Volunteer week 2023 kicks off

Well it’s time of year again when we say an extra big thank-you to all of our volunteers. This week we will highlight those who have been nominated as having gone above and beyond the call of duty but celebrating them serves to remind us that our fantastic sport could not go ahead without the contributions of all our volunteers – so thank-you one and all for doing what you can to support Orienteering.

First up is David Robertson who received this glowing testimonial:

ELO wish to nominate David Robertson who volunteers with not just one, but two clubs, as well as Active Schools and East Lothian Outdoor Education Service.

David’s first club is ESOC and he certainly pulls his weight there, taking his turn of planning events, but also a major contribution is the weekly emails “ESOC Matters”  which I know from experience take longer to compile than anyone would think. 

Although a member of ESOC, he lives in East Lothian and does even more in East Lothian than in Edinburgh. At ELO events he is always there to the end, collecting in controls. At the last two events he has also been there an hour before the start to give help to a group of teenagers from a Youth Project who have started coming along.

Every term he does a series of Friday afternoon introductory sessions, arranged through the Active Schools Co-ordinators, usually a block of six weeks in a particular Primary School and promotes ELO events to the participants, some of whom have come along to our club events.

He volunteers with Outdoor Learning when they are doing blocks of orienteering in schools, usually building a maze to challenge kids while waiting for their turn at the actual orienteering courses, and being there every day for a two or three week block round the six catchment areas. In addition he does lots of extra days arranged directly with school, I doubt if anyone has a count of how many, but I know we did three days in a block a year ago for one secondary, all of S1 and S2, and I know he will be at one school tomorrow doing a whole day with S2. Building the maze takes at least an hour so on each of these days he is likely to be there by 8 am to set it up.

In addition, he does some orienteering with special needs groups such as Venturing Out.

Through his Scout Group (yes, he is a Cub Scout Leader as well) he set up a maze at a community day just a couple of weeks ago, which resulted in two families coming to the ELO event the next day.

There will be lots more …….