NEW GM – ÁRPÁD KOCSIK OA NEWS
and national events held in and around Hungary; eg Hungarian Five Days 20012018, EOC 2002, EYOC 2007, WOC 2009 where he was also responsible for the production and marketing of the live television coverage, Ski JWOC 2010 Romania, WMOC 2011, WMTBOC 2012 and the Masters in 2018, JWOC 2018.
Introducing the new OA General Manager –
Árpád Kocsik
He was secretary of a Budapest club from 2015-18. He is now a member of Garingal and has worked for ONSW as a coach in primary and high schools. As such he has some insight into the Sporting Schools program and understands the importance and difficulties of promoting Orienteering.
BY IAN JESSUP, ONSW
Á
rpád left Hungary with his family three years ago when his wife was offered a position in Nokia’s Sydney office.
His experience in Orienteering is considerable, starting in 1984 in a Romanian club in the category of M12. Being born in Romania in a Hungarian family had its challenges and after the Iron Curtain fell, he left for Hungary in the hope of a better education just when he was selected into the Romanian National Youth Team. Focusing on studies in a new country left little time for training, still he achieved 33 minutes for 10km and 9 minutes for 3km. After finishing high school and starting his legal studies Árpád was supporting himself while studying, which left him no time for
proper involvement in Orienteering for the coming few years.
In 1996 Hungary hosted the World University Championships. That is when he returned to his club. He became more involved in race organisation and commentary in 2001. In the following years this involvement became more complex including a position in the Hungarian Orienteering Federation as Marketing and Communications Officer, event organiser, commentator for most major international
He has prepared school and bush maps and provided commentary to numerous major events in NSW including last year’s State Championships.
Árpád has a law degree and, while he cannot practise in Australia, believes it can serve to his and OA’s advantage. He has experience as executive level legal counsel in large scale commercial and residential real estate development, contract management, sales, purchasing, negotiation and customer management skills. I recently interviewed Árpád for this magazine:
What are the main differences between orienteering in Australia and Hungary?
potential in me and to the members of the OA Board. I am honoured to have been appointed.
Hi Ian. Thank you for taking the time for this interview. Short answer: there are no differences. Longer but incomplete answer: the geographical location and climate has a defining impact on the race calendar creating a foot orienteering season that starts in late February and lasts until late November with some of the early and late races being held in snow and summer races in August sometimes being held in scorching heat of 40C.
The role of General Manager or Executive Officer is a significant one in any organisation and is regarded as essential to ensure smooth operations. The differences are in the number of staff performing those tasks which is proportional to the level of funding. Needless to say, OA is a small NSO and we have to bring out the best with some extra hours from both the volunteers and paid staff.
Hungary is a founding member of the IOF and has a historical attachment to the development of the sport. This shows mainly on club level where there is heavy focus on “resupply”. Regular recruitments and midweek afternoon training sessions serve as a good basis for continuous refreshment and a much younger demographic aspect of the sport. The results can be seen in recent JWOC and CEYOC performances by young Hungarians. What are the main challenges facing Orienteering in Australia? As I am only beginning to comprehend the complexity of Australian orienteering, it would be premature to answer this question in its depth. I can clearly see a challenge with the large distances in terms of attendance at national events and the resupply/demographics issue mentioned above. These seem to be some of the main challenges. How do you see your role? On a personal level it feels like the “dream job” has found me. I owe a great deal of gratitude to Greg Barbour who saw the 6 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2022
Our goal in Orienteering as individual competitors is to perform well in all circumstances: weather, terrain (new or familiar), map quality or location, because every event is new in a way. It is my goal to take this challenge accordingly and although the end of the tunnel I found myself in seems to be distant, I am confident that the light will appear soon. There is a lot to be done. The vacuum that has been created with the absence of a GM in the time leading up to my appointment seems to be filling up slowly. OA secretary Andrew Lumsden and I are working closely to execute Board decisions and to bring the organisation up to its optimal working capacity. The short-term goals are to get organised, put out a few fires, be up to date, and focus on the three main objectives of OA: to encourage, promote and coordinate Orienteering. The Board went through some changes at the last AGM. Anna Sheldon, Clare Hawthorne, Brett Weihart and Troy de Haas have joined with nearly a hundred years of combined experience in Orienteering. Bill Jones, who stepped down from his long and admirable Board Director position, took with him nearly as many years of experience as the four new Directors brought but times are changing.
