Thriving Clubs for a New Generation are at the heart of the new British Orienteering Strategy to strengthen the sport in this country. It will allow us to engage with a new generation via a thriving club network.

British Orienteering believes that if we change perceptions about orienteering, improve accessibility and deliver engaging fun experiences, more people will become hooked on the sport.

Once engaged, clear pathways to progress in competitor or volunteering will enable people to enjoy the sport for life.

The four focus areas of the Strategic Plan are:

• Change the perception.
• Create engaging experiences.
• Strengthen lifelong pathways.
• Provide foundations for success.

“Thriving Clubs for a New Generation” will be formally launched at the AGM on Wednesday, 21 April 2021 and we will be consulting further with the membership and key stakeholders.

Read the Full Strategy here

Call to Action

British Orienteering is keen to hear from you as we turn Thriving Clubs for a New Generation into reality.

• How can this strategy benefit your club, new and existing orienteers in your local area?
• What ideas do you have to support the news strategic priorities?
• What is working well for you that we could share?
• Would you be interested to be involved in a focus group?

All views are valued and we will factor them into our thinking as we take our sport and the plan forward.

Please click here to fill out the survey and help us to collect as many views as possible or send your comments to insight@britishorienteering.org.uk.

British Orienteering’s Roadmap for returning to orienteering in England can be found here.

British Orienteering fully understand that clubs need direction and clear guidance from the board at each step, particularly about the restriction on start rates. The Roadmap will help the clubs understand the intention and hopefully assist clubs to plan for larger events. A fully updated operational guidance on orienteering at Step 2 will follow shortly.

In addition to the above-planned changes, we fully understand that for some clubs the biggest challenge will still be access/permissions. Sport England has been working with other bodies responsible for public health to encourage collaboration between local leaders and sports providers to facilitate a safe return to play - this includes the Local Government Association and Public Health England.

The statement can be found here which may be a useful document as a reminder if you are having any local difficulties with the relevant authorities.

5th - 6th June 2021

The British Middle Distance Championship is being organised by LOC and the Northern Championship is being organised by the Manchester & District Orienteering Club on the following day. 
Both events are based at Finsthwaite and will use the same car parking and assembly area each day.

Entries will open for these two events on 19 April.

For further details of the British, Middle Distance Championships can be found here

For details on the Northern Championships, it can be found here

Over the next week, British Orienteering are pleased to announce the winners of the both the Mapping and Volunteer Awards for 2019.

Today we start with the winner for The Chichester Trophy in mapping.

The map awards for maps used in 2019 are decided on submissions provided by clubs and mappers. The judges were Ray Barnes, Brian Bullen and Susan Marsden with the scoring is based on specification, cartography and presentation.

The Chichester Trophy is presented for the best map by an amateur mapper.

The three judges agreed that the winning map is:

Arncliffe & Kilnsey North by Tony Thornley (Airienteers).

On hearing about his award Tony said: 

"I am delighted to have been awarded the Chichester Trophy for my map for last year’s British Champs. The trophy is very special; it is the binnacle compass from the yacht Gipsy Moth V. Sir Francis presented it to British Orienteering when he was president in 1971, shortly before he died. Along with the British Orienteering Championships M21E ‘King of the Forest’ trophy it is probably the most iconic and special of all British Orienteering awards.

As well as making the first single-handed circumnavigation of the world, Sir Francis was a navigator and map maker so the Chichester Trophy represents a cartographic tradition. My orienteering mapping goes back almost 50 years, through pen and ink, via scribing, to computer cartography. I very much hope that others will continue to carry this tradition forwards over the next 50 years.

A big thank you to many friends who have helped me develop my mapping skills, and to those who made last year’s British Orienteering CHampionships a success, and to my wife Jo for tolerating endless orienteering projects. I hope we can get back to making and using maps soon."