What’s in this Issue
- View from the Chair
- ONZ Council Vacancies – Election Results
- ONZ Appointments & Vacancies
- Notice of Annual General Meeting
- World Masters Games, Oceania Championships and Middle Earth
- IOF Event Advisors Clinic
- ONZ Award Nominations OPEN
- High Performance Update & Squads
- World Orienteering Day Ambassadors wanted
View from the Chair –
February has been a busy month for many clubs with summer sprint events, long weekend events and generally getting back into the swing of things post Christmas and New Year.
The work being done by the Auckland clubs and OBOP for Masters, Oceania and Middle Earth, will showcase New Zealand to our international competitors and also provide a good profile for our sport amongst other NZ sports. I am aware a lot of work is going on behind the scenes to get these events up and running, so thank you to everyone who is pitching in, and also to the competitors who have registered.
The Council election has just completed and I am pleased to welcome Jane Harding back onto the Council. However, I do say this from a somewhat selfish position, I am disappointed we had so little interest in these roles. The Council plays a very important role in sport and while its is not to everyone’s liking, we do have many capable orienteers out there who I believe are able to step up to this role. Being on Council, as I found out, is different from sitting on a club committee. Our role is the governance of the organisation, ensuring the strategic direction is achieved. We do not get into the operational areas of orienteering, this we leave to our committees – technical, JDC, mapping, MTBO, Rogaine – who have very capable members considering issues and bringing their recommendations to the Council.
Since I accepted the role of Chair, I have worked hard to upskill and learn about governance and have found this an enlightening and educational experience. I would recommend it to anyone who wishes to see orienteering, or any sport for that matter, from another perspective.
For now the Council will consider options for ensuring the Council works effectively, but I do encourage anyone interested in sitting on Council in the future to talk with Council members and put their hands up at the 2018 elections.
David Turner
Chairperson ONZ Council
ONZ Board Vacancies – Election Results
Two vacant positions on Council were up for election as a result of Pip Poole and Jane Harding having completed their terms. This communication is to advise you of the outcome of election.
Only 1 application was received from Jane Harding who agreed to restand for Council. Although there was some general interest from potential Council members, it appears the timing was difficult for some and others were heavily committed to WMOC and Oceania.
As Jane is the only applicant, her appointment is automatic as per the ONZ Constitution clause 8.6 (f).
The second position will remain vacant.
The Council will consider at its next meeting whether there is a need to utilise the option under the constitution to have up to 2 co-opted members on Council. Any co-opted member would be appointed until the 2018 AGM.
ONZ Appointments & Vacancies
The following vacancies are currently being advertised on the ONZ website:
Full position descriptions for all these roles are available on the Orienteering NZ website.
Congratulations to the following people who have been appointed to ONZ roles:
- Pre-JWOC Training Coach – John Robertson
- Rogaine Committee – Matt Bixley
- ANZ Challenge Manager – Alister Metherell
Upcoming Events
For more events check out the Orienteering NZ website
Notice of Annual General Meeting
The Orienteering NZ Annual General Meeting for 2017 will be held on Friday 14 April at the conclusion of the Oceania Championship Sprint Event.
The venue is yet to be finalised, but we are hoping to have it at either Unitec or a location close by.
Confirmation of these details will be provided as soon as confirmed on the ONZ website.
Any business for consideration at the AGM is to be received by the General Manager by 1 March 2017.
A wee request from the Event Organisers ….
Over the years I’ve organised many events for car clubs, mountain biking and orienteering. That people enter never fails to amaze me. An event is conceived, initial planning is completed and I always commence advertising with my heart in my mouth not expecting many entrants because I know everything that’s wrong about the plan. All the compromises over date, time, venue, courses, entry fees etc etc. All the things I’m convinced that will put people off, so I wind back my expectations. Usually I’m pleasantly surprised and occasionally I’m overwhelmed. But now I’m absolutely flabbergasted.
We set out our original plan for Oceania at 640 expecting World Masters to suck away a lot of competitors. 640 is not much bigger than a NZ Nationals. We then accepted OBOP’s offer of running a couple of mid-week events between Oceania & WMOC. Sounds like a plan let’s estimate maybe 400 would trek down to ‘vegas. And OBOP were happy they could handle 400. Then it’s onto WMOC itself and we contracted with the World Master Games people to deliver 1,000 competitors. After all Sydney did 1,200 in 2009 so we were confident we could get to 1,000. On that basis we launched our advertising.
And things got off to a slow start, although I still remember Rob Garden telling me we were undercooked and the numbers would be blown. I also remember a tortured meeting with the World Masters people when we’d just scraped over 200 and a couple of other sports were close to closing. They wanted to know what additional effort we would be making at our expense to get the numbers up. Hmmm, this is challenging. Maybe we were overly optimistic.
In the latter part of last year things started to change. It was obvious we were onto something when early bird entries for Oceania closed in mid October at over just 700 entrants. WMOC cracked 1,000 on Boxing Day.
Just over a month later WMOC is sitting just under 1600! We are at 1271 competitors across Oceania and Middle Earth. With 963 at the Oceania Long and 892 & 848 each for the Middle Earth Middle & Sprint.
I’m overwhelmed. These figures are way beyond our wildest dreams and with a group of 200 Norwegians rumoured to be seeking entries for Middle Earth it’s getting ridiculous.
Success brings it’s challenges, of course. Most of work before the events and on the day is being done by volunteers. Volunteers like the ones who were happy to ‘sign-up’ to park 150 cars and who now being asked to park 400 cars over the same time period in pretty much the same space. A much bigger challenge. Thankfully, no-one has bailed yet. It’s a testament to the orienteering spirit that they’ve taken a deep breath, composed themselves and accepted the bigger challenge.
That said we’re still going to need plenty of support on the day(s).
If you can spare half an hour at the end of your run to relieve the official map collectors. Turn up a bit early and help park cars for a while. Stay a bit late to help us pack up the circus ready to move to the next day’s event. Every little bit of help we get from every New Zealand orienteer will lift the quality of the experience for our overseas guests. It’s obvious that our world class terrain has attracted them. I’d love to hear that the quality of our courses, our organisation and the welcome from our people tells them there is more to orienteering in New Zealand than just great terrain. I really want them to go away with a smile on their dial even if they have an “MP” on their results.
That’s all. I am just asking if we can all put service before self and pitch in together to make the carnival a success.
Of course, if you can do more than just help on the day we’d also love to hear from you sooner.
Please email Andrew De L’Isle (delisle@clear.net.nz) with your availability details and favourite task.
Stephen Reynolds
OOC Chair
IOF Event Advisors Clinic
28 April in Auckland
Invitation and Entry Form: http://orienteering.org/foot-orienteering/event-advising/clinics/
ONZ ANNUAL AWARDS 2016 Nominations Open
(to be presented during the 2017 Oceania Championships)
Services to NZ Orienteering
Our premier service award honouring an individual who has contributed in a most deserving manner to the development of orienteering in NZ.
International Performance
For achievement by an individual or team in international competition in year preceding.
Kapiti HAVOC Trophy
For international performance in year proceeding by a junior.
Coach of the Year
For outstanding contribution in coaching during year proceeding by an individual.
Mountain Bike Orienteer of the Year
For meritorious performance by an individual or team in mountain bike orienteering during year preceding.
Rogainer of the Year
For meritorious performance by an individual or team in rogaining during year preceding.
Administrator of the Year
For outstanding contribution in administration for either a club, ONZ or a special project during year proceeding by an individual.
Nominations close on 31 March – Please send nominations to gm@orienteering.org.nz
High Performance Update
SuperSeries 2017
The 2017 SuperSeries will consist of four rounds.
- February 4-6 (Waitangi Weekend)- Queenstown and Waikaia
- March 25-26, JWOC Trials – Wellington
- April 14-16 (ONZ Champs) – Auckland
- June 3-5 (Queen’s Birthday) – Christchurch
24 May 2017 – We want YOU as WOD ambassador!
World Orienteering Day (WOD) will become an increasingly important activity for the future of orienteering. The interest from many countries is huge and it’s growing even in the Nordic countries. As you maybe know, Turkey was outstanding last year with almost 50 000 participants. We are now getting ready for this year’s WOD on May 24, and as Project Manager I have the responsibility to inspire and implement WOD in such a way that we reach the target 500,000 participants at 5,000 locations in 100 countries by WOD 2018.
An important part of this work is to promote WOD, which we will do in many different ways. The WOD ambassadors is one of these. We will contact many national team runners in several countries and therefore we are asking you if you are interested in becoming a WOD ambassador.
We are proud to present our WOD ambassadors: Thierry Gueorgiou, Ida Bobach, Jerker Lysell and Jonas Leandersson
What does this mean?
- Always have a positive approach when you are discussing WOD with other athletes, coaches, organisers and of course media. Tell them that WOD is important for the future of orienteering. Tell them that we want to use WOD as a fun promotion activity of orienteering. We believe that WOD can make the feeling of orienteering more cool and exciting for kids and young people. We want to make orienteering more visible and more accessible so we can attract more people to the great sport of orienteering.
- If you have the possibility, please be proactive and ask orienteers where they are going to carry a WOD event and if they have registered on the WOD website: worldorienteeringday.com
- If you have one, please use your website or blog to promote WOD. You can also use e.g. a slide when you are doing speeches for youngsters at seminars. We will provide you with WOD-logos for this purpose.
- We would also like to feature you in connection with the WOD newsletter, where we would be happy to quote you what you think of WOD. For this purpose I will be happy if you can send me a photo of you.
To be available 24 May 2017 (if possible) for local event or some of the National Federation’s event. Maybe running with the students and writing autographs.
Orienteering is Cool and Awesome! Will you join us? worldorienteeringday.com
Keeping you more informed
ONZ has updated its e-newsletter database which now allows you to chose which areas are of special interest to you – such as High Performance, Technical, Mapping.
To update your email list Preferences, please Click Here.
We welcome your feedback at any time.
Our mailing address is:
gm@orienteering.org.nz
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