News

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.

8th October, 2026 Read more...

A team of 24 junior orienteers travelled to Switzerland last weekend to compete for GB in the Junior European Cup (JEC). Scotland was well represented on the team and the Scottish athletes provided some outstanding results – in particular Finn Duguid from TAY who won a gold medal in the M18 Sprint and a silver in the Long. Congratulations to Finn!

8th October, 2026 Read more...

The SOA Team was delighted to welcome Holly Stodgell as she started in the post of SOA Development Officer this week. Holly has joined the SOA team as a replacement for Louise Adams who left the post of Development Officer in July.

7th October, 2026 Read more...

SATPE stands for the Scottish Association of Teachers of Physical Education. Last weekend SOA attended their annual conference at Crieff High School to promote the sport to teachers as a sport they could introduce pupils to. The conference attracts PE teachers working at both primary and secondary level from across Scotland. As part of the conference SOA delivered a workshop and had a stall at the marketplace. 

The workshop aimed to introduce teachers to orienteering, giving them the confidence and resources to deliver in schools. The workshop introduced: what is a map, setting maps and using orienteering maps. At the marketplace teachers wanted to know about mapping, working with younger children, structuring lessons and more. 

At being at this conference we hope to get more orienteering into schools and more people participating in orienteering in Scotland! 

7th October, 2026 Read more...