New council gets to work

New council gets to work

The first full meeting of the new IOF Council, with newly appointed president Leho Haldna at the helm, took place in conjunction with the World Cup Final in Aarau, marking the start of a new council period. Following council working practices, the meeting involved laying the ground for work to be done in the years to come.

One important part of the long term work is the IOF Strategic Plan, which is a six-year plan of the direction of travel for the IOF. The work has already begun on the Strategic Plan 2018-2024, and now the council has further specified the methodology. The process will include requesting valuable feedback from IOF Member Federations and Commissions, as well as external reviewers, and will include open questions about not only key goals and strategic actions but also vision and values.

A more concrete and slightly more short term plan of action is the Activity Plan for the coming two-year period. The Activity Plan is divided into five key goals: Focus on Key Outcomes, Increase the Attractiveness of Orienteering to Young People, Strengthen the IOF Position on the World Sporting Stage, Increase the Visibility of Orienteering and Strong Management and Funding. The Activity Plan determines the current tasks of the council, and based on these the council also determines the Remits for the various IOF Commissions, detailing their areas of responsibility and specific tasks regarding their work.

At their recent meeting, the council also discussed and approved a division of tasks, with regards to responsibility for follow-up of strategic activities, interaction with IOF Commissions, IOF regions and members, and the key tasks of the Council. They also looked over plans for potential Project Groups in 2017. Project groups were created for IOF Organisation, structure and supporting documentation and for Regional/sub-regional structure.

The minutes of the council meeting in Aarau, Switzerland, can be found here.