Peter Hart in CEO News wrote:The next Club & Association Conference will be held at The Studio, 7 Cannon Street, Birmingham, B2 5EP on the 20th October 2018.
The focus will be on the Chief Executive review of British Orienteering and strategic priorities followed by a discussion on the future of performance, talent support in the future.
British Orienteering is facing some challenging times following the withdrawal of funding to the performance programme and the potential withdrawal of funding for talent at the end of the 2020 season.
The purpose of the session is to discuss this and identify what we should prioritize and what we can do to work together in order to ensure that we maximize the resources for the benefits of our current and future champions.
It is important that we hear the views from as many people as possible from current and future performance athletes, to parents, coaches and other interested parties and groups including clubs and associations to help shape future direction.
As part of the potential resources there will be a short session from the orienteering Foundation on an initiative that they are launching this autumn.
Interesting development - originally the focus of the conference was on 'Competition Review' but has switched to 'Talent and Performance'.
Whilst I'd certainly support changes to the Talent Programme I have reservations about the scope and purpose of the review as framed by Peter..
The problem appears to be perceived as one of funding, whereas in practice the problem is one of culture. British Orienteering has been split in two with, on the one hand, the staff and board focussed on funding and dancing to the tune of Sport England, and on the other the membership who consume and deliver the 'product' almost entirely independently. The Talent Programme illustrates this perfectly with a structure and philosophy designed to suit Sport England, operating independently of, and offering no benefit to, the membership.
Peter (and presumably the board) appears to see the challenge to be how to continue to fund British Orienteering and its various components after the Sport England money runs out, but if he were to focus on removing the ‘us and them’ culture and returning to a sport run by the members in the interest of the members, funding becomes a much smaller problem.
Before considering how to “maximize the resources for the benefits of our current and future champions” perhaps we should consider what benefit a T & P programme offers to the membership as a whole, particularly in the context of a Club and Association conference. If done properly, talent development and elite performance can be key components of the development of the sport as a whole; inspiring young people, introducing fresh ideas, instilling pride in the sport, etc., but if it’s just about finding money to help a privileged few win the odd lump of metal I doubt many club representatives will be interested.