Welcoming Heidi to the team

We would to introduce you to Heidi Ross who has joined the SOA Staff team as our new Development Officer. We are delighted to have Heidi on board as we seek to progress our areas of development in line with our strategy. Heidi comes to us with experience of being Aberdeen University Orienteering Club President and a level 1 coach. She has recently relocated to Edinburgh joining ESOC having completed her Masters in Aberdeen.

Scottish Orienteering Development Team

We have previously had 4 members of the SOA staff team working on areas of developing orienteering. After a long recruit process we have adjusted our previous structure to now have Fran Loots as our Development Manager, Heidi Ross is Development Officer (full time) and Suzanne Robins-Bird is the Coaching & Volunteering Officer. We are in the process of reviewing how best to meet the needs of the clubs, regions and development pathway projects under our remit. We will be communicating with clubs and regions in the very near future as we have moved away from having an identified development officer for each region, however, we do want to re-assure all clubs that support continues to be available through our professional staff.

Student Orienteering Clubs

Heidi will be working closely to support and re-engage students through University and College Orienteering Clubs in the first instance. With students returning to their term-time locations and joining clubs we are looking to ensure structures are in place to give positive first experiences and events linked to Glasgow University, Stirling University, Aberdeen University and Edinburgh University. We appreciate all the support already provided to the University Clubs by their partner orienteering clubs. We are working to establish a partnership with Scottish Student Sport to widen participation in orienteering within the student network and to gain accreditation of our Scottish Student Championships taking place on 12th/13th November.

If any student is interested in knowing more about orienteering whilst at Further or Higher Education or wants to know more about Scottish Student Championships in November then contact Heidi : Heidi@scottish-orienteering.org

We are delighted to have Heidi as part of the team and clubs can expect to see her out and about at various events over the coming months so do say hello when you see her!