During lockdown we have been working closely with SOA, sportscotland and the Scottish Governing Bodies of the other outdoor sports to create a plan for how orienteering activities can resume once lockdown starts to ease. Following the First Minister’s announcement on 28 May 2020, we are pleased to be in a position to share Phase 1 of our Route Map for Orienteering reactivation.

Scottish Orienteering Reactivation Phase 1 

Resumption of orienteering: Phase 1 United Kingdom

The updated UK government guidance published on 11 May 2020 permits the resumption of outdoor sports in England where you take part alone, within a household group, or with one person from outside your household from whom you must stay two metres apart at all times.

The updated guidance from the NI Executive published on 18 May 2020 permits Groups of 4 – 6 people who do not share a household can meet outdoors maintaining social distancing.

This will allow us to resume a limited set of individual orienteering activities in these parts of the country, as set out below.

There is no change to the current position in Scotland and Wales, and so orienteering activities in these parts of the UK must remain suspended for now.

As a sport, we must work together to resume orienteering responsibly as and when the relevant government determines it is safe to do so. The Board have committed to following the respective advice of each government, and therefore there are likely to be periods when types of orienteering activities permitted will vary between different parts of the UK, depending on the government guidelines and regulations.

In England and the Isle of Man, we moved to Phase 1 of the resumption of orienteering with effect from 14 May 2020.

In Northern Ireland, we will move to Phase 1 with effect from 22 May 2020.

This will mean that clubs and individuals can:

• Promote the use of Permanent Orienteering Courses (POCs)
• Make maps with pre-marked courses available
• Promote the use of MapRun or Routegadget and other virtual orienteering courses (VOCs),
• Carry out mapping and planning for future events

The full guidance can be downloaded here.

British Orienteering is publishing a series of interviews with GB athletes focusing on the impact of lockdown has on their training.

Jonathan Crickmore is a GB elite athlete and member of Sheffield University Orienteering Club.

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Jonathan Crickmore

Club: (National): Sheffield University Orienteering Club

Club (International): OK Ravinen

Athlete Profile

How have the lockdown restrictions impacted on your training?
Jonathan: “My training hasn't been affected too much. I am restricted to training from the house so very limited orienteering but the running is good. Also being stuck at my partner's family house in NZ has advantages of plenty exploring to be done as they are mostly new routes to me.”

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."