Thank you for your support and interest in the work of Outdoors Victoria over 2018, it gives our staff and Board team the energy and drive to continue supporting the Outdoors sector across Victoria.

OV's Annual Report FY 2018 provides a review of what we have been working on over the last financial year. Many of those projects continue and will come to fruition in this financial year with others growing further in their impact in following years.
 
We look forward to working with a number of businesses, not for profits, and Victorian government departments and agencies in 2019, for the benefit of the sector and the wider Victorian community.
 
The agency, Sport and Recreation Victoria, is moving from DHHS to the Department of Jobs Precincts and Regions (DJPR). We will be meeting with Minister Martin Pakiula, whose portfolio includes Tourism & Sport and Major Events, early in 2019. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), with Maternal Child Health and Early Parenting Portfolios have moved from DET to DHHS, and is part of  Minister Mikakos’s Health portfolio. In consultation with a number of Nature Play/Bush Kinder representative groups, we have been in continuous dialogue with the office of Minister Mikakos, exploring the provision of professional Bush Kinder facilitators to get more children right across Victoria more active, physically literate and happier learners.

We also look forward to continuing our positive working relationships with the Department of Education (DET) led by Minister, Deputy Premier Merlino including reviewing the Safety Guidelines for Education Outdoors; in partnership with Parks Victoria and several subject associations, a project to boost the capacity for Primary teachers to do more outdoor learning with their students; and are in dialogue around boosting career options for all Victorians in regional areas via a proposed project under the Workforce Training Innovation Fund.

We also will continue working with the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), with Minister D'Ambrosio overseeing Energy, Environment and Climate Change and now Solar Homes. 
Minister D’Ambrosio’s office and DELWP personnel have both identified the massive value to Biodiversity 2037, of local people learning about their local environment and have supported the build of a unique gateway 10 week course, Nature Stewards, coming in 2019.

There is international interest and enthusiasm for this project, and Nature Stewards were invited and presented at the USA's Alliance of Natural Resource Outreach and Service Programs national conference in New Orleans this September.
 
Please connect with me if you have innovative solutions that you consider Outdoors Victoria can work on to advance the sector. Then fasten your helmets, carabiners and lifejackets for an exciting journey with Outdoors Victoria in 2019!

Yours Outdoors
Andrew Knight

When: 27 March 2019
Where: Victoria University, Footscray Campus

VOEA Autumn journal 2013! 
 

Have a look at what we found in the archives during the year. It was such a delightful read, full of everything from serious articles to poetry, to recipes for your camping trip! Check out what was going on waaaay back in the day and enjoy reading by the camp fire :)