NZSS Selection Eligibility

Bryan Posted: 2 May 2016, 3:49 PM   Hard to be whinging and resonable at the same time. Personally, I agree with Tommy wholeheartedly. My whole philosophy as an elite was to strive to be selected in any New Zealand team. For orienteeers to be denied the opportunity for any reason, and to not select the best who want to run, I think is belittling our sport. I suggest if any JWOC member who wants to run is not selected because of this policy, that they should appeal officially, ask for either an official review from the NZOF or even further a judicial review. I think there would be plenty of grounds for a reconsideration.   Martin Posted: 2 May 2016, 6:56 PM   The new constitution says "all members... may be eligible for selection for ONZ teams provided they meet any additional criteria as may be set by ONZ" (7.1.d) Is something like the changes to NZSS team eligibility what was intended by this and, if so, has the orienteering community missed another one liner that has implications on team selections?   SSmith Posted: 3 May 2016, 12:32 PM   I would just like to add my view on this issue. Last year I missed out on selection to the Schools team to people in the JWOC team. Do I feel like I missed out by not going? Yes sure, but it encouraged me to train harder so that next time I wouldn't miss out. If this policy had existed last year then I would have gone but I wouldn't have had the drive nor reason to train as hard. Making it easier to qualify for the schools team does not necessarily increase the level of ability within our juniors. Also I think the idea of senior JWOC members in the team mentoring younger members is an important point. By removing them you take away a valuable source of knowledge for junior members to learn from. It is a shame that ONZ has produced a "rationale" that only seems to restate their original view that Australia is a lower class event that JWOC members should not waste their time on. In my opinion the NZSS team has been and remains a prestigious team to qualify for. I would like to hear from those JWOC members who decided not to race in Aus while still at school though to hear whether it was for personal reasons or whether they were focusing only on JWOC? It seems a shame to deny our top junior orienteers, who have sacrificed a lot to be where they are, the opportunity for further overseas development in Aus simply because they are too good.   DMjunior Posted: 5 May 2016, 2:29 AM   Lots of words from lots of parties but really very little of substance. Pretty much as follows: - Selection notice has come out and surprised people by being so restrictive - Some people unhappy it is effectively endorsing a development team. - Some people forgetting how import NZ Schools trip is and that we are invited to this, so shouldn't do things that may put this in jeopardy. - Some people are happy that it is giving others a turn at running for NZ. - Some people are assuming too much (jwoc runners have pulled out on schools team in past - because they are past it?? More like parents have said "no you gotta do school work because orienteering will never make you money for the rest of your life") We have 3 pages of forum but no real action - isn't it blindingly obvious that this ain't right so should revert back to being all inclusive until a better solution is found? SIDE NOTE: I am not trying to personally attack Nick Smith here, merely pointing out that the majority of rhetoric on the subject from ONZ has come from you - someone who on more than one occasion has turned down NZ representative teams for reasons of focus elsewhere. I understand and respect that this is your own personal decision but I wonder if your opinion/past decisions have had a disproportionate influence on ONZ's rationale in this case? Please do not construe this as a personal attack - merely just pointing out the situation.   theoman Posted: 5 May 2016, 4:05 AM   https://media.giphy.com/media/HhTXt43pk1I1W/giphy.gif This message was edited by theoman on 5 May 2016, 12:00 PM   PaulTS Posted: 5 May 2016, 9:01 AM   Following up on the mentoring side of things: I presume that the JWOC runners not selected for schools will still inevitably selected for the 20E Junior Pinestars (or even the full Pinestars) who will be in action around that week. Does anybody know how the team locations will work and who will be mentoring who? i.e. Will the Junior Pinestars be with the Pinestars (and so getting mentoring from the top elites, which sounds good to me); or are they likely to be with the schools groups and mentoring them (which also sounds good); or is there likely to be a combination happening? To DMj, I believe I understand the point you are trying to make. From what I have seen here (and behind the scenes), Nick is doing a good job keeping communication going. From all I am aware of (which is admittedly limited), Nick's decisions of past, present or future haven't impinged on the decisions made.   Jenni Posted: 5 May 2016, 2:19 PM   But Duncan, Nick's blog post that he linked to is criticising the new policy? Have you read it?   Jenni Posted: 5 May 2016, 2:25 PM   My own opinion on the policy, is that it sounds reasonable to me to try to spread out the opportunities. I know that other countries send their B teams to particular competitions to give them experience. However from the post it appears that those this affects most feel strongly that the school team should contain the best (as determined by a selection panel) athletes available to go. And although, as a lecturer, I usually have a "you don't know what's best for you, I do" attitude, I think in this case the NZOF should bow to popular opinion.   Jamie Posted: 5 May 2016, 5:24 PM   Malcolm has set in place a series of stepping stones to elite performance. This is one of the changes. There are others such as providing for the elite Pinestars to have a development parameter in selection and in limiting high performance squads to people interested in international performance....I barely read anything Orienteering these days, but even I have read and expected these changes. I wouldn't have established this system myself, the approach of our elite group as we went through was to be much more inclusive and focused more strongly on domestic competition, but its what has been done. You need to consider the system as a whole when you criticise aspects of it that may disadvantage a certain person at a certain time, but advantage them at others. Meanwhile, I'm more concerned at what has happened to all our elites between the ages of 25-35!   pcbrent Posted: 6 May 2016, 3:50 AM   I haven't bothered to read all of this...everyone is entitled to their view and say, and there will always be different opinions on how stuff should be done, that is life. That should be one of the roles of ONZ, to consider the different options, make a decision and then capture that in their plans, policies, etc. That way at least everyone knows where they stand (even if they dont agree). From what I can tell the main issue is that there are conflicting ONZ documents. The HP Plan doesn't seem to match the Selection Policy or vice versa? There should be (and probably is) a clear hierarchy if documents that should be consistent. ie the selection policy should be based on what the HP says. I suspect what has happened here is the new HP plan has resulted in some changes which haven't yet made it's way into the selection policy. Now the latest selections appear to be being based on what the HP plan says, conflicting with the selection policy. This is a backward way of doing it (and also easily challenged). Perhaps the selection policy should be reviewed under urgency?   fraser Posted: 6 May 2016, 5:34 AM   Malcolm made some recommendations in the High Performance Plan and these seem to have been followed despite the fact they break the Selection Policy. ONZ offered a rationale but completely failed to address the issue that they are not following their own Selection Policy. Most of the discussion has been about the merits of the idea, we have heard from lots of people and it has been a constructive discussion. It seems ONZ needs to make a further announcement. Either retract the conflicting selection criteria or explain why it appears to its members they are breaking their own rules.   Ellmo1769 Posted: 30 June 2016, 12:00 PM   In the latest e-Newsletter there seems to be a brief mention of this topic again. Any thoughts?   fraser Posted: 30 June 2016, 1:46 PM   It doesn't add anything new. It just seems to be defending the decision while not addressing the fact that it breaks the ONZ Selection Policy.   fraser Posted: 29 July 2016, 4:28 AM   The selection policy is now under review by ONZ with feedback required by 1 September. http://www.orienteering.org.nz/resources/policies/ The main changes to the selection policy, other than making athletes in debt to ONZ ineligible for selection, seems to be this part: 3 Selection Criteria 3.1 The following selection criteria shall be applied by the respective Selection Panel when selecting a team. 3.2 The objective of selection is to select a team which is likely to produce the most successful results at the competition for which athletes are being selected. Changes to: 3.1 The selection criteria will reflect the objective of the competition in accordance with the Orienteering NZ High Performance Plan. Any specific conditions relating to selection criteria or eligibility shall be outlined within the Selection Notice produced to announce the selection qualifying criteria. 3.2 The basis of selection is to select a team which best meets the competition criteria.