ORIENTEERING AUSTRALIA
Executive Matters John Harding – OA Executive Officer
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TATISTICS count! In particular, membership, participation and high performance statistics. This is a repeated message from government and private sector funders and sponsors. In a competitive marketplace of a myriad of sports, the statistical comparisons are what the funding and sponsorship decision makers peruse in divvying up their budget allocations.
State governments reasonable ballpark estimates over time of participation (and non-participation) in sport and recreation activities as they face the health challenges of rising obesity levels in the population. Orienteering, with participants aged from under 10s to over 85s, has a marketing advantage over nearly all other sports in encouraging life long active participation.
Max Neve (Vic) at the Australian 3 Days this year. Photo: Clive Roper
On the high performance front, our best elite performers have been doing us proud this year. The double gold by Adrian Jackson at the World Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships, the gold and silver by Hanny Allston in the World Games, the close fourth in the World Games mixed teams Relay, the fifth in the World Orienteering Championships Sprint final by Kathryn Ewels, and the gold rush by our best veterans at the World Masters Championships are highlights of a stellar year. It is on the membership counting side that we seem to be letting ourselves down compared with most other sports. Soccer, netball, hockey and so on count every participant in an organised competition in a membership category, sometimes using creative mechanisms such as one day memberships to do so. Our Rogaining colleagues insist that every participant becomes a member to comply with insurance requirements. However, maximising membership numbers by signing up all casual and irregular and schools Orienteering participants to provide a level playing field comparison with other sports can have costs in administrative effort and fee equity across membership categories. So a balance is needed. Orienteering Tasmania (OT) appears to have achieved such a balance through the very successful introduction of a Casual Membership category. This greatly boosted overall membership numbers and enabled OT to obtain additional government funding. On the participation front, the Australian Sports Commission and State and Territory Sport and Recreation departments jointly run an annual sport and recreation survey of over 17,000 people aged 15 and over around Australia on their participation in organised and not organised sport and recreation activities in the 12 months prior to interview. The 2008 report appeared to have very good news for Orienteering: an estimated 124,000 participants, similar to the numbers for several major sports, and with half male and half female. Given the 2008 OA annual report figure of 8,842 total members, these numbers seemed suspiciously overcounted, even taking into account Rogaining and adventure sport participation and school participation of 15 to 18 year olds in Orienteering. This was born out by a perusal of the survey methodology. Orienteering was defined as including Rogaining and cross country running, and the survey was conducted by telephone interview and had only a 25.7% response rate. In addition, 85,000 (69%) of the 124,000 were in the 15-24 age group, in contrast to OA membership of 60% in the Masters age groups. It pays to be careful in collecting and interpreting statistics and this example raises questions about the extent to which estimates for other sports are also inflated. The survey itself is useful in giving the Australian and
National Junior Squad, Junior Development Squad announced The National Junior Squad and Junior Development Squad for 2009-10 have been announced by Orienteering Australia.
The National Junior Squad is: Lilian Burrill (QLD)
Lachlan Dow (ACT)
Belinda Lawford (ACT)
Joshua Blatchford (NSW)
Sarah Buckerfield (TAS)
Oscar Phillips (TAS)
Krystal Neumann (QLD)
Callum Fagg (TAS)
Georgia Parsons (ACT)
James Robertson (VIC)
Mary Fleming (VIC)
Kurt Neumann (QLD)
Catherine Hewitt (TAS)
Oliver Crosato (QLD)
Max Neve (VIC)
Alex Massey (NSW)
Leon Keely (VIC)
The Junior Development Squad is: Rebekah Sunley (VIC)
Oscar McNulty (WA)
Michele Dawson (NSW)
Ian Lawford (ACT)
Emma Campbell (TAS)
Oliver Poland (ACT)
Rebecca Freese (QLD)
Todd Neve (VIC)
Jacqui Doyle (QLD)
Karl Bicevskis (TAS)
Katie Doyle (QLD)
Marc Gluskie (TAS)
Congratulations to all those selected. Blair Trewin (Chairman of Selectors) DECEMBER 2009 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 45
