Tag: juniors

Scottish Orienteering Association is committed to clean sport and supported UK Anti-Doping’s (UKAD’s) Clean Sport Week campaign from 19 – 23 May.  

The Jamie Stevenson Trophy is an annual inter-club competition for junior orienteers in Scotland. This year the competition will take place at The Hill of Alyth, on Sunday 15th June. This is a great event for juniors of all abilities to meet, socialise and compete against each other. There will be a parade, warm-up and challenges for all to enjoy as well as the orienteering. In 2024 approximately 110 juniors from 12 clubs took part.

Hopefully by now, you’ve got the date in your diary for this year’s Scottish Schools Orienteering Festival. If not, here’s another reminder!

• Date: Thursday 5th June
• Venue: Pittencrieff Park, Dunfermline
• Entries: OPEN
• Deadline: Monday 26th May.

Organising seems to strike fear into the hearts of the most stout orienteers but is an essential job for all events. Have you ever wanted to help out your club by organising an event but have been put off by the seeming complexity of the job? Well, help is at hand – 2 levels of courses for adults and juniors (16+) have been devised to demystify the whole process and equip you – yes, You – to organise a Level D or local event.

The first presentation of this course last year was very well received and we are anxious to equip more potential organisers to do a great job.

The Scottish Schools Orienteering Festival is back for 2025 and this year will be held at Pittencrieff Park in Dunfermline. It will be on Thursday 5th June so make sure to save the date! A huge thanks are extended to Kingdom of Fife Orienteers for giving permission to use this area and for providing the organiser and planner for the event.

Make sure you don’t miss out on any selection opportunities this year. We have gathered them all together in one place.

In an effort to assist clubs and individuals to plan training to qualify volunteers and keep them up to date, we have gradually been moving towards a more predictable training programme that will run on an annual cycle. Obviously this will have to incorporate a degree of flexibility to accommodate the events calendar, school and university holidays but on the whole we will try and run the same courses at more or less the same time every year.

At the 2024 interarea weekend, we held a feedback session for our juniors to express their thoughts and opinions on orienteering for juniors in Scotland. They were given 4 topics to discuss: social opportunities, communication (juniors to SOA and SOA to juniors) and prizes. The overarching theme was that orienteering needs to be made more social for juniors by providing more opportunities for them to socialise outwith their clubs.

Juniors from all over Scotland headed north for this year’s junior interarea competition that took place on the weekend of 26/27th November. The North, East and West fielded their strongest teams and battled it out over a relay on the Saturday and the individual on the Sunday, with West hoping to retain their title from last year.

Our great sport always needs people to help introduce others to a fantastic new activity or support those already participating to be the best they can.  These people are our coaches and we have a variety of courses to train you to join their ranks – it’s easier than you think.