Month: November 2021

Are you passionate about developing people? Interesting in coaching orienteering? Are you looking for a new challenge in 2022? Do you have the skills we are looking for in our new Coaching & Volunteering Officer to join our team? Read on to learn about this exciting opportunity.

Enthusiasm for returning to orienteering after the pandemic is evident in the nearly completed 2022 calendar. It looks like we’ll have a full SOL series, an abundance of SOUL competitions and hopefully a full set of Scottish Championships along with some popular events in the calendar. We remain committed to offering Juniors exciting opportunities with dates to finalise for Jamie Stephenson, Scottish Junior Cup and Inter-areas which we hope to announce very soon.

A big thank you to the everyone who has helped pull this together and to the clubs who have offered to organise these events. It’s going to be an exciting year when combined with all the other planned events and activities. A full calendar will be released in the coming weeks but we were keen to give you a flavour of what is in the offering.

After missing out in 2020 we are delighted to announce that SOL and SOUL trophies will be presented early in 2022 from the results of the 2021 series. Read on to find out the winners and a full list of results for the leagues this year. We would like to thank all the volunteers who made the events happen and a special thanks to Paul Hammond, Pat Squire and Richard Oxlade for their work behind the scenes collating events and results.

Keep a watch for the new issue of Score arriving in December.

We are urgently seeking someone to work with us throughout December on a full time basis to help us ‘spring clean’ our website and ensure it is fully updated ahead of the new year. We can offer a month long contract on a self employed basis up to £2000 plus any agreed expenses. Please contact Fiona@Scottish-orienteering.org to express your interest in this opportunity and to arrange an informal discussion.

Each year the Junior Regional Orienteering Squads (JROS) organise a training camp based at Hawkshead for M/W 16’s from across the country. A group from Scotland ventured down to join in the fun!

As we approach the end of November we would like to extend our sincerest thanks to Denise Martin who leaves Scottish Orienteering after 3 years in the Coaching and Volunteering Officer position. Denise has brought humour, integrity and a great deal of innovation to the role. Not only has she been able to pivot to online delivery, when necessary, but has driven forward the re-working of coaching materials across a wide range of our curriculum. She has been a popular member of the team and we wish her the very best in her next chapter.

Will we ? Won’t we ? That has become the familiar pattern for 2021 so we were delighted when Forth Valley Orienteers (FVO) agreed, at very short notice, to host the British and Scottish Relay Championships for 2021.

A beautiful day dawned allowing for an exciting event with some closely fought races between Juniors and for those contending the Men’s and Women’s trophies.

Fairy Knowe and Doon Hill provided a high quality technical challenge with generally good conditions underfoot despite the deluge the day before that threatened to swamp the start area!

Experienced Russian coach Mike Vinogradov is organising a series of free webinars suitable for orienteering coaches and athletes. He is asking interested parties to indicate their topic preferences via a google survey.

Congratulations to all the juniors who have been selected to be part of the new Talent Scotland squad and thanks to all the coaches who have volunteered to support them.

So what is Talent Scotland?