British Orienteering is pleased to have secured funding from Sport England for the next four years to support our strategic plan and work to retain people who take part regularly within orienteering in England. Clearly a large proportion of these regular participants take part through the events and activities put on by orienteering clubs.

We intend to work with clubs individually to provide support and advice in relation to challenges they may face in keeping people orienteering regularly. Some of these challenges might include a small volunteer pool, a lack of progression to more challenging events, a reduction in membership numbers or a need for more publicity.

With previous funding being focused on projects to help engage newcomers to the sport the development team are excited to now be looking at the opportunity to support the clubs more closely and would like to understand a bit more about which areas your club prioritise and/or would like some support with.

We have done some initial research based on the information we hold and identified some key segments that we believe are focus areas:

• Membership & Retention (Youth/Female/Family)

• Volunteering (Committee/Roles/Recruitment)

• Resourcing (Accounts/Strategy/Grant Applications)

• Events & Activities (Number Of/Representation/Social Ethos)

• Marketing (Publicity/Social Media/Marketing Plan)

• Coaching (Licenced/Sessions/Mentoring)

Each club in England has been contacted through chairs and secretaries to ascertain where their club priorities lie and where they would most appreciate support. Please contact your club officials if you would like to input into the response from your club.