A PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE

The Third Instalment of the Final Tetralogy

Bob Mouatt

The third instalment of my final tetralogy is about development and participation and much of it will be based on the views of others. I read the first comment very early in my orienteering career and it had a marked impact on my future activities in the sport.

The Importance of a Welcoming Introduction

“I would, however, like to take this opportunity to sound a word of warning: if the promotion of Orienteering is to be successful, not only must new customers be attracted to the sport, they must experience efficiently organised and well run events, and be willing to keep coming back for more. If they go away disgruntled because we cannot handle the extra numbers or provide the information needed for beginners, our image will be worse than if we had not sought to attract them in the first place.” These were the opening remarks by the late Keith Curry, in his report as Publicity Officer to the 1978 ACTOA Annual General Meeting. It is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. Over the past 10 years I have spent each summer as a mentor at the OACT’s Twilight series and there is no doubt new orienteers appreciate a welcoming introduction. Unfortunately, few orienteers are comfortable in performing this role and thus not all newcomers to the sport experience a welcoming introduction, hence we probably need a different approach and I will expand on that later.

The Importance of Maintaining and Increasing Participation

The second point of view is a summation of some comments made during a liaison meeting on 17 May 2007 with Bob Kershaw our sports consultant at the ASC. The point he was making was that many sports spend considerable time and effort in trying to secure sponsorships from external organisations when they really have nothing much to offer sponsors. The best source of funding is from within, from members, from participants, from spectators (if relevant). Increasing members and increasing participation is the best way to increase income. On the matter of participation, I consider there is scope for increasing participation many fold, but not necessarily in bush orienteering. The only limiting factor is the ability to cope with demand and that is easily overcome if the organisers are willing to consider the available options. For example, to cope with the demand at its Twilight events, OACT introduced pre-marked maps as, when the numbers reached 160 to 200 per event, there was no way that the master map approach could cope with the numbers in the time available. OACT also uses SportIdent equipment for self-starting and self-finishing and locally developed software which copes with groups (even large groups) and multiple newcomers. The major impediment to the efficacy of OACT events is the poor keyboard skills of many of the computer operators. This could be overcome if OACT were to engage highly efficient keyboard operators. (OACT offers standard orienteering courses at all of its events, with individual start times, not score events and mass starts as happens in some other States). There is also scope for Orienteering to conduct events aimed specifically at the high value end of the market, eg corporate activities, adventure racing with high expectation and higher than normal entry fees. These could be conducted without detriment to mainstream orienteering, but there would have to be a different approach to the way the events were presented. Selective Employment of Paid Officers I often hear people say, “We have too many events”, but I disagree as the average participation in Park & Street orienteering is increasing, which suggests that there are not too many events, but more likely not enough officials to service the demand. Thus the key to servicing increased participation is having enough officials. If Orienteering is to grow it must be managed as a business, and if there are insufficient voluntary officials, consideration must be given to the selective employment of paid officers to undertake some of the work that volunteers do not want to perform or do not perform effectively. Ben Rattray also advanced a similar view in his column in the June 2007 edition of The Australian Orienteer. There are many who begrudge people being paid small amounts to perform tasks, but my view is that they should be grateful that somebody is performing tasks that they don’t wish to do. Such tasks include, mentoring new orienteers, processing results, reporting results to the media, placing results on websites, etc. All of these activities are important to the development of Orienteering and if they are not done the sport could decline. The simple life of the 1970s is gone and Orienteering must change if it is to remain relevant to the potential new orienteers of today.

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