We are pleased to announce that British Orienteering has now had their funding agreed by UK Sport and Sport England.

UK Sport has awarded British Orienteering £500K across a four year period from the 1st April 2009 to the 31st March 2013. The majority of the money will be used within the International Programme. Once we have confirmed the terms and conditions and annual targets, we will announce further details on how the money will be spent. Further information on the International Programme can be found here.

Sport England has awarded British Orienteering £2,275,000 across a four year period from the 1st April 2009 to the 31st March 2013. We do not yet have the terms and conditions of the funding but we assume the money will be allocated to support the submission of the Whole Sport Plan for England. Further information on the Whole Sport Plan can be found here.

We have not yet received news on the funding submissions made by Scotland and Northern Ireland and we are continuing to work with Wales on their funding bids.

Mike Hamilton, Chief Executive said, “This is excellent news, the funding from Sport England is based on increasing participation and increasing the satisfaction of participants in orienteering, both of which are closely connected to the first two parts of the British Orienteering vision; ‘More People, More Places, More Podiums'. The UK Sport funding will be primarily focused on the third aspect of the vision, ‘More Podiums’. With this funding in place we can look forward to 4 years of hard but exciting work in developing orienteering. We will be continuing to support Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in trying to gain or maintain their funding so that the development can be UK wide.”

Item posted by Caroline Povey

Gareth Candy has accepted the position of International Programme Director after an extensive selection process. He will take up post from 1 Jan 2009.

Gareth has experience of both the UK orienteering scene and, prior to him coming to the UK, the Australian Institute of Sport system and Australian orienteering. The international programme run by British Orienteering is already successful and Gareth will be responsible for ensuring its future success through:

• Consistent talent identification and development of athletes who have the potential to go on to compete in World Orienteering Championships.
• Consistent achievement in the World Orienteering Championship as detailed in the Whole Sport Plan.
• Influencing coaching and the club/regional structure to integrate and support the national squad programmes

An open appointment process was used to ensure the best person available could be appointed and the process did generate considerable interest from applicants across a multitude of sports. The interviews of the 5 shortlisted candidates produced 2 leading contenders who were invited to a second interview and subsequently Gareth was offered the position.

Gareth accepts that the post will be challenging and stated “The British Orienteering International Programme has been successful and it will be a continuing challenge to keep it at the forefront of the competitive world of international orienteering.  British Orienteering needs to be innovative and creative to continue our success and make our International Programme the world’s best at elite athlete development.”

Mike Hamilton, Chief Executive