From OA Website – Friday, 27 November 2009

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Orienteering Australia is pleased to announce the appointment of two positions: Roch Prendergast as Junior Coach, and Valerie Barker as Junior Manager. Roch and Valerie are both school teachers and have been involved in the sport for many years. They both have children who have recently been in the JWOC team (Aislinn Prendergast and Sophie Barker)

Roch lives in Ballarat Victoria and competes for the Eureka Orienteers. He has been involved in coaching junior squads in Orienteering, Triathlon and Swimming. His first Orienteering coaching position was back with the very first Victorian Schools team to Adelaide in 1990.

Valerie has been a secondary school teacher in several countries, and states of Australia: New Zealand, Canada, England, Brunei, South Australia and the ACT. She has managed the ACT School Sport Orienteering team from 2003-2009. She has also been appointed by School Sport Australia to manage the Australian Schools Orienteering team- on home soil in Canberra in 2007, and in New Zealand in January this year.

Orienteering Australia would like to thank the previous coach and managers Nick Dent and Hilary Wood for all their hard work over many years. OA looks forward to working with Roch and Valerie to further develop junior orienteering in Australia.

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Congrats Roch – you’re going to be very busy, but this will no doubt be a very rewarding task!