PROFILE
Ian Baker joins The 2000 Club Former long time Editor of The Australian Orienteer, Ian Baker (BK-V), will soon join “The 2000 Club”, as Australia’s member number three. We had some questions for Ian about his time as an orienteer. AO: How can you substantiate your claim to have run 2000 orienteering events? IB: My very first outing was at Gembrook, east of Melbourne, in winter 1970, something like event four or five in Australia. I got lost through following the red needle on the compass. A farmer gave me a lift back in his ute as it was getting dark. I filed all my maps in ring binders with the dates, and numbered them consecutively. Now I keep a spreadsheet in the computer. The first one thousand events took up to 1990 to do. The most in any one year was 72 starts in 1998. Of course now you can build up your account much faster since with Park & Street Orienteering there can be several events a week. Organising an event is a credit to the account as are the few rogaines I’ve done. Ski-O counts too: I was the organiser of the first ever Ski-O Championships at Lake Mountain near Melbourne in August 1995. AO: You’ve been involved in the management of the sport. IB: In the early days in Victoria, I got dobbed in as newsletter editor since my office had a photocopier; they were not universal as today. The state newsletter grew and grew until in 1979 it became a proper magazine, The Australian Orienteer, and soon was built into the membership of orienteers throughout Australia. I was editor on a completely voluntary basis for six years until after the 1985 World Championships near Bendigo. In 1972 the first clubs were launched and I found myself president of Bayside Orienteers. Later I had a second run in office. In 1974 I’d been in England where The Sweat Shop, run by Chris Brasher, sold gear at events. With the rapid growth in the sport in Australia this seemed a certain way to get very rich very quickly. So Louie the Fly (John Lewis) and I bought a trailer and launched OGear. We towed it to events and staffed it in turns; at big events like Easter we conscripted my wife Shirley and Audrey Lewis to help with all the
When you get to M70, you start looking at ways to earn merit points against the Day of Judgement. Last year I walked the Pilgrim’s Way in the mountains near Salzburg, Austria. Here I am in a holy cave, where Saint Wolfgang meditated.
customers. My son Ben had the lollies stall. After a few years we got tired and, while the business gave us some pocket money, it was not going to lead to a takeover of Myers, so we sold it on (the trailer used by current owner Kevin Maloney is basically the original one). AO: Later, you had another period as magazine editor. IB: I’d been a senior manager at National Mutual and, like many others, found myself offered early retirement without the option following the takeover by AXA. Orienteering Australia gave me some project work and then I found myself again editor of the national magazine for seven years from 1997. A difference was that this time round there was a fee paid, though not at commercial rates: I was more of a ‘paid volunteer’. My policy was “Be a good read/be on-time/be financial.” We managed to pull in some advertising. Silva was always a supporter through Tom Andrews; he was the person who actually made Orienteering a regular sport in Australia. EIGAnsvar (now Ansvar Insurance) came in too as part of a sponsorship package. This underwrote the introduction of colour into the magazine. Later, Warren and Tash Key came in with the Melbourne Bicycle Centre. In 2004 I was beginning to feel some burn-out - in total I was editor for 13 years - so I was glad to be able to hand over the quill to Mike Hubbert. I still help by reading and translating overseas magazines and looking after some of our advertisers. AO: After 37 years in orienteering and a long business career with major companies, what is your one single wish for Orienteering? IB: A combination of two factors. First, a much greater emphasis on marketing promotion both within the sport, and also outward to pull in new members and sponsors. Not many orienteers have the needed specialist skills and experience: we need to update our structures and drive some things from the centre: orienteering organisation is based on the national state/commonwealth model of over one hundred years ago. Times have changed and we need to catch up. Ian has 1992 events on record: it is likely the 2000th event will be during the JWOC/OzChamps Carnival in Dubbo in early July. The other two members of “The 2000 Club” are Dave Lotty (NSW), who has completed 2120 courses and Mike Hubbert (Victoria) who has tottered around 2365 courses.
Last November I took a guided bike tour from Sukhothai to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand – 250 km over six days. Age? Defy it: do it now! JUNE 2007 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 13
