A Year in the Life of a Regional Development Officer Denise Harper, SCOA RDO

Having now been in post for just over a year, it seemed like a good time to tell you all what I do, what has been achieved, and where next? I am employed for 400 hours per year, which works out at approx 10 hours per week in term time as the BOF Regional Development Officer for SCOA, a role which was previously part of Julianna Grant’s remit as Southern Development Officer. The rest of the time I work in a teaching/ admin role at Ufton Court, an Education Centre for off site school visits (4 days a week) and am also heavily involved with my own club, Berkshire Orienteers, in various roles.

The background to all this, for those who don’t know, is that it was decided last year by Sport England to finance the employment of 9 part time RDOs specifically to establish/promote orienteering in schools, and to develop school/club links. That said, the range of enquiries which comes under the umbrella is far ranging and quite diverse, and I try to deal with any and everything which is referred to me. The past year has been particularly exciting for our area with the Orienteering World Cup being held on our doorsteps, and consequently much of the focus of my work has been involved with that, both directly and also to support Karen Williams in her hugely successful work as WOC Schools Development Officer.

The government initiatives to increase sporting opportunities to school children are being achieved by developing a national infrastructure of Specialist Sports Colleges. These schools then work with other local secondary schools and their feeder primary schools to develop sports programmes throughout the partnership. Each partnership is run by a PDM – Partnership Development Manager, and the College receives extra funding to run its programmes. The key to schools development is therefore working with the PDM to develop orienteering throughout the partnership, by arranging mapping/training/schools events and then linking the schools to the British Schools Orienteering Association and their local orienteering clubs, so that the children have the opportunity to start participating in ‘real’ orienteering events. Of course, this is the ideal, and the reality is that probably despite all this investment, clubs are not going to be inundated with masses of new members, but at least the children will have had a quality experience of orienteering, and some might even get their families interested.

So, how has all this panned out in SCOA? The development of the Sports College network is not as advanced as in some other parts of the country, and the clubs have not generally been used to working in any major way with the Local Authorities, compared to some other regions. That said, great strides are being made in some areas – noticeably in SN’s area, where Karen’s work has reaped huge dividends, and many schools in the Aldershot area have been mapped, training delivered, and a part time Community Sports Coach – Sue Bett – appointed to work with the schools in the Wavell partnership in Aldershot. SN has put on a number of schools festivals and CATIs and hopefully some of these children will feed into SN’s Saturday League.

Karen has made many contacts in Hampshire during her time in post, and it is hoped that similar development work might take place within the SOC area, although constant changes of personnel within Hants LA have held this up to some extent. In the meantime, I have received various requests from schools in the Southampton area for mapping etc, which Di Smith has been happy to refer on. Many children from all over Hampshire had a chance to try orienteering at the Hampshire Youth Games at Aldershot in June, where, with the help of SN, SOC and BKO members, we ran a simple Orienteering taster, complete with electronic punching.

Within the TVOC area, there have been two main initiatives - one in the Wallingford area, where I have been in contact with their PDM equivalent and provided training for the local primary schools, with a view to further orienteering development next year, and the other at Green Park near Aylesbury where I have worked to develop their orienteering provision. Andrew Chalmers has re-mapped the grounds, and we planned a more child friendly series of structured activities for visiting school children. Andrew has also gone on to map other primary schools in that area.

Within BKO/BADO areas, there have been major initiatives with Bracknell, and West Berkshire Councils. Both involve delivering orienteering to clusters of schools via projects which have been funded by the New Opportunities Fund. They have both involved mapping a large number of schools, providing inset training for teachers, organising school festivals, and, in Bracknell, mapping a number of small sites suitable for off-site orienteering. Meanwhile, in West Berks, it is planned to map and develop Permanent Orienteering Courses at various council managed countryside areas, with a public launch next year.

I receive a steady stream of requests for courses, advice on developing schools orienteering, mapping, requests from youth groups, scouts etc but I have also dealt with some more unusual requests These have included advice to Basingstoke’s Festival Place management to organise an Easter Orienteering Challenge round the shopping mall and a request from the Holiday Fellowship to find some-one to run Orienteering holidays from their centre in the IOW, amongst others.

Apart from working on local issues, I have also been involved with development issues with a more national focus. These have included

• Contributing to an article for Horizons, the magazine of the Institute of Outdoor Learning, on Junior Orienteering - case studies with LOC and BKO.
• Producing PowerPoint presentations for coaching / schools mapping/orienteering.
• Designing flyers for local promotions which are then distributed to the rest of the RDO team.
• Producing guidelines on using OCAD for beginners to produce a simple school map
• Working with Pauline Olivant to develop a syllabus for the new bolt on Orienteering module for the Junior Sports Leader Award,
• Facilitating workshops at the WOC Development Conference in Guildford

More general work has included promoting Clubmark, an accreditation which is increasingly being expected of clubs as proof of their dedication to providing a child friendly environment, especially if applying for any external funding; running Coaching courses; and undertaking assessments to enable candidates to become qualified coaches; attending occasional meetings; responding to requests for information on orienteering clubs from Local Authorities and other bodies; liaising with the other RDOs and Development Managers.

So the next year should hopefully start to see some impact in terms of greater participation and increased awareness in those areas and clubs where organised development has begun. In the other areas it is hoped that increasingly, schools orienteering development will ‘take off’ and that clubs here will follow the example of those clubs already working with their local schools by doing what they can to capitalize on increased schools activity and improving contacts with schools.

BOF does have available funds which can be used on application to finance specific development projects. For more details, or to discuss any aspect of schools/club development, contact me at

Or look out for me at events – I’m the old grey haired wrinkly for those who don’t know me! Just ask around, you’ll probably find me.