Annual Report 2017
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ANNUAL REPORT 2017 WINNING PARTNERSHIP The Australian Sports Commission proudly supports Orienteering Australia The Australian Sports Commission is Orienteering Australia is one of the Australian Government agency many national sporting organisations that develops, supports and invests that has formed a winning in sport at all levels in Australia. partnership with the Australian Orienteering Australia has worked Sports Commission to develop its closely with the Australian Sports sport in Australia. Commission to develop orienteering from community participation to high-level performance. AUSTRALIAN SPORTS COMMISSION www.ausport.gov.au Orienteering Western Australia Partners and Supporters 2017 Contents page President’s Report 2 Management and Administration 4 Finance 7 International Relations 8 Technical and Competition 11 Media and Communications 14 Participation and Membership 16 High Performance and Coaching 27 Mountain Bike Orienteering 29 Orienteering Australia Awards 32 Appendix 1 - National Results 2017 36 Appendix 2 - National Teams/Squads 2017 43 Appendix 3 - Office Bearers 2017 47 Appendix 4 - Financial Report 2017 48 Orienteering Australia Annual Report 2017 1 President’s Report t has been another positive year for orienteering in easier; for example, now that we have almost complete IAustralia. We continue to see gradual improvement coverage of events, we should finally be able to exploit in participation numbers, in a sporting environment the potential of Eventor to provide the participation where increasingly, people are looking for opportunities data we need, saving states the job of having to collate it to engage in sport as and when they want to, and less themselves. likely to commit to the long-term (or to memberships). Our domestic competition continues to be vibrant. We continue to see particularly strong success in events, The National Orienteering League, now in place for of various forms, which provide opportunities for 25 years, continues to be a competition which few people to orienteer close to where they live, perhaps the other countries can match (and which many would strongest example I’ve seen being the ACT being able love to be able to replicate). It wasn’t our finest year for to attract close to 300 (many of them juniors) to local international senior elite results in foot orienteering, events on a Saturday morning. We’ve also seen highly but there were still plenty of moments to enjoy, most successful sprint series in a number of centres. Our notably Lucy Mackie’s silver medal in the Junior World flagship national events also continue to do well, with MTBO Championships – another example of mountain the Australian Championships week attracting numbers bike orienteering punching well above its weight in unmatched in any other year except those with a big achieving international results. Nor do I think anyone influx of internationals for a World Championships or who was there will forget, in a hurry, the astonishing day World Masters, although the ‘traditional’ Sunday bush in Auckland when Australia swept more than half the events have found it harder to generate growth. available gold medals (12 out of 23) in the World Masters Sprint; if Ugly Gully were a country they would have We need to continue to innovate if we want to continue to been second on the medal table. grow our place on the Australian sporting landscape. For many of us, our comfort zone is to continue to do what Those examples are all at the sharp end of our pyramid, we’ve always been doing, but unless we are attracting but are only a small part of the picture, where our vision new people, that is a recipe for going backwards by a is to give every orienteer in Australia the chance to few percent a year. In doing this, we must recognise develop their potential to the full, whether that’s a World that what appeals most to existing orienteers might not Championships aspirant, or the orienteer who started necessarily be what appeals most to those entering the out at local events in their 40s aiming to get into the top sport for the first time. It has been very pleasing to see half of an age-group Australian Championships field the level of innovation in numerous states over the last one day. Having a larger pool of quality coaches will be few years and I expect we will continue to see it in the important to achieving this, and we’re starting to see future. progress towards that goal. Our major events continue to set very high standards. In what was a very big year for New South Wales, the Australian Championships took things to a new level, as well as generating excellent media coverage (both traditional and online), and sparking the beginnings of more ongoing orienteering in the Bathurst area. With high standards comes a lot of effort; we recognise that our volunteer workforce is being stretched further and further, in organising major events, in putting together the rest of our program, and in doing everything else behind the scenes to keep the sport running. For major events, part of the solution may involve contracting out parts of the event organisation (as New Zealand did for the Oceania Championships and World Masters in 2017). For the sport more generally, I see a significant role of Orienteering Australia as being to provide (or facilitate) shared infrastructure to make everyone else’s job 2 Orienteering Australia Annual Report 2017 Of course, managing the sport is not without its challenges. Many states and clubs are having to deal with increasingly challenging compliance burdens, especially (but not only) when it comes to accessing the land without which we cannot run events. At a national level, over the last few years we have had to deal with the withdrawal of government high performance funding from most non-Olympic sports. Some major decisions made during 2017 mean that we should now have completed the process of managing that loss, and I thank the State Associations for their willingness to support what needs to be done financially for us to be able to continue to support a credible high performance program – something which is crucial not only for the profile of the sport, but also for the retention of young people in orienteering, and of those who will become our future leaders. (To give only one example, it’s commonplace for more than half the teams at the Australian Schools Championships – in themselves, one of our great success stories – to have coaches who are former, or sometimes current, World Championships representatives). I would like to finish by thanking everyone who has worked to make orienteering in Australia successful in 2017, and are continuing to do so. This includes those who served on the Board during 2017, and Orienteering Australia’s staff. We give particular thanks to John Harding, who moves into a well-deserved retirement after years of excellent service as our Executive Officer, and to Robert Spry and Lance Read, who stood down from the Board during 2017 after making many valuable contributions over several years in their respective roles. It also includes thanks to all of you who work to make orienteering happen, from State board and committees through to those who put out or collect controls at the many hundreds of events we run every year. Without the contribution which all of you make, there would not be a sport for us to enjoy, and for us to look forward to in 2018 and beyond. Blair Trewin President Orienteering Australia Annual Report 2017 3 Management and Administration Orienteering Australia (OA) in 2017 was managed and appointed as his replacement and commenced in the administered by: role in November 2017. • A Board of six headed by President Blair Trewin; Meetings of the Board • Part-time paid officers: The Executive Officer, Head Coach and High-Performance Operations Manager, The Annual General Meeting was held in April (in National Mountain Bike Orienteering Manager, Canberra) with a Special General Meeting being held in Manager of Coaching Development, Manager of June (in Wagga Wagga) to discuss Governance, Finance, Coaching and Officiating Administration, Sporting Participation and Schools related matters. The Annual Schools Coordinator and the Editor of the Australian Conference was again held in December with the Board Orienteer; holding monthly meetings by Skype and in person • Part-time contracts for the Editor of the Monthly throughout 2017 as follows: 12 January, 2 March, 4 April, Enews bulletin and the website curator; 18 May, 19 July, 13 September, 5 and 26 October. • The 2-day Annual Conference comprising the Board members, delegates from each State and the ACT, Board member attendance at the AGM, Annual and an athlete and a mountain bike orienteering Conference and 9 Board meetings was as follows: Blair representative, supported by OA paid staff; the Trewin 11, Lance Read 11, Jenny Casanova 11, Robert Spry Annual General Meeting and a Special General 10, Bruce Bowen 11, Michael Dowling 11, Craig Feuerherdt Meeting; 10, John Harding (meeting secretary) 11. • Various committees and working groups who assist in implementing the Operational Plan; Staffing and Contract Work • Additional appointed officers: Public Officer, Paid staff (part-time) were John Harding (Executive National Secretary for Schools Orienteering, elite Officer), Jim Russell (Head Coach), Kay Haarsma and non-elite rankings officers, and the Badge (National Mountain Bike Orienteering Coordinator), Ian Scheme Secretary. Prosser (High Performance Administrator ), Jim Mackay (Sporting Schools National Coordinator and Manager, Membership of the Board Coaching and Officiating Administration), Barbara Hill (Manager, Coaching Development), and Mike Hubbert There were two changes to the Board membership in (Editor, Australian Orienteer). 2017 with Lance Read (OQ), Director, High Performance and Robert Spry (ONSW) standing down at the 2017 Shane Jenkins was contracted as website curator, AGM.