If you are currently working out your summer orienteering plans, don’t forget you can race alongside the world’s best orienteers as part of the WOC Tour in Edinburgh this summer (11th-16th July), and entry fees are still at Early Bird prices – until 15th April.
The WOC Tour offers a diverse range of orienteering races for all ages (from under 10 upwards*), which are fully integrated with the official Sprint World Orienteering Championships 2024 and use several WOC 2024 competition areas. The WOC Tour races are also planned so you won’t miss out on any of the elite racing action – either as a spectator or a volunteer.
WOC Tour will feature six races, starting with a Warm-up Race on the open grassy terrain of Holyrood Park on Thursday 11th July. The following day (Friday 12th July) there will be an Urban Sprint Race in Leith, a historic port with an asymmetric street plan. On Saturday 13th July there is an Indoor Race at Edinburgh University’s Kings Buildings Campus and Sunday 14th July is the Urban and Campus Middle Race at Heriot-Watt University, which is also a Scottish Orienteering Urban League 2024 counter.
Monday 15th July sees the Long Distance Urban Race, which is UK Urban League 2024 counter, come to the streets of Edinburgh Old Town, with its maze of narrow closes and wynds providing a navigation challenge throughout. The WOC Tour concludes with an Urban Sprint Race on Tuesday 16th July, which will use the WOC Arena at Wester Hailes, a residential area which has the Edinburgh and Glasgow Union Canal running through it.
A trip to the Capital for WOC 2024 promises to deliver a long weekend of fun – both in terms of spectating and racing. To find out more about WOC 2024 and the WOC Tour, including estimated course distances for all the WOC Tour races, visit the official website. https://www.woc2024.org/woc-tour/.
Entries are now open on SiEntries and Early Bird rates for the WOC Tour end on 15th April – so don’t forget to sign up! You can enter your age class or one of the 10 Open courses, the choice is yours.
*Parents must check the daily notes for children under the age of 16 and 12 on the day of each race – there are some safety restrictions.
As you will have seen highlighted in recent news coverage there are 9 protected characteristics within the UK in terms of Equality legislation. These are Age, Disability, Gender Reassignment, Marriage and Civil Partnership, Pregnancy and Maternity, Race, Religious and Belief, Sex and Sexual Orientation. Within Scotland we must also have due regard to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.
In order to ensure that all sports and physical activity organisations move towards being a more diverse, inclusive and socially responsible sector the five UK Sports Councils (which includes SportScotland) have developed a programme which all Sports Governing Bodies supported by one of the UK Sports Councils must follow.
This programme provides a framework for organisations to work through to ensure that equality, diversity and inclusion are incorporated into an organisation’s everyday work. The framework is intended to drive meaningful change in practice, tackle inequalities and lead to sustainable improvements in the representation, diversity and positive inclusive experiences.
As part of the work being carried out by the Scottish Orienteering Association we are looking to appoint an Equality Working Group consisting of staff and representatives of our membership to help review our organisation. This Equality Working Group would help review the current position of the SOA which would then lead to the preparation of a continuous improvement plan to be implemented. Initially it is thought that the working group would be in place for one year but there would likely be a role to review progress made by the SOA thereafter.
We are looking for members who have an interest in this area and would like to be involved in helping to ensure that Scottish Orienteering is the most welcoming and inclusive environment possible which will encourage diversity within the sport and adoption of the sport by under represented groups and communities. If you are interested in being part of this group please get in touch with either our Welfare Director, Ken McDonald at welfare@scottish-orienteering.org or our Chief Operating Officer Nikki Howard at nikki@scottish-orienteering.org
We are hoping to arrange for the Equality Working Group to meet in a central location at the end of April in the first instance for a few hours but thereafter the commitment should be a few group meetings a year.
