It was great to have two new members of the Board at our last meeting, Dave Stewart and Sara Prince. Their orienteering and professional experiences will complement the Board well.

For a number of years clubs and orienteering members have mentioned ideas about how ONZ could support clubs to develop more orienteering in schools and with school students. The development of a schools framework is in the business plan and at our last meeting we allocated some time to discussing what this could look like. We had some great background information and ideas from Gene Beverage. In his role as Training Coordinator, he has been in contact with many schools and clubs. The challenge for us is to find the best way ONZ can support clubs and schools in this area, supporting new areas and initiatives as well as those regions and schools who already have a strong presence. A sub group has been formed within the Board to further discuss the pros and cons of options and suggestions and they will report back to the Board. The aim is to have a new framework confirmed by the end of the year. Speaking of schools… the upcoming Kings Birthday competitions are also the selection races for the Southern Cross team. I hope everyone competing has some fun times out on maps.

I’ve had a few people ask about the progress on the health and safety policy review that the Board committed to last year. We have engaged with Peak Safety to do this review and we’ll communicate their findings once they have done their work and it’s been presented to the Board.