BACKGROUND
The OSPG was formed with representation from the Victorian Outdoor Education Association (VOEA), Outdoor Recreation Centre (ORC), Sport & Recreation Victoria (SRV), Parks Victoria, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) and TourismVictoria. This follows a review which was done into the ORC in 2010 with a recommendation for a new peak body for the outdoors sector.
A forum for representatives of the outdoors sector was held on Tuesday 23 August at WesterforldsParkand twenty eight representatives from the sector attended. Bruce Esplin, Chair of the OSPG Steering Committee, also attended together with Steve Cusworth and Jenny Beales from InsideOut Strategic who have been engaged to develop proposed governance models for the Victorian outdoors sector and to undertake stakeholder engagement to obtain the views of the sector and to prepare a final report to the OSPG.
KEY THEMES FROM THE FORUM
A suggestion was made that the outdoors sector’s mission should be “More people outdoors more often in an environmentally sustainable way”.
The key themes of the discussion were that a peak body should:
- Look at the gaps in services and functions not currently being covered by organisations in the sector
- Have a balance across policy development, representation and member services
- Have the capacity to undertake research and evaluation, connect with academia
- Advocate for the benefits of what the sector does
- Be a united voice for the sector in promoting the value of what the sector does
- Have a strong community development role in promoting the outdoors to sectors of the population underrepresented currently – eg older Victorians, newly arrived migrant communities, and in promoting physical and mental health
- Look at workforce capacity skills and development issues across the sector and work with government to address these
- Advocate for policy and legislative reform for example on safety and risk management issues, access to public land
- Work on policy that benefits the whole sector eg further development of the Adventure Activity Standards
- Focus on building the stakeholder base
- Have a strong voice with a consistent set of messages
NEXT STEPS
InsideOut Strategic will be undertaking an extensive stakeholder engagement program to capture the views of the sector on these and other issues. Further information will be sent out widely in the next two weeks with the opportunity for individuals and organisations to make comments. Further information will be available on the OSPG’s website at http://outdoorssector.org.au/.
