The winner of the Young Volunteer of the Year Award 2023 is Kirsty Ryman from Clydeside Orienteers.

The Young Volunteer of the Year Award is dedicated to individuals under the age of 25, who have demonstrated a commitment to supporting the delivery of orienteering activity with passion, energy, and enthusiasm.

Congratulations to you Kirsty, on winning this award. Here are some of the comments left by nominators that explain more about the fantastic work she has done over the past year.

Kirsty Ryman, Clydeside Orienteers

Naturally, often the president or main organiser gets the credit and the awards.

Also naturally, people who are the key drivers behind the clubs bringing in new members, filling gaps and just being consistently a friendly face with great attention to detail and commitment often go unrecognised.

Kirsty started orienteering two years ago. She’s brought orienteering into child summer camps and primary schools.

Her creative spark and the engagement data on the Instagram is unmatched anywhere else. Many new members in Clyde who are now BOF members improving drastically are introduced, welcomed and coached by Kirsty. She’s done ESW & coaching foundation & first aid courses.

She has surveyed local primary schools for mapping and is always full of innovative ideas to make the sport more environmentally friendly, inclusive and innovative. Kirsty is very reliable and organised, always.

A future big organiser or key club official in the making.

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It’s important to us, to recognise the other individuals who were nominated for the Young Volunteer of the Year Award 2023. Here they are, alongside some of the comments regarding their contributions over the past year.

Nominees for the Young Volunteer of the Year Award 2023

Ben Brown, Edinburgh Southern Orienteering Club

“Ben runs Munro a league results calculator for Orienteering. He runs it for free for clubs to use. It makes the calculation of results as simple as fast as possible, to reduce the effort required by volunteers to produce league results.

Over the last year, Ben has rewritten Munro from scratch to make it faster and even more flexible. It now supports many different scoring systems and can support very complex league configurations. It also can now import results directly from MapRun, allowing virtual leagues to be created easily.”

Ruari Cottier, Loch Eck Orienteers

“Ruari started his orienteering journey about five years ago and in the last two years has totally embraced the sport. Now aged 16, Ruari is flourishing as part of the GB Talent Squad (Talent Scotland).

Ruairi is a motivated, enthusiastic and dedicated orienteer who fully understands the importance of volunteering to ensure a thriving, successful club.  He has been Junior representative for the club for the last three years and takes an active role in committee meetings. 

He is a natural coach and has recently completed his Young Coach Assistant course in Stirling.  He will be armed with many ideas and skills to implement in club coaching sessions in the future.”

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Next up, we will be sharing details of the winner of the Development & Innovation of the Year Award 2023. Check our website or social media daily for the latest updates.