It’s been great getting back into ONZ stuff after a couple of months off with a newborn. It never ceases to amaze me the incredible people we have in our community who commit time and their professional skills to support our sport to improve and thrive. Our schools team are now in Australia for the Southern Cross competition, I hope they enjoy the terrain, the competition, and have a whole heap of fun. I do hope no one gets as lost as I did on my first time in Australia in 2004 – I ran off the map on the way to number 1.Two and a half hours later I got to the finish having found no controls! 

Our recent Board meeting was jam-packed with exciting items. A highlight was the updated High Performance Plan Draft which will be submitted to High Performance Sport NZ for their feedback. A big thanks to the newly formed High Performance Steering Group for their input in shaping this so far with Jenni Adams, Performance Leader. We approved progressing the development of a Digital Strategy following an opportunity to work with Greg Bacchus from Counties Manukau. Opportunities for clubs to get involved in helping shape this and ensuring it meets the needs of clubs and ONZ. The other exciting item on our agenda was focused on the next steps for considering a JWOC proposal. Coming up we have our annual forums: the Club Presidents and Leaders forum and the Club members forum. This is a great way for the Board to hear feedback and ideas from our members and for this to feed into business planning. Please do come along, we would love to hear from you.

Above: After orienteering in Australia, Sarah finds controls so much easier when she stays on the map.