sharing information and encouraging interest. Given the limited resources for this within the volunteer-driven orienteering community, what can help make things as efficient and effective as possible?
Read More…Congratulations to Morag McLuckie (Moravian Orienteering Club) and Katja Neumann (MAR Orienteering Club) who have both successfully completed the Scottish Certification in Coaching Orienteering (SCCO) Lead Coach qualification. They are the first candidates to successfully complete this new course which is the advanced level of the Scottish Orienteering Coach Education Pathway. Both agree that it was an incredibly valuable and rewarding experience, if a little demanding! We are delighted to have them as part of the Scottish Orienteering team of coaches and look forward to hearing more about their coaching experiences.
