Developing our Communities – Highlighting Projekt42 Leith

Scottish Orienteering has many background initiatives and development projects which are likely invisible to our broad membership. As a development team we have put our energy in to outreach and partnership development, nurturing connections which broaden the interest in orienteering and promote healthy lifestyles. It is a commitment which takes time and ongoing input and impetuous. We are grateful to have a fantastic pool of tutors and wider support network of members who want to be involved and offer their expertise.

David Robertson of ESOC and tutor for the Projekt42 Leith IntrO course shares his experience.  

 Like most things in life, having the right people involved can make an idea come alive – turning an idea in to action, creating an opportunity, and seeing wonderful outcomes outlines success in my mind. Especially when the people involved express what fun they had, how much they enjoyed themselves and how they can see using their newly gained skills to share their learnings with others in their community.

David Robertson of ESOC and tutor for the Projekt42 Leith IntrO course shares his experience.

As below: Thank you David.  

Projekt42 is a Leith based not-for-profit well-being centre where gym membership fees are used to subsidise counselling services and community programmes. Because of the pandemic the instructors have had to hold fitness classes either online or outdoors, predominantly at Leith Links. The staff wanted to see if they could use simple orienteering activities to introduce a different fitness experience to their community and discover how to signpost those interested towards local orienteering opportunities.

A modified IntrO course was delivered to 5 staff members which covered setting up warm up activities such as cone orienteering, pitch-O, Musical-O and mazes. We looked at different maps, colours and symbols and embedded the basic skills of setting and thumbing the map. 

Leith is full of interesting and historical places and before lunch the group tried out a Photo-O course using features around the border of the Links. They then had an introduction to MapRun and tried out short courses which they were enthusiastic about and liked how it could be undertaken at any time, has the results list & track shown and can be linked to Strava. An iOrienteering Score course using QR codes on the network of benches revealed the competitive nature of the group. 

The group were fun and enthusiastic and really engaged with the training. We had good discussion about how to set up a variety of activities, including Postbox-O using OOmap and how to access the existing permanent and MapRun courses around Edinburgh. 

Quotes from the participants:

• Thank you for sending this certificate to me. We had a great day learning all about orienteering and look forward to introducing some activities to Projekt42

• I’m sure they’ll be really popular with the gym members, and they’ll be great for families and the senior walking club to take part in as well

• David did a fantastic job, engaging and insightful. 

• All staff members appreciated the way he taught and was able to introduce them to something new. Some staff members thought it may be too challenging of a sport initially, but he did a great job of breaking that down and making it accessible. Which ultimately, is what we want to do for members.  Thanks again for arranging this. We will keep in touch as we continue to develop the project.