ORIENTEERING AUSTRALIA TECHNICAL MEETING
Saturday April 7th2012, StanthorpeHigh School
Present:Jenny Casanova (SA,Chair), Robin Uppill (SA, OA Technical Director),Bill Jones (ACT), Christine Brown (Tas), Kathy Liley (VIC), John Scown (OA Accreditation Officer, ACT), Blair Trewin (Vic), Eric Andrews (Qld), Richard Matthews (WA), Russell Rigby (NSW), Maurice Auker (NSW), Greg Hawthorne (Tas)
Apologies:nil
The meeting opened at 2:37 pm
Minutes of the previous meeting:accepted
Matters arising from the minutes:
1)Guidelines for major carnivals and event management: Summarised in table which was distributed with agenda. Robin has received these documents from Eric Andrews and needs to edit them before adding to the OA website.
2)Controller re-accreditation process through ASC – change of expiry periods and L3 controllers’ workshop: still some confusion about expiry periods (4yrs) and rolling points for reaccreditation (over 8 years except for Level 1) and how often level 3 controllers can manage to attend a workshop (only required once every 8 years if theywish to maintain accreditation).
3)Discussion on how to identify controllers whose accreditation is about to expire –now that list on OA website is updated, technical can ask for a summary of their activities about 12 months ahead and determine whether they need to come to a workshop (or at least be sent the documents from one). Note that it is not the responsibility of the technical chair or director to keep track of controllers’ activities.
4)Controllers’ reports received: a couple, but not a full set. If there is nothing out of the ordinary to report then it’s not essential to submit a formal report to OA but use of the proforma as a checklist is still recommended.
The question was raised about whether states organising a major carnival are obliged to submit preliminary reports. This was previously required by the rules, which now say that the OA controller shall submit a report to the Orienteering Australia Conntroller appointing body if requested.Certainly the expectation is that if there are any issues/concerns then the controller should be able to raise these with the technical committee. It is suggested that in future, states bring to the tech meeting for informal discussion a brief report of how their planning for major events is going.
5)OA Foot Rules –updated for 2012 in line with some changes to IOF rules plus other changes flagged at the 2011 OA conference
New business:
1)Contact details for each state for 2012 – technical officer plus backup person
2)Controllers’ workshops planned by each state:
QLD - probably L2 in Nov then L1 in 2013; SA – L1 in Nov; Vic – 4 people to L2 workshop last Nov; WA late in 2012 if enough enthusiasm for that level of administration can be mustered!
3)Level 3 controllers for group A events:
- Chris Norwood has recently been appointed as overall L3 controller for Easter 2013 in Vic, also John Colls is now carnival coordinator.
- Aust Champs 2012: Aust Middle Distance Christine Brown (also IOF event adviser), Tas Long Lindsay Bennett, Aust Sprint John Brammall (also IOF event adviser), Aust Long Greg Hawthorne (Blair Trewin IOF event adviser), Aust Relays David Marshall
- WOC trials 2012: Nick Dent (sprint), Terry Bluett (middle), Rob Vincent (long)
4)ASC Funding proposal on how to spend some of travel etc for controller and coaching workshops, e.g. rural scholarship scheme. This funding is only available where there are clubs in centres more than 300km form the capital city, so many states are not eligible. It was suggested that the proposal be reworded to include organisers and course planners from remote centres, so that clubs can send members to these workshops as well – as they need more planners/organisers than they do controllers!
5)Schools’ Championships rules – Blair has collated; need to follow-up with Ian Dalton about approval by ASSOC as not response has been received to date.
6)OA MTBO Rules and guidelines –these have been taken from/modelled on the IOF rules but need more background: e.g. references to foot orienteering rules (many of which are similar) and course planning guidelines.
Noted that a MTBO representative needs to be on the technical committee. Craig Steffens is taking over from BlakeGordon as chair of MTBO committee. Kathy Liley will also be involved. Victorian MTBO championships are also trials for the 2012 MTBO WOC team.
7)ANZ Challenge and Oceania Rules – need to make these compatible with each other, and also to be the same for foot and MTBO challenges as far as possible (Classes are different). OA has askedNZOF whether the ANZ Challenge (Foot) should be expanded to include the sprint and middle distance events at Oceania.
Current ANZ challenge rules which complicate matters include:
- Having junior 18s and 20s age classes (NZ preference) rather than 17-20E
- Requiring challenge team members to start first, 15 minutes before others, in each age class
- Rules about reserves
- The travelling nation will nominate age classes, but is currently required to field a minimum of 2 runners. Can this be changed to count if there is only one runner?
8)NOL guidelines – Jenny to discuss reviewing these with HP group
9)WOC Proposals –the proposal which was before IOF (reducing the number of heats and increasing the number of finals) has been withdrawn. However Sweden, Switzerland and Italy all have proposals before Congress.
10)IOF Event Advisor workshop to be held with the Oceania Carnival in NZ in Jan 2013. Applicants to attend this are required to have international competition experience and must be endorsed by OA.
11) David Hogg medal – to John & Valerie Brammall in 2012
12)Tech news next issue – contributions requested
Any other business:
- Definitions for defining fees at Major Events – from Robin (document was distributed with agenda)
- Vote of thanks to John Scown for processing forms and updating/maintaining ASC database
- Events committee report tabled: World Games awarded to Poland 2017, World Masters Games to NZ in 2017 so this will presumably be WMOC as well. Australia may need to swap Oceania with NZ so that we have 2017 and they have 2019.
- Possible IOF rule change around the requirement to have duplicate timing systems – may require video backup. Some states use video, others download twice to independent computers.
- Noted that in 2014 New Caledoniamay be able to compete in its own right and no longer be part of France so could be able to compete in Oceania Challenge.
- Feasibility study on possible proposal to host WOC in Australia in 2019: the committee looking at this had difficulty in identifying 3 suitable sprint venues within adequate proximity, as most major regional centres have only one. Also, financial security is seen as a big concern, with no guarantee of government support or raising the sort of sponsorship which would be required – and is achievable in Europe.
- The possibility of including a sprint event in the Australian Schools’ championships has been raised Concerns were expressed around too many races in a short space of time for the schoolchildren and difficulty in scheduling an extra event during an Aust champs week. A proposal based on recommendations agreed at the 2011 OA Conference has been sent to Ian Dalton, no feedback has been received.
The meeting closed at 4pm.
Next meeting:Easter 2013 in Bendigo