lucy wrote:There is also a proportion of the membership, including some regional association committees, who are strongly opposed to any funding at all for adult elite/international orienteering ("performance", in sports council speak). I have no idea which proportion of the membership is greater, and short of someone bringing a sensibly worded AGM motion I don't expect we'll ever find out.
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I am unsure how other regional associations support athletes, but I wanted to assure you SWOA takes it's responsibility to supporting athletes very seriously and has over the past 10 months awarded grants of £4277. These include WTOC, JWOC, JEC, SHI, WSOC, Training Camps etc. I would hope other associations are doing the same. Any SW athlete can contact the SWOA Treasurer via SWOA webpage for a grant application form.
This is great, and I believe there is a similar setup for NWOA (although have never tested it since I believe if athletes are to be supported then they shouldn't have to get their begging bowl out each year).
Wow - WSOC - I wasn't aware any of our Ski Orienteers had had financial support for many years. [and to be fair the GB SkiO community is far smaller even than TrailO and has far far less chance of success than the other 3 disciplines]