National Campaign Sees Permanent Orienteering Courses Boom

British Orienteering recently launched a national campaign 'Outdoor Adventure Awaits' on 18 June promoting Permanent Orienteering Courses across the UK. 

The campaign was launched as lockdown restrictions started to ease British Orienteering worked alongside orienteering clubs promoted their Permanent Orienteering Courses as a way of discovering the outdoors in a socially distanced way.

A new video was also released by the Orienteering Foundation, and included as part of the campaign, explaining how to get started on a Permanent Orienteering Course. 

The video sets out how to understand the map and how to orientate it to match the environment around you. It gives examples of the checkpoints you could be looking for and shows you how to download a map.

If you haven't yet seen the new video, you can watch it here. 

Jennie Taylor British Orienteering's Communications Officer, comments: 
"The campaign's aim was to promote over 500 Permanent Orienteering Courses and encourage people who had never tried orienteering before, to download a map from the British Orienteering website and enjoy being outside whilst exercising in the fresh air in a socially distanced way." 

"Within the first couple of weeks of the campaign the main focus was on targeting families outside of British Orienteering, via social media and through online family websites and local radio.  Then the next couple of weeks targeted competitive adults.  This was done via national media and running websites, social media, national organisations, groups, and partners." 

"Looking at the campaign stats and the groups of 6 or less using the maps highlighted a participation increase of over 11,000 on the same period last year. 
This is great news!"  

Permanent Orienteering Download Data from the British Orienteering Website

The data below refers to the data period of 1 June to 6 August and compares the same periods from 2019 and 2020. 

This is data from the British Orienteering database: 

More information can be found on the British Orienteering website on the campaign dedicated landing page:  
www.britishorienteering.org.uk/Outdoor_Adventure