Tag: juniors

The Halloween weekend saw East Area clubs hosting the Junior Inter Areas Weekend, which combines a relay on the Saturday with an overnight stay for all that wish and the individual event on the Sunday. The event saw juniors from our three areas, East North and West, travel to take part in the weekend.

At the Interarea weekend the first winners of the Junior Volunteer Awards were announced. Listening to feedback from last years inter areas, Development Director Mary Williams created the Junior Volunteer Awards to recognise and encourage juniors who are taking their first steps into volunteering. These awards are not about being the best at a role — they are about having a go and learning! 

 The prestigious Young Orienteer of the Year award was also awarded at the Inter Areas.  This award is awarded to one Junior each year who has contributed greatly to orienteering. This can be anything from making events happen, helping run club sessions and getting friends and family involved. This award is sponsored by Tulloch Homes and has been handed out each year since 2018.

Jason Inman of Forth Valley Orienteering has been appointed as the Scottish Orienteering Squad (ScotJOS) Team Manager following the retirement of Judy Bell.

After 6 years in post as Scottish Junior Orienteering Squad (ScotJOS) manager, Judy Bell decided it was time to step down and last Saturday’s Junior Home International was her final event in post. The Scottish juniors and their parents were keen to show their appreciation for Judy’s efforts and so keen were they that they organised not one but two celebrations!

Last weekend saw Juniors from the Home Nations teams of England, Ireland, Wales and of course Scotland travel to the edge of the Trossachs for the Junior Home Internationals (JHIs). The event used the 5th event of the 2026 Scottish Orienteering League (SOL) calendar at Edinchip (Lochearnhead) for the individuals and a relay event at Lochan Spling near Aberfoyle for the relays. Forth Valley Orienteers (FVO) were hosting both the SOL and provided an opportunity to test themselves against the finest juniors by running the first leg of the relays with a mass start.

Back in June, Scottish Orienteering was excited to announce the brand‑new Junior Volunteer Awards Scheme. A scheme created to recognise and encourage juniors who are taking their first steps into volunteering. Juniors can be nominated for volunteering in four different categories; planning, organising coaching and IT/results/timing. These awards are not about being the best at a role — they are about having a go and learning! The winners of each category will be announced at the Junior interareas at the end of October. 

This scheme was first introduced as a points system whereby juniors could earn points each time they volunteered. The decision has been made to scrap this to avoid over-complicating it. Juniors can be nominated for one or more categories. To nominate a junior we just need their name and it would be helpful if you could provide a note of the volunteer tasks they have undertaken in the past year. Nominations can be made by; the junior, a coach, committee member, area squad official, club fixture secretary. 

We have had some fantastic trophies made up for the award and we hope presenting them at the interareas will encourage more juniors to try volunteering. 

Please contact heidi@scottish-orienteering.org to nominate a junior for one of these awards. Please have your nominations in by Sunday 25th October.

We are looking to recruit a Squad Manager for the Scottish Junior Orienteering Squad (ScotJOS). The person will work alongside Roger Goddard, and will replace Judy Bell, who has been a stalwart of the ScotJOS coaching team for many years. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Judy for all her hard work and acknowledge the enormous contribution she has made to ScotJOS and the development of our Scottish Juniors.

British Orienteering have established a youth voice programme and are seeking juniors from a variety of backgrounds and experience of orienteering to share their views and help improve orienteering. It would be great to see voices representing the Scottish experience. More information can be found here on British Orienteering Youth Voices Programme.

This week will have seen many of our 14 and 16 age class Scottish juniors away exploring the delights of Lagganlia or Deeside with the Junior Regional Orienteering Squads (JROS) with older juniors getting ready to take part in camps in Czechia, Stockholm and Gothenburg.

For juniors it is a week of intensive training in some really interesting terrain combined with games and lots of other fun! For parents they get a week of peace followed by the return of a very tired but contented kid who might after quite a lot of sleep tell them tales of adventures and new friends but brings with them what seems like a month’s supply of dirty orienteering and other kit.

Every 2 years ScotJOS organises a training tour to Sweden for all its junior members. This year a record 37 juniors (aged 14 to 18)  took part assisted by 10 adults.

Read on to find out more about their adventures ….