Development Team Work Plans

Published: April 24, 2020

Like many others, the SOA development staff have had to modify their work plans to accommodate our current situation. Disappointingly, many planned courses, activities and projects with schools, clubs and other groups have had to be cancelled. It has, however, opened up the opportunity to make progress on a number of background projects as well as pushing other activities to the fore.

Here is a summary of what the team is currently up to and their plans for the forthcoming months:

Sarah Dunn – Development Manager and RDO North Area

  • Continuing to support and encourage clubs and individuals to set-up and use MapRunF. The developer (Peter Effeney) has been adding new features to make the app more usable on an individual basis, which means it can be put into personal use even during Lockdown. Clubs are being encouraged to think about setting up virtual courses ready to promote to members once local travel is considered acceptable.
  • Working on the content of the new SOA Club Toolbox to generate “How To” documents and collate other useful links and information. Plan to consult with clubs once enough core content has been generated.
  • Working with Lynne Walker and Jon Musgrave to revamp the Level 2 coaching course and relaunch as a SQA qualification. The new course is planned to be “fit for purpose” to educate coaches to plan and coordinate club training sessions.
  • Offering continued support to north area clubs and Active Schools as required.

Fran Loots – RDO West Area

  • Reworking the IntrO course with Denise.
  • Keeping contact going with SWAT squad and looking at options for inter area and inter club ‘meets’ during lockdown.
  • Supporting work on the Club Toolkit.
  • Learning how to use SI properly and set up mazes quickly ( a challenge for a technophobe..).
  • Supporting Active Schools Coordinators working in hubs and forward planning for beyond Lockdown.
  • Offering continued support to West area clubs.

Judy Bell – RDO East Area

  • Creating and publishing the SOA Daily Isolation Puzzles and Challenges on Facebook and the SOA Website (If you haven’t yet seen them check out https://www.scottish-orienteering.org/resources/puzzles-and-challenges/ for some armchair orienteering activities).
  • Working with Active Schools Edinburgh to promote orienteering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6v8D8AfbkY
  • Working to create a new series of videos and activities for teachers and parents to use for home learning. Look out for “Let’s Get Started Orienteering” coming soon.
  • Reviewing and updating resources including the Club Toolkit.
  • Offering to support to East Area clubs as required.
  • Supporting club members to get started with MapRun.

Denise Martin – Coaching and Volunteer Officer

  • Reworking Level 1 coaching course material with the help of Lynne Walker.
  • IntrO course is experiencing a facelift- Fran Loots is greatly supportive.
  • Event Safety Workshop (ESW) has been freshly updated and is going to be launched as a webinar in the very near future. Tim O’Donoghue, in his capacity as SOA Safety Director, has dedicated time to create an updated power point.
  • Level 2 coaching course is being transformed from UKCC to SQA L2.
  • Volunteers’ Week – celebrating our brilliant volunteers. See the website https://www.scottish-orienteering.org/news/volunteers-week-1-7-june/ and social media links. Denise would like to know who you want to see featured June 1-7.