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Encouragement

Show Profile  valerie Posted: 7 February 2013, 4:41 AM  
Perhaps we need an O Conference and discuss how to keep the young people in Orienteering instead of how things are at the moment.

Show Profile  rob.g Posted: 7 February 2013, 2:54 PM  
The way I see it we've never had so many young people getting into orienteering, despite all the other sports out there.

Show Profile  addison Posted: 10 February 2013, 3:29 AM  
I'm interested in you expanding on your comments above Val and qualifying what you are trying to raise

We're just putting our Draft Strategic Plan up on the NZOF Website and this was sent out to clubs yesterday. We have discussed in there key things about external views of the sport and also culture within the sport.

But I on the whole tend to agree with Rob that things are as good as they have been for orienteering for young people, with great camps being run, both Nationally and reigonally in places like HB.. schools orienteering generally is stronger than ever before and really competitive to make the NZ Schools Team for example.

Show Profile  DMjunior Posted: 10 February 2013, 8:58 AM  
I am just hazarding a guess as to what Val is thinking here and I tend to agree with her about the problem but maybe not the "o conference". Yes we currently have lots of school aged orienteers competing but as soon as school ends we are loosing numerous promising talents. A large majority of the top end school runners and those from O families stay in the sport but the ones just off nzss or jwoc selections loose interest and have nothing to aim for. Yes currently our juniors are strong especially against Australia but what we want is to be strong against the world and depth and competition would drive this. So finding a way to keep that group of runners keen and interested as well as giving them opportunities to improve is something I for one as High Performance Director have looked at and I would encourage anyone with suggestions or ideas to please contact me.

Show Profile  mcroxford Posted: 10 February 2013, 1:31 PM  
Well put Duncan. I whole heartedly agree. This is an issue for all NZ sport though. Often this group moves into informal social sport.

Show Profile  Neil K Posted: 11 February 2013, 1:22 AM  
We need to make Orienteering a good "informal social sport" for school leavers and university students. It is imperative this involves cold beer.

Show Profile  darren Posted: 11 February 2013, 2:27 AM  
I agree with Neil and Michael. If you are not in the 'elite' group (which is a very small percentage of juniors)when you hit university and then actually good enough to make it into teams - JWOC/WOC, you kind of have nothing. The culture of the sport here tends to ignore you, if you don't want to train (at least a little) and run the elite grades, so you naturally head off and do other things - drink beer, join social sports teams at Uni, or maybe take up rogaining. Maybe one day you come back though when you have a family and remember what a great family sport it is.

Show Profile  darren Posted: 11 February 2013, 2:35 AM  
I agree with Neil and Michael. If you are not in the 'elite' group (which is a very small percentage of juniors)when you hit university and then actually good enough to make it into teams - JWOC/WOC, you kind of have nothing. The culture of the sport here tends to ignore you, if you don't want to train (at least a little) and run the elite grades, so you naturally head off and do other things - drink beer, join social sports teams at Uni, or maybe take up rogaining. Maybe one day you come back though when you have a family and remember what a great family sport it is.

Show Profile  mcroxford Posted: 11 February 2013, 11:37 AM  
Darren. You've just summarised my life so far in one paragraph.

Show Profile  pete s Posted: 11 February 2013, 12:11 PM  
Agree with much of whats been said here. Had a very interesting chat to TriNZ and they have exactly the same pattern - great participation through schools, then tend to lose people as they hit their 20's, before picking them up again as they hit 30's and onwards. Suspect team sports are different in that they cultivate a culture that is more social and built around plain participation and enjoyment, and less on the elite few...

Show Profile  Martin Posted: 11 February 2013, 12:49 PM  
High Performance seems to be more of a bottleneck rather than a solution, with limited numbers able to be selected for teams like NZSS (and to a lesser extent JWOC).

Show Profile  onemanfanclub Posted: 11 February 2013, 1:43 PM  
I don't know if team sports are that different, would suggest the ones we know about (rugby, hockey, football, netball) just have a bigger base to start with, so while the numbers involved post schools/juniors are much bigger, proportionally retention may well be the same. How many kids did you know at school who played basketball or volleyball? How many adults do you know who do the same?

Show Profile  pete s Posted: 12 February 2013, 12:53 PM  
yep you could be right there fanclub. The interesting thing I guess is we aren't the only sport with this pattern of participation...

Show Profile  pete s Posted: 12 February 2013, 12:53 PM  
yep you could be right there fanclub. The interesting thing I guess is we aren't the only sport with this pattern of participation...

Show Profile  Alistair Posted: 12 February 2013, 3:13 PM  
Some people are going to shoot me down for suggesting this, but part of the answer is "relays". These fill part of that hole which you're all talking about. And I mean age-class relays, so that you run in teams with your mates of your own age, against your other friends (or enemies ;-) ). This helps build the sense of camaraderie and a team spirit.

NZ must be able to find a model that fits the current numbers of participants, whether it's 10 or even 15 year brackets for vets, 2-4 for juniors. Then it could be regional teams for some weaker grades, clubs for others... 2-4 person teams. Just a matter of thinking a little outside the box.

Here in Scandinavia, relays are generally one of the highlights of the season, and are given a much bigger focus than most individual races.

I think it's almost pitiful that NZ has only the nationals and Katoa PO (please correct me if I'm wrong), and the nationals is run as an orange level social event.

And I'm sure our top juniors and elite would run a bit better in the international relays if they had more practice at home too!

Show Profile  Alistair Posted: 12 February 2013, 3:14 PM  
...or maybe the Swiss/Austrian style team-orienteering could be tested. Hasn't caught on anywhere else in the world but maybe worth a go?


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