NZOF Funding of National Squad

HeadHoncho Posted: 22 August 2001, 12:52 PM   NZOF provides funding of $4000 or $5000 (depending on the year) to the National Squad. This is a significant portion of the Squad's income - last year the Squad had income of about $20000, although approx. $7000 of that was repayment of debts from Squad members. Another $7000 was from Squad fundraising and there was about $1500 in donations. The Squad's income has decreased markedly over the last 5 years, principally due to the decreasing funding (to zero) from the NZ Sports Foundation. That body will shortly no longer exist and its role will be incorporated into a new Government body (Active New Zealand), although what affect this has on the elite funding of minor sports such as Orienteering remains to be seen. Recently, the IOF has decided to hold an annual World Championships. This will have an affect on our ability to regularly participate with a full and our best team. For this year's Championships, 9 out of the 21 National Squad members were unavailable, mainly because of finance. For the first time since 1976, we did not have a women's relay team. In reality, we are struggling to participate every 2 years - every year will be much harder. This current situation led the NZOF Council to have an initial discussion on the Squad's funding at their meeting last weekend. We think that there is merit and possibly better for our long-term development of elite standards that we target the NZOF funding towards needs in New Zealand and Australia. Funding could be used for such items as: 1. Establishing meaningful competition at important events in New Zealand (Nationals, provincial championhsips) through either travel grants or reestablishment of an O-League 2. Attendance at Australian Championships carnival 3. Subsidising attendance at training camps (both here and in Australia) There may be other avenues that could be considered, for example the establishment of an elite test against Australia or competing in some of Australia's National League races against Australian states. The NZOF Council will be discussing this again at their next meeting in November and possibly making decisions. We would like to hear the views of the National Squad and other interested parties, and we invite your input through this forum, or by email to me at robc@voyager.co.nz Note that this discussion pertains to the NZOF Funding of the Squad only. How the Squad uses their other sources of funding (principally fundraising) is an issue for the Squad itself and is an internal issue to them. I believe the new Squad management may also initiate a discussion on this as well, but that is over to them. Regards Rob Crawford   HeadHoncho Posted: 22 August 2001, 1:07 PM   The initial posting is the official one. It will also appear in the next National Mag. I'd also like to share a couple of my personal thoughts. To be a world-class orienteer you need to live in Europe or spend large amounts of time there. The Australian men's performances at WOC and the World Games are a good example of this - they either live there full time (Grant, Troy) or spend 6 months or more a year there (Tom, Rob). That is a lifestyle choice. I would love to see some of our elites do that but it is their decision and in many ways a huge sacrifice. It is unrealistic to expect many (if any) of our elites will do this, now or in the near future. Therefore I think we should devote resources closer to home so that our elites have something to aim for. With Australian orienteering quite strong at the moment (and with increasing depth in their fields), it seems sensible to me to use some of their races as major targets. Also, we need to encourage competition amongst ourselves more often than once a year. This should assist in retaining some of our elite orienteers and help motivation. And that will help in raising standards. The downside is that there will be less money for those who are making WOC their aim. By having this discussion now it gives those who may be aiming for WOC 2003 in Switzerland close to 2 years to raise the extra money that may be required. I guess I've had enough of a say for now. Looking forward to hearing your views.   darren Posted: 24 August 2001, 2:14 AM   It is a bummer for us that the WOC will soon be on every year. I guess the most sensible way to approach this would be for the squad as a whole to decide which WOC's we will aim for and build that into our long term performance and financial planning. Our decision will no doubt largely be based on where the WOC is and whether or not the terrain is likely to give us a chance to improve on our past performances. We may find that we send an official team to WOC once every 3 or 4 years, but then again it may happen that we send a team 2 years in a row and then not again for 3 years. We probably need to establish a criteria for those who want to go (possibly totally at there own expense) in the years when no official team is being sent. The WOC will always be the most important international event but I tend to agree that there are other more beneficial ways we could be spending our limited funds. Presently we have no domestic elite series to aim for like other countries. As a result our depth of numbers in the elite feilds is diminishing, as people either leave the sport or find other sports to compete in, as well as O. When we talk about depth we are talking about elite orienteers who are good domestically but due to desire or commitment will never make a WOC team. We need to provide for this group of elites and potential elites with a good quality domestic series to aim for. We need to look no further than Aussie to see that depth of numbers eventually translates into improved international performance, even if you don't spend 6 months a year in Europe. Aussie provides a tough arena for us to compete in they have world class terrain and high standard competitions and we would be stupid not to take advantage of this. I applaud the NZOF on there forward thinking to earmark their annual squad funding for local competition. At the end of this year when Tone and Aaron return to N.Z we will have 3 squad members living in Europe, we can't forget them. What support will they need? Lets open up the discussion. Write in with your views and ideas.   Michael Posted: 18 October 2001, 2:01 PM   Can I remember my password?   Michael Posted: 18 October 2001, 2:07 PM   I totally agree that Australia is a very good source of competition at all levels, and its a practical necessity to transfer our focus there from Scandiope. And especially so for juniors. It was a real disappointment to me that a trip to Australia was removed from the D Squad plan this year, and there were no juniors at the Aussie champs for the first time in many years.   Dave Barr Posted: 21 October 2001, 4:53 AM   I think that the NZOF funding of the national squad should be focussed on domestic rather than international competition. Furthermore, the main focus of the NZOF (events wise) should be the development of a strong elite competition in N.Z. It is killing orienteering that everyone has to travel to compete in high quality competitions. By providing a series of highly competitive elite events in N.Z. we would (a) give the competitors who can't afford/ don't want to go to Europe an opportunity to stay involved with the sport at a high level. (b) increase the visibility and marketability of our sport in N.Z. (c) increase the number of elites available for overseas competitions. This would solve some problems associated with the annual WOC (It would be far easier to find elites willing to travel who have been competing). Also I feel the NZOF should focus its elite competitions on being suitable for students. They have time to train, compete, long holidays, and student loans. they are the demographic most suited to competing sucessfully with our limited resources.   Michael Posted: 26 October 2001, 2:17 PM   My views on funding the national squad start with the payment of entry fees for ALL who represent New Zealand at selected international events. I know that begs the question of which events, but I think that NZ needs to formally decide to contest certain events, even if it does not include every WOC and JWOC. Otherwise, what is the point of having squads and the whole elite and development effort? I am hoping it is possible to separate the "entry fee" from "compulsory WOC-week accommodation" in this principle, participants will get as much as there is money to pay for under other priorities below. I would hope that JWOC and the ANZ Challenge would be chosen to be contested. You would still have to meet selection standards. I can see the difficulty for the ANZ Challenge, we generally choose the best regardless of standard. After providing for this, my views on the funding of the National Squad are similar to the travel priorities in the D Squad Strategic Plan which the council endorsed in May 2000. That is, in order, 1. Travel between islands for training in NZ 2. Extra travel costs faced by some members travelling to Australia, caused by where they live in NZ 3. Travel within island for training in NZ 4. Travel to Australia 5. Travel to the northern hemisphere The basis of this philosophy is that we should first help those who are faced with extra costs because of where they live, then we should help with travel generally. If the money doesn't reach as far as #5 or #4, so be it. When this says training I include major competitions as well as camps. Although squad members will need to have "times out" I think that more domestic competition would benefit them, and would benefit the regional championships which sometimes get pitiful elite fields, and appearance would increase support of the elite effort from the grass-roots orienteer. And travel to Australia I would expect to include both training and major competition. I won't attempt to cross the t's of how many trips to Oz etc, I'm just expressing principles. While these priorities may only have found their way into the D Squad plan relatively recently, during my time as Coaching Director I always directed that the funds allocated to the D Squad were to be spent primarily on getting the squad together, with money going first to those who had to travel furthest, usually but not always the South Islanders. There was once a stage in which some National Squad money came from the Coaching Budget, and I allocated it with the same proviso. Then the council in its wisdom decided to allocate it directly, which I felt was a pity, especially at a time when NOS was very Aucklocentric. The pendulum swings... Michael Wood, Former Coaching Director