Well, despite its importance, or because of it, the IOA Strategic Plan barely got a mention at the Annual General Meeting, so we have a breathing space to take a look at what it involves. The proposal is to have an Extraordinary General Meeting of the IOA in September at which the plan will be voted on and, the IOA hopes, approved.

What's it all about? The IOA hopes that, by restructuring the administration of orienteering they can make it more efficient and that the Strategic Plan will dictate where the IOA is going in the years to come. In the past there has been a lack of clear policy and a complete absence of long term planning. Increasing insistence by the Sports Council that national governing bodies (NGB's in adminspeak) be properly constituted and have future plans which tie in with Sports Council goals mean that there is pressure on sports organisations to toe the line.

Two development conferences (Terryglass in 1998 and Portumna in 1999) brought together a group of concerned orienteers, not just those with any official function, who tried to look ahead and put together a plan which would guide the Association during the next few years. Areas of concern were lack of growth in numbers, raising standards of mapping, administration and competition, developing juniors and so on. The Portumna meeting, though less well attended than Terryglass, set out to flesh out the bones of the plan started the year before, setting out concrete aims and targets. The people present at the meeting each took responsibility for a section of the plan which, let it be said, was based to a significant extent, on the strategic plan for the ISA, now "Sail Ireland". These twelve or so apostles came back with a plan which has been rationalised and revised somewhat since then. It has been on the IOA web site for a while, for people to review it and make comments or suggestions, and now it is included with this issue of The Irish Orienteer.

Please take the time to read it and let the IOA have your comments. A lot of thought has gone into it but, I am sure, it is not without faults. Unless it has widespread support, no amount of future planning will save orienteering from oblivion. It will take you maybe one and a half hours to study the plan. If you have suggestions, get in touch with the IOA. Look out for notices of an EGM in September where it will be discussed and voted on.

I can't remember an IOA EGM since, I think, Villierstown in 1979 when a bus load of Dublin orienteers travelled down in the middle of a petrol shortage using diesel oil from the central heating tank of the current chairman of 3ROC's house. The bus got a puncture, then it wouldn't start and we all had to push it in Cappoquin to get it going; then it ran out of fuel in Rathfarnham on the way back and the driver just took his bike out of the boot, hopped on and cycled off home with a "Good luck, lads!" to his stranded passengers ...

Let's hope we have many more happy days orienteering like that one!