Tag: juniors

After long deliberations it was decided that the Young Orienteer of the Year award sponsored by Tulloch Homes for 2023 should be awarded jointly to Ruari Cottier of Loch Eck Orienteers (ECKO) and Peter Owen of Forth Valley Orienteers (FVO).

Both individuals have made huge efforts to promote the sport and both their efforts to support their clubs and promote orienteering within their schools should be celebrated. Therefore they were both presented with the prize at the Jamie Stevenson Trophy event. Well done to both Ruari and Peter!

Well there hasn’t been a damp Jamie Stevenson Trophy for a few years but a bit of rain did not diminish the chatter, shouts of encouragement and enthusiasm for the event.

The Jamie Stevenson Trophy is an annual inter-club competition for junior classes only, and traditionally held in central Scotland to encourage participation from all Scottish clubs. It was initiated as a fund-raising event for the Scottish Junior Orienteering Squad (ScotJOS) by Bill and Anne Stevenson in honour of their son, Jamie, who is a multiple World Championships medal winner ( winning gold at the World Orienteering Championships in the Sprint in 2003) and also one of our Patrons. It’s a chance for all juniors in a club to take part in a competitive event with a parade of athletes, commentary and prize-giving.

This year 11 clubs ventured to the Hermitage, just outside Dunkeld, to join to let their juniors enjoy a taste of a competition focussed on juniors with a celebratory atmosphere. Club tents line the run in, faces are adored with face paints and club mascots on are display. No club has yet challenged the Blue Peter skills of Inverness Orienteering Club who have created a cardboard eagle costume in the last few years. Will we get a Wallace Monument costume from Forth Valley Orienteers, a capercaillie from Mar Orienteering Club or a Burghead Bull from Moravian Orienteers to name but a few next year?

As is tradition the day started with a parade of all the juniors led by last year’s winning club Forth Valley Orienteers. It also helped this year to ensure the run in was suitably trampled to make their final run in easier!

Last Friday was the Scottish School Orienteering Festival. This year the festival was organised by St Andrews Orienteering Club, Glasgow (STAG) and was held at Drumpellier Country Park, Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire. This was the fourth time it has been held in Drumpellier Country Park having previously being held there in 2008, 2014 and 2017.

ScotJOS enjoyed a weekend of fantastic sunshine for their latest camp in Perthshire. This was also the Last Blast, a chance for the leavers to plan some fun and games (and orienteering with a difference) for the others.

30 juniors and 8 coaches gathered at Killiecrankie with orienteering at Black Spout Wood, Tullochroisk, Faskally and Bonskeid.  Special mention has to go to Yann who rather than arriving on one of the minibuses decided that he fancied a challenge and ran the 100km from Banchory to Killiecrankie – he was excused from the Friday night training!

On Friday evening they met at Black Spout Wood for a mass start gaffled race and set off at speed with the coaches watching the GPS tracking trying to work out what was happening in the loops. We then headed back to the hall for refuelling and to find a comfy patch of floor space for the night!

On Saturday morning we headed to Tullochroisk. This area hasn’t been used for several years and offered great orienteering with some complex contours. There were a selection of loops and a Duo relay – teams of 2 with each person running 2 legs (although the coaches did win they cheated and had a team of 4 each running 1 leg). The base was beside a small stream where juniors sat with their feet in to cool down between runs and enjoyed the sunshine.

We then headed to Faskally for the traditional “Last Blast” planned by the leavers – this included various challenges alongside the orienteering and ended with the last control in the River Tummel.

On Sunday, after a slight delay caused by a burst water pipe at the hall, we headed for Bonskeid, stopping to watch the bungee jumping at the Garry as we headed to the base for the orienteering. There were a selection of exercises including trains, simplification and visualisation. The weekend finished with a Harris relay – where the planning was the key was to success.

A final farewell to our Leavers – Maja, James, Michael, Sam and Angus – we wish you all the best as you head off to new challenges.

Thanks to everyone who helped make the weekend a success: providing access to maps; gaining permissions; planning training; setting up GPS tracking; supporting the junior; cooking and coaching. The ScotJOS team couldn’t provide these opportunities for the Scottish Juniors without the support from everyone involved.

The 2024 Jamie Stevenson Trophy event is being held at the Hermitage just outside Dunkeld this year on Sunday 16th June. Some may say this will be a huge disappointment to all the Scottish juniors as they will be unable to spend the whole day spoiling their fathers but we all know that peace to indulge in whatever hobby they love best is generally what every father wants!

The Jamie Stevenson Trophy provides an opportunity for all Scottish junior orienteers to come together and compete for their club whilst also providing another opportunity in the year to meet juniors from other clubs. It is a fun and inclusive day which allows club friendships to blossom and generally everyone ends up hoarse cheering their team mates.

It starts with a traditional parade of each club with their club flag and after the INVOC eagle mascot making an appearance last year we are looking forward to this year’s parade. A mass warm up then takes place lead by the Scottish Junior Orienteering Squad (SCOTJOS) before the orienteering begins. There are spot prizes awarded through the day with the most supportive club award becoming an institution alongside the Jamie Stevenson Trophy itself!

The Jamie Stevenson Trophy is organised by and acts as a fundraiser for the Scottish Junior Orienteering Squad (SCOTJOS). Last year the prize was taken by Forth Valley Orienteering (FVO) Juniors again having taken home the trophy in 2022 as well but before that nobody had managed to wrestle it away from Mar Orienteering Club (MAROC) for more years than everyone cares to remember. Who will raise the trophy this year?

Entries will be collated by Clubs and so make sure you tell your Junior Club Captain or Club Coach that you want to be involved in what is sure to be another fun day. Entry forms will be despatched to clubs in the next week.

Would you like to help others to improve their orienteering? This spring, Scottish Orienteering has several courses available to teach you to use your skills and experience in orienteering to help and encourage others. Read on for what we have available.

An online Organisers’ workshop is being run over 2 online sessions on the 4th March and 9th September  with club based mentored tasks to be completed in between.  Participants will need to attend both workshops and complete all the club based tasks to complete the Young Organiser award. This is open to juniors( 16 +) who are starting out in organising and will cover some of the basics of organising a local event.

Book online through the Google form by 26th Feb or contact Suzanne with any questions

An optional workshop on Friday 12th January is to ensure that learners are familiar with the basics of using either Condes or Purple Pen. It is strongly suggested that you attend this unless you are confident using course planning software.

The Junior Inter Areas brings together the juniors of all ages to compete for their regions, East, North and West, over a weekend. The weekend begins with a relay competition, where juniors of all ages work together to grab the trophy, followed by an overnight stay for everyone who wishes and then each member of the team works to help their region get the individual event trophy for their region before the points from both events are tallied to see which region takes the overall prize.

This year the event was organised by East Region. The relay event took place at Tulliallan with the help of Forth Valley Orienteers, followed by an overnight stay at Stirling Youth Hostel, and then the individual event took place as part of the last Scottish Orienteering League event of the 2023 hosted by Kingdom of Fife Orienteers at Devilla.

The relay involved some exciting courses and there was lots of team spirit on show . The M14s and W14s went out as first leg runners in the relay followed by the M/W12 age group on second leg and then the M/W 16 and18 age group bringing in the final leg. The top places were shared amongst the regions but West Area came out on top to take the Inter Area Relay Trophy.

Autumn is a busy time for the Scottish Junior Orienteering Squad (ScotJOS) as we bid farewell to those heading off to University, welcome in the new squad and compete at the Junior Home Internationals (JHIs) and Junior Inter Regional Championships (JIRCs). With the JIRCs in Wales and 2 weeks later the JHIs in Birmingham –  the Scots were on tour.  Read on to catch up with all the ScotJOS news …

Junior Inter Regional Championships

The Junior Inter-Regional Championships were held in South Wales at the end of September. This sees teams of juniors from all 12 British Orienteering regions compete against each other with individual races on the Saturday and relays on the Sunday – and lots of time for fun and games in between.

To make the loooong journey more bearable for the juniors (and accompanying adults!), they set off by coach on the Friday afternoon with an overnight stop in Birmingham planned. In the spirit of the event we even allowed a few North West, Yorkshire and Irish juniors to join us on the coach as they were now based in Scotland.  With lots of quizzes and singing (and food!) to keep us going we arrived in Wales in good spirits to some lovely sunshine.

The Individuals were held at Kenfig Burrows – a complex area of sand dunes on the South coast. After the application of the necessary war paint (and the adults attempts to build a  better flag pole than the Welsh team’s)  there was time to meet up with friends, play some football – oh and do some orienteering! 

The team all performed fantastically with Scotland securing a strong lead (27 points) over the other teams. There were medals for Douglas MacDonald (INVOC) who was 1^st in M14, Laurence Ward (INT) 3^rd in M16, James Hammond (FVO) 1^st in M18, Ruth Gooch (MAROC) 1^st in W16, Emily Atkinson (ELO) 3^rd in W16, Isobel Howard (MOR) 2^nd in W18 and Daisy McNamara (AYROC) 3^rd in W18. Ruth Gooch also won the award for Best Individual Performance thanks to an impressive four and half minute lead on the W16 course. 

The teams all retired to Rougemont School in Newport for the evening for food, football, prize giving, more quizzes, a quick moonlit Strip the Willow and then bed on the gym hall and dining room floors. 

The weather changed for the Sunday and we set off in the rain for Llantrisant forest for the relays.  This was a steep wooded hillside crossed by forestry tracks, and mountain bike trails. The arena was towards the top of the area and there was lots of climb in all the courses. The woodland was also very “green” in places.

The boys relay set off, followed by the girls to lots of noise. The teams run with a 16, then a 14 and finally an 18 on the last leg. A run through mid-course gave us a chance to cheer on further before we waited expectantly for them to appear back out the forest and run up the track to the handover area. The Scottish teams set off strongly with our juniors leading the packs but then the dreaded miss punches of relays started to appear. With the two hotly tipped men’s teams (Scotland 1 and South Central 1) disqualified, the race was open. The Scotland 2 team of Finn Duguid, Calum Robertson and Adam Barrie successfully brought the win home for Scotland.  In the girls race Daisy McNamara had an excellent 3^rd leg  overtaking several teams to return first only to discover their team was disqualified due to an earlier miss punch. However Scotland 1 returned next picking up Gold for Ruth Gooch, Esme Kelly and Isobel Howard.

Overall Yorkshire and Humberside took the win the relays with 261 points with Scotland 2^nd on 258 points. However with the strong win on the individuals, Scotland retained the Junior Inter-Regional Championship trophy. As well as the trophy’s for the men’s overall and women’s overall.

A tired but victorious group of juniors boarded the coach for the loooooong trip back North.

Huge thanks to Swansea Bay Orienteering Club for organising the event. For a small club to put on both the individual and relay events was very impressive. The juniors were delighted to see Megan Carter-Davies and Ben Mitchell running the computing – it’s not often you turn up at an event to have a current World Champion running the download! 

Full results for both races and the points are available at https://www.sboc.org.uk/results

Two weeks later the juniors hit the road again to head to Birmingham for the Junior Home Internationals. Armed with more quizzes for the journey and plenty of food we headed south by coach again, picking up some of the English team from the Lakes on the way.  We did draw the line at them trying to display the St George’s Cross on our bus though!

Both days of the competition were held at Sutton Park in Birmingham, with the juniors staying overnight at Beaudesert Scout Camp. Whilst Scotland was battered by rain, we headed to Sutton Park in glorious sunshine ready to take on the other nations.  With face paint applied the juniors headed to the start whilst the adults waited for them to appear at the spectator control and bemoaned the fact they had forgotten the binoculars again as they tried to identify who was approaching! There was a lot of fast running on paths but lots of vegetation to catch out the unsuspecting. Although the running was fast, mistakes were costly with relocation difficult.

Junior Home Internationals

The team all performed fantastically with Scotland scoring 72 points – only 5 points behind England. There were medals for Douglas MacDonald (INVOC) who was 1^st in M14, Finn Duguid (TAY) 2^nd on M16, James Hammond (FVO) 1^st on M18, Adam Barrie (MAR) 2^nd on M18, Lucy Ward (INT) 3^rd on W14,   Isobel Howard (MOR) 2^nd in W18 and Iris Macmillan (ECKO) 3^rd in W18.

It was then time to head back to Beaudesert, with an ice-cream stop on the way, for more fun and games in the sunshine. The weather was so pleasant that the evening’s ceilidh was held outdoors in part of the walled garden illuminated with floodlights. Although not traditional Scottish dancing, we were treated to a hilarious mix of fun dances which everyone managed to find the energy to join in with.

On Sunday – after a slightly belated start due to mechanical problems with the coach door we headed to the southern part of Sutton Park for the relays. The girls headed off first with the boys start 10 minutes later. From the start they disappeared straight into the undergrowth and we were left with an anxious wait for the 1^st runners to appear at the spectator control.

Finn Duguid had a great 1^st leg for the boys returning in 1^st position, and handing over to Douglas. Rory Black then appeared chasing the England’s Tommy Rollins. The English however overtook on the 2^nd leg and James Hammond fought hard on the final leg to take the silver for the Scotland 1 team. The Scotland 2 team of Finlay McLuckie, Calum Robertson and Adam Barrie finished in 5^th place.

Finn Duguid had a great 1^st leg for the boys returning in 1^st position, and handing over to Douglas. Rory Black then appeared chasing the England’s Tommy Rollins. The English however overtook on the 2^nd leg and James Hammond fought hard on the final leg to take the silver for the Scotland 1 team. The Scotland 2 team of Finlay McLuckie, Calum Robertson and Adam Barrie finished in 5^th place.

In the girls relay Ruth Gooch had a strong 1^st leg handing over to Esme Kelly in 2^nd place. Isobel Howard then set off on third leg with a mission to catch the English runners, but was thwarted by some badly behaved dogs who made access to one control difficult. However, the Scots 1^st team still finished in 4^th place, with the team of Ellie Darlow, Eilidh Connor and Daisy McNamara in 5^th.

The final scores for the relays were England 58 points and Scotland 46 points, meaning that England took the victory in the Junior Home Internationals. Congratulations to England.

A special mention to Ruari Cottier who brought his bagpipes and piped back all the final leg Scottish runners, helping to give them the energy for the final sprint to the finish.  We may not have won the JHIs but Scotland certainly won on team spirit and determination. Well done to a great team. Full results for both races and the points are available at https://wmoa.org.uk/wp/junior-home-internationals-6th-8th-october-2023/

Selections for ScotJOS 2023/24

With the 2^nd year 18’s heading off to University, the new squad for 2023/24 has been selected. Congratulations to everyone selected – we hope that you will make the most of the opportunity to improve your orienteering whilst having lots of fun on the way. There are 6 camps planned throughout the year, as well as a summer tour to Scandinavia to look forward to.

Congratulations to the following juniors:-

Selection for Talent Scotland

In addition to the Scottish Junior Squad there is also the British Orienteering Talent Scotland Squad, which in conjunction with Talent North and Talent South from the tier 3 of the British Orienteering Performance Pathway.  ScotJOS aims to provide a friendly supportive team in which to develop as an orienteer, with the Talent Squad helping the juniors to develop towards being an elite athlete. With a stronger focus on athlete development, it works with a subset of the ScotJOS juniors, providing additional Sports Science and Race Preparation camps as well as a series of online workshops.

Congratulations to the following juniors who were selected to be part of Talent Scotland for 2023/24

Thank You

Finally a huge thank you to everyone who helps support the Scottish Juniors – parents, clubs, coaches, cake buyers! –  we couldn’t do it without all your support.

In particular a huge thank you to Marjorie Mason from MAROC who has been the ScotJOS treasurer for the past 10 years, and does the most amazingly efficient job to support the ScotJOS team. She has however decided that it is time for her to move on and we are seeking a new treasurer. Marjorie had kindly offered to shadow them for the 1^st year to help settle into the role. If you feel this role could be for you, please get in touch. 

If anyone is interested in helping ScotJOS but feel that accounting isn’t for them, there are lots of ways to be involved – planning exercises, coaching in the forest, hanging controls, shadowing, cooking, driving, herding, ordering kit, organising fundraising. If you would like to volunteer or find out more please get in touch with Judy at scotjos@scottish-orienteering.org.