David Stocks of the ACT will be the project manager for the new ‘Beginner Instruction for Everyone’ project. His enthusiasm and experience of working with those new to orienteering in the ACT will help to deliver this project, which aims to improve the beginner experience.

Thanks to funding from the Australian Sports Commission, Orienteering Australia will work to develop guidelines and resources for orienteers to use to support beginners. It will integrate with the new Orienteering Instructor accreditation and other projects occurring concurrently, like Learn to Orienteer and Kid-O.

Providing a beginner friendly event experience, either at specific “come and try it” or standard events, does not have a consistent approach nationwide, and sometimes is not undertaken at all. Therefore, this project will develop a standardised approach to providing beginner instruction at beginner events, as well as guidelines on how to best design beginner events or event series. Beginner events are those that are targeted at participants from the ‘Explore’ phase of the orienteering Participant Pathway, individuals who are trying orienteering for the first time.

The Beginner Instruction for Everyone project will:

1. Train and accredit orienteers under the OA Coaching Framework at the Orienteering Instructor (community) level to deliver basic orienteering skill instruction primarily for participants new to orienteering.
2. Deliver a coherent and consistent approach to orienteering instruction for newcomers to orienteering across Australia, as a first step before the Learn to Orienteer program.
3. Develop guidelines on the design of both standalone events and event series for participants in the Explore phase of the OA Participant Pathway.
4. Deliver a national branding approach to increase the visibility of beginner orienteering instruction at events.
5. Increase the number of newcomers at orienteering events and increase retention rates for future events.
6. Gain insights into a newcomer’s experience with orienteering.

Thankyou to the other applicants, it shows orienteering has quality people lining up to improve our sport. Also thanks to the representatives from each state/territory who will join the steering committee, they will provide wonderful guidance throughout the project.

The OA team looks forward to working with David and seeing the benefits for orienteering participants. 

If you would like to provide information about your recent beginner experience in orienteering, please complete the First Time Participant survey. Your feedback will be valuable, it will influence the guidelines to be developed to support the beginner experience.