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Interlopers' Club Development Work - Review of First Year, and What Next?
Interlopers has completed a first year of club development work, trying out different activities to support our goals of promoting orienteering to wider audiences and through increasing participation, building our sustainability to thrive into the future. What did we do, what did we learn and what next?
(Thanks to our Club Development Officer, Katherine Ivory, for this article. You can find a summary of the year 1 work in this slide deck)
Think back to 2024 and the first thing that comes to mind for orienteers will likely be WOC - a hugely significant event for the orienteering community, culminating in the fantastic races in mid July. 2024 was also a significant year in a more local way for the club, with our first formal foray into club development. The two things were of course connected to a degree, with WOC stimulating thinking at national level around how best to stimulate wider awareness of orienteering and grow participation. Then at club level, a perennial concern is around investing in our strength and capacity-building, on an on-going basis, to ensure that Interlopers is sustainable and thrives into the long-term. This means recognising the vital nature of ensuring a robust pipeline of active members.
With these needs in mind, Interlopers bid for grant funding from the SOA and the Orienteering Foundation to enable us to dip a toe in the waters of club development, try out some things and see what might be useful to then build on and shape future plans in light of learning. The project was scoped in three phases: in the lead-up to WOC (Phase 1, June-July), in the aftermath of WOC (phase 2, August-December), and then January-April 2025 (Phase 3) to continue work, consolidate learning to date and plan for a proposed second year of development activity.
What Did We Do?
The grant funding supported the club to set up a part-time Club Development Officer role (on a roughly day-a-week basis), and we set out to recruit in the Spring, advertising around the orienteering community. I threw my hat in the ring, having a strong interest in community engagement and development work, and had for a while been thinking about exploring some new career directions. I took up the CDO role in June, initially to cover the first two phases, then extended to the end of Year 1 this spring.
The focus of the work was to be around encouraging participation by both younger adults and families, and the outreach activities were geared to reaching groups and individuals in those demographics. Activities included a significant boosting to club publicity efforts, particularly on social media - whilst not forgetting the power of the poster. Indeed, quite a few newcomers at the Braidburn Valley event in early October said they’d come as a result of seeing posters on park gates and local noticeboards.
Alongside more marketing and better publicity, orienteering taster sessions were developed for both specific groups (e.g., Cubs, a youth group and Parkrun taster sessions at Holyrood and Vogrie) and for community events (e.g., Braidburn Valley Park’s Tea in the Park, and Family Festival events at Craigmillar Castle Park). A bag of stakes, mini kites and pin punches proved a very useful tool, with micro-O going down very well with kids at local events.
Decent Permanent Orienteering Courses also proved incredibly valuable, to be able to easily offer some basic orienteering experiences, without having to set up kites. I’d spent some time earlier in the year updating the Braidburn Valley Park maps, and the new momentum around Club Development led to a project to reinvigorate the permanent course at Craigmillar Castle Park as something definitely worth investing in, particularly given it is arguably our top local area and a versatile one as well. Some further grant funding was secured (from the City of Edinburgh Council’s Sport & Physical Activity fund) to cover the materials (new wooden posts and markers) and also enable partnership work with Edinburgh & Lothians Greenspace Trust (www.elgt.org.uk). They undertook the practical installation work on our behalf and are now also supporting community engagement work to get people out enjoying exploring using the new course maps.
What Did We Achieve, and What Next?
This first year of experience has delivered a lot of practical resource development and contacts as foundations for outreach and growth. Arguably it has had some positive impact on orienteering awareness and participation. Development work around better promotion of the club’s activities (social media, What’s-On listings across Edinburgh and the Lothians, placing articles in local magazines etc) seems to be starting to show results in terms of the improved external visibility of our events and wider interest in them. It has been really encouraging to have had good (and better-than-expected) turn-outs for club events held over the past 9 months (Kinneil, Braidburn Valley, Vogrie score, Colinton Dell last year, and Craigmillar Castle and Calderwood this year), with quite a few newcomers as well as existing local club orienteers.
However, it is still very early days in the club development journey, with consolidation and further on-going work needed to build up the foundations for sustainable success. The club now has some of the necessary tools in place to support work but needs to do more, for example, to develop the club website as an engaging ‘shop front’ for newcomers, and around engaging more club members as volunteers for outreach and support for newcomers then also ensuring positive experiences and progression for them within the club.
There would appear to be lots of potential for growth now, subject to club capacity to support engagement work with new audiences. The project so far has generated plenty of learning and built capability e.g., in terms of club marketing resources that can now be easily adapted for future events. In addition, late winter / spring is a good time of year to start initiatives with typically better weather enticing more people outdoors, and as the events programme gets fully underway. Greater coordination and collaboration with ESOC should definitely feature for Edinburgh out-reach work to promote the sport to newcomers, to make the most of resources and avoid duplication or (unhelpful) perceptions of competition. I very much believe this can be done to benefit orienteering locally, to mutual advantage for both clubs. As a start, we’re joining forces for the Oriam Parkrun takeover and taster session planned for mid May.
On a personal level, I’ve learned a lot from the past ten months of CDO work, and am glad to have the opportunity to really get involved in club development and community engagement work through the CDO role, enabling far more than I would have been able to do as a volunteer. I’ve made a lot of new contacts, met some great people, and found it very fulfilling seeing quite a lot of newcomers enjoy introductory orienteering experiences.
I’ve also picked up some useful new skills (Canva being a highlight, having to navigate a lot of red-tape to apply for Scheduled Ancient Monument consent for POC markers probably less so). Core to the role are general skills around project management, stakeholder engagement and networking, marketing and communication. Then of course orienteering-specific skills around planning, Condes, coaching, and Maprun certainly help. Going forward, I’ll be continuing various club development projects in a voluntary capacity, particularly to raise awareness of the new Craigmillar Castle Park permanent course, and I’ll continue to act as club publicity officer of course too.
Next Steps
There are loads of things we could now build on to keep up momentum about awareness of and interest in orienteering. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how positive conversations have been about orienteering, whether with individuals at taster sessions or partner bodies such as the Community Sports Hub, Active Schools and other local groups. How can we make best use of this latent interest and convert it into practical opportunities to promote the sport?
A major learning point from the experience so far is that Club Development is very much a team sport. There is also a very diverse range of roles on offer! Obviously, stimulating interest needs to have clear next steps for people to try it out then get involved and progress. Having a dynamic club programme is a key part of this, alongside regular local competitions. There is a balance to achieve between external ‘outreach’ type work and more internally-focused development, given that the club relies on its volunteer capacity. Much to reflect on as we consider how next to develop and what to focus on.
A very big thank-you to everyone in the club who supported the Interlopers Club Development work over the past year. In particular, Colin Eades as the chair last year, and an essential ally to getting the club development off the ground. Thanks too to Ann Haley, Max Carcas, Mairi Eades, William Ivory and Paul Caban for sounding-board sessions. A host of people have been invaluable helpers for taster sessions: William, Paul Caban, Pip Ascough and Chris Dibben for community events; Mairi Eades, Thomas Laraia, Fiona Eades, Lorna Eades, Colin Eades for Parkrun Tasters, as well as others stepping up for the Parkrun volunteer takeovers. Thanks also to David Robertson (ESOC) for support for some of the summer sessions with local youth groups.
Finally, a very big thank you to our funders without whom this work would not have been able to happen: the Orienteering Foundation, Scottish Orienteering Association, and City of Edinburgh Council.
(Photo credit: Katherine Ivory)
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