The sum is more than the parts

A call over a year ago started what has proved to be a very fruitful partnership in Dundee.

James Fenna, Manager for Active Schools Dundee wanted to know if we could deliver training for his team. It was clear at the outset that he was interested in more than a one off training session, and so discussions began about what it all might look like.

We have just finished an event in Dundee that saw around 30 newcomers attend as a result of a series of summer sessions run in the preceding weeks. It was great to see a diversity of backgrounds and whole families entering into the event.

Prior to this we had delivered the Introduction to Orienteering course (IntrO) to Active Schools coordinators, then worked with them on how to use Purple Pen and MapRun to produce nearly 30 course across the city, delivered training so they can now run the IntrO course for other staff across the city, developed a mapping package with 3 school clusters being mapped then run 3 summer ‘camps’ for 3 days over 3 weeks in 3 different locations attended. These were attended by over 60 children with parents invited along on the last day to have a go themselves. The grand finale was an event at Camperdown Park with Active Schools, Scottish Orienteering and Tayside Orienteers all contributing parts to the overall success of the day.

Active schools have contributed towards the mapping of areas as well as putting in staff time and we employed Emma Baird from ECKO mainly to plan and deliver the summer camps and event. Emma has just finished at Dundee University and started on the coaching pathway so this gave her valuable hands on-skills and experience. It was great to have a young person involved that the children could relate to and she was very popular!

We are meeting soon to look at the next steps and already the Active Schools Coordinators are planning future developments with enthusiasm. It would have been difficult for either ourselves at Scottish Orienteering or Tayside Orienteers to make as much headway on our own. It really has felt that the whole impact of what we have been doing together is greater than the sum of the parts.