Cuningar Loop – Easter 2024 Report

As part of the ‘Increasing Participation’ project overseen by Clyde Gateway, SOA once again ran 3 sessions for families and newcomers during the school Easter holidays at Cuningar Loop Woodland Park in Glasgow. SOA were linked in with Clyde Gateway by SportScotland, however we wanted to make sure that this work carried out provided a link into STAG and their events as well as raising the profile of orienteering. The project involves multiple sports and aims to get more local people active and using the local park.

Activity

The sessions were run on Tuesday 2nd, Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th April and aimed to introduce the basics of orienteering. Participants were initially introduced to an orienteering map and led on a short map walk where the map symbols and colours were related to the real world. The idea of orientating the map was also introduced and then established using a cone grid exercise. The main activity took participants out into the wider park and progressed in length and difficulty to cater for a wide range of ages and abilities.

Data Collection

We had participants fill in some details at the beginning of each session so that we could gauge an understanding of the age range of the children and where people had travelled from. The postcodes collected indicated that a large number of our participants had travelled within the locality, however we had some come from as far as Paisley, Kirkintilloch and Larkhall.

Marketing

As with the sessions last summer, the vast majority of the marketing and advertisement was done by the marketing team at Clyde Gateway, but with help from STAG through the work they are doing with local schools. Once again attendance was good. We had some fairly cold and wet weather on the Tuesday and Wednesday but we still had 6 groups each day with 11 and 9 children respectively. The sun came out on Thursday so we got a much greater turnout of 11 groups with 19 children!

Feedback

We also collected some feedback at the end of each session. 9/13 groups said that this was their first experience of orienteering and 12/13 said they would recommend it to a friend based on their experience. 12/13 also said they would consider going to other orienteering events and activities.

Links into local clubs

To ensure the link into local clubs and events, STAG very kindly organised a follow up activity at Cuningar Loop on Saturday 6th April. Participants were given flyers containing all the local events and activities organised by STAG and CLYDE happening in the following few months, as well as website addresses and contact emails.

Hopes for the future

Following on from the success of the Easter sessions, it has been agreed with Clyde Gateway that SOA will run another set of sessions during the summer. We are keen to keep working with STAG to build on the achievements from this time. STAG are doing great development work across Glasgow, working with schools and installing permanent courses in local parks, so we are keen to better our link into the club by earlier advertising of a follow up event. STAG also recently achieved the ‘Respect the Environment Award 2023’, awarded by British Orienteering for their initiative that gives members discounts for travelling by minibus, cycling or car sharing. Achievements and work like this makes them a great club to project a positive image of orienteering in Scotland.

SOA are also in the early stages of installing a permanent course in Cuningar Loop, which we hope to have ready to use by the summer sessions. Permission has been granted by Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) and discussions with Clyde Gateway are being had about using Phase 2 of the park. Given the amount of enthusiasm and interest shown during the Easter sessions, we are hopeful that a POC here will be well used.